We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.

Humor itself is a great disinfectant. It enables people to listen.

Most Americans stopped looking at what was happening through a variety of coping mechanisms - starting with women entering paid work and then everyone working longer hours and using their homes for raising equity and generating more money through debt. The typical household basically staved off the day of reckoning.

No economy can continue to function when the vast middle class and everybody else don't have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing without going deeper and deeper into debt.

The path to success used to be up and through an organization. Now the path to success is increasingly through self-promotion.

On the Republican playing field, Republicans always win.

Given that ever-broadening array of options and alternatives, as consumers and investors, we are often bewildered. We need guidance. That's where today's brands come in. They are not so much signals about a particular product, they are signals about good judgment, trustworthiness. A big brand, whether it's Schwab or Disney, is becoming analogous to a portal that sells us advice about where we can find great deals.