When top executives get huge pay hikes at the same time as middle-level and hourly workers lose their jobs and retirement savings, or have to accept negligible pay raises and cuts in health and pension benefits, company morale plummets. I hear it all the time from employees: This company, they say, is being run only for the benefit of the people at the top. So why should we put in extra effort, commit extra hours, take on extra responsibilities? We'll do the minimum, even cut corners. This is often the death knell of a company.

Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.

Technology enables consumers and investors to have extraordinary choice and ease of switching, which, in turn, stimulates much fiercer competition than ever before, which, in turn, makes it imperative for every institution to innovate like mad. That innovation is powering our economy these days, and it requires companies to find and utilize creative workers. That's the most important syllogism going; technology is embedded in that syllogism, but it's not as if we're seeing these productivity gains because of the technology.

I'm quite optimistic when it comes to the capacity of our people to have an honest discussion about what's really going on. What do you think John McCain's candidacy was about? And the early days of Bill Bradley's candidacy? People are hungry for a genuine, no-spin set of ideas and truths. They want their leaders to tell it like it is. There is a great demand for this. Politicians continually underestimate the ability of the American public to understand what's happening to them and what the real choices are.

You have to keep a sense of humor about yourself, more than anything else. You've got to take the issues very seriously, but you can't take yourself too seriously. And Washington is a city in which everybody takes themselves extraordinarily seriously.

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

One thing I've learned from 35 years in the classroom is that people learn best when they are laughing, when they are emotionally hit, that it's both the brain and the heart.