Much of what is called investment is actually nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of course mergers and acquisitions are generally accompanied by downsizing.

I was recently looking at what they can actually do to reduce consumption of petrol. It would be quite possible to build automobiles out of carbon fibre that would be just as strong, weigh 10 times less and consume 10 times less petrol.

What it missing, I think, is this notion of the common good.

I used to work a lot on food issues and every time somebody predicted that production would be inadequate they got egg on their face a year or two later.

What I worry about is climate change, because that would have untold effects that we can't even measure yet.

Having enough to eat, being able to educate your children, have reasonably stable employment, and being able to live in a society which isn't collapsing around you-all of these things have been generally eroded.

We have the most crude accounting tools. It's tragic because our accounts and our national arithmetic doesn't tell us the things that we need to know.