When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly.

I just get up every day and do what seems like the most interesting, fun thing to do.

If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist.

Social Security is a social insurance program - it is not designed to be the same thing as a 401(k).

The French, unfortunately, actually believe what they say, and that has been very destructive.

Default is not in our stars but in ourselves.

Can we break the machine that is imposing right-wing radicalism on the United States? The scariest part is that the media is part of that machine.

Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.

The habit of disguising ideology as expertise has created a deficit of legitimacy.

The public has no idea that the deficit has been falling like a stone.

If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much.

The problem with digital books is that you can always find what you are looking for but you need to go to a bookstore to find what you weren't looking for.

I've always believed in expansionary monetary policy and if necessary fiscal policy when the economy is depressed.

I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.

You really have to go searching desperately to find any contemporary examples of good, old-fashioned runaway inflation.

The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.

The goal, in the end, is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.

Sometimes economists in official positions give bad advice; sometimes they give very, very bad advice; and sometimes they work at the OECD.

As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.