“Derivatives have permitted the unbundling of financial risks.”

If we are to remain preeminent in transforming knowledge into economic value, America’s system of higher education must remain the world’s leader in generating scientific and technological breakthrough, and in meeting the challenge to educate workers.

I’m a better economist than I was a sax player.

I’m a plain soap kind of guy.

It’s hard to overemphasize how important Ford’s deregulation was. True, most of the benefits took years to unfold-rail freight rates, for example hardly budged at first.

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency…and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry.

Political decisions are never random and will always lose out to innovative alternatives.

Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud.

There’s an interesting question here because if the gold price broke in that context, the thermometer would not be just a measuring tool. It would basically affect the underlying psychology.

Whatever you tax you get less of.

The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.

These days, even out of office, I still read economic reports.

Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax.

No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk.

Need to consider not only the most likely future path for the economy but also the distribution of possible outcomes about that path.

If prices go down, we will have problems – problems in the sense of spillover to other areas.