I really think that people have to think safety; taking risks for higher yield is a bad idea once you're in late or latish middle age.
Anyone who thinks that the last 80 years, ever since FDR took us off gold, have been a doomed venture, that strikes me as kind of cranky.
I think Stockman is an interesting sort of amalgam.
Seven habits that help produce the anything-but-efficient markets that rule the world. 1. Think short term. 2. Be greedy. 3. Believe in the greater fool 4. Run with the herd. 5. Overgeneralize 6. Be trendy 7. Play with other people's money
These days, however, the main problem comes from the right - from conservatives who, unlike most economists, really do think that the free market is always right-to such an extent that they refuse to believe even the most overwhelming scientific evidence if it seems to suggest a justification for government action.
The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.
as an economics professor I am by nature inclined to the view that the truth isn't out there, it's in here - that usually you learn a lot more by thinking really hard about the data than you do by sniffing around for supposedly inside information.
I don't think I've had any great success in predicting politics or social change, nor have I really tried.
Simple doesn't mean stupid. Thinking that it does, does.
Unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it's often painful.
Economists don't usually make good speculators, because they think too much.
I don't want a job in the administration; I think I'm more effective carping from the sidelines.
I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.