Household spending growth has been particularly solid in 2015, with purchases of new motor vehicles especially strong. Job growth has bolstered household income, and lower energy prices have left consumers with more to spend on other goods and services.

If there is a job that you feel passionate about, do what you can to pursue that job; if there is a purpose about which you are passionate, dedicate yourself to that purpose.

Some degree of inequality in income and wealth, of course, would occur even with completely equal opportunity because variations in effort, skill, and luck will produce variations in outcomes.

Sometimes you have to make decisions without knowing all that you would like to know That's part of the job.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

There are two sides, at least, to most political questions, and a politician's impulse may be to believe that the same holds true for science. Certainly, there are disputes in science. But on the question of climate change, the divide is stark.

We must maintain strong building codes, strengthen flood insurance programs, and forcefully acknowledge the reality that rising sea temperatures caused by made-man climate change are negatively impacting our way of life. This should be a bipartisan task that finds support with bipartisan solutions.

The attempts to command the climate and decide about the temperature on our planet are wrong and arrogant. I wrote a book about it which was published in English under the title 'Blue Planet in Green Shackles.'