The citizen's job is to be rude - to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt.

Only when God was said to have died did various leaders, professions and sectors risk pushing themselves forward as successors.

The 19th-century pure capitalist model of society was a pyramid, concentrations of enormous wealth in a small group at the top, a not very big middle-class in the middle, and an enormous percentage of the population in the bottom part of the pyramid.

The merger mania which goes on and on and on is the sign of the disappearance of competition. As we deregulate, the mergers increase, which means there's less and less competition. At the national level, at the regional level, but also at the international level.

I'm not involved in politics, and I've never had any political role. I've never been in office. I've never taken any public administrative jobs.

I voted for President Bush, I voted for President Clinton, and, although I do want my vote back, I voted for President Obama.

I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.

The danger of the Internet is cocooning with the like-minded online - of sending an email or Twitter and confusing that with action - while the real corporate and military and government centers of power go right on.