Since the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified. The failure of all but a few professional economists to forecast the episode - the aftereffects of which still linger - has led many to question whether the economics profession contributes anything significant to society.

People who stay unemployed for a long time start to look like damaged goods, and they don't get such good offers. Also, they're not learning anything. Most learning is on-the-job learning.

One thing I've noticed about history - you can search on newspapers going back hundreds of years, search for 'economic forecast,' you don't find it. It would be very rare to find it.

The desperately poor may accept handouts, because they feel they have to. For those who consider themselves at least middle class, however, anything that smacks of a handout is not desired. Instead, they want their economic power back.

I am not very fond of spotlight or even, for that matter, money. I appreciate the small things that give me joy. The most precious forms of happiness often come from things that money cannot buy.

American business would be run better today if there was more alignment between CEOs' interest and the company. For example, would the financial crisis of 2008 have occurred if the CEO of Lehman and Morgan Stanley and Goldman and Citibank had to take a very small percentage of every mortgage-backed security... or every loan they made?

Our current way of regulating the financial system is dysfunctional. Oversight is dispersed among numerous confusing bodies that at times have seemed to be racing each other to the bottom. Setting up One Big Regulator would end that problem.

The question of how to structure our nation's financial system arose in the early years of the republic.