Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers. This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.
If you worry about financial Armageddon, it is indeed metaphorically the time to stock your bunker with guns, ammunition, canned food and gold bars.
The economic costs, the financial costs, the job losses, the income losses, the fiscal costs of bailing out financial system are becoming larger and larger.
I love and collect contemporary art and go to all the art fairs. I love Damien Hirst and Matthew Barney. I grew up in Italy and had a humanistic education in philosophy and literature - things I love and appreciate. People are richer and more complex than just their day-to-day professional pursuits might suggest.
What we need to understand is, one, that there are market failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.
For me, geopolitical issues are becoming more important, because how can you understand economy if you don't understand geopolitics? People think economists just deal with spreadsheets and charts. That's a narrow-minded caricature.
The global financial crisis - missed by most analysts - shows that most forecasters are poor at pricing in economic/financial risks, let alone geopolitical ones.
I've nothing against Goldman Sachs. But Goldman Sachs isn't an investment bank. Goldman Sachs is a hedge fund. It's bigger than any hedge fund. It's more leveraged, to the power of three or five, than any hedge fund.
I am just a normal human being - I am alive! Why is anyone surprised that I am human? Like many New Yorkers, I have a multifaceted life.
The U.S. has been living in a situation of excesses for too long. Consumers were out spending more than their income and the country was spending more than its income, running up large current-account deficits. Now we have to tighten our belts and save more.
The trouble is that the average trader on Wall Street, he or she is so young, he doesn't even remember the recession of 2001, let alone the previous one.
I have more concerns about potential risks and vulnerabilities than most people.
