Adam Davidson

We tend in this country to talk about Democrats and Republicans, and think there's little group over there called Independents that's maybe 2%. That is not the case, and it has not been the case for most of modern American history.

A healthy economy is largely a result of a reasonable balance between consumption today and consumption deferred, and it's pretty clear that balance has been ridiculously out of whack for a while.

The economics profession advances by one confusing financial disaster at a time.

If your business is really easy to do, don't gloat. You might be out of a job soon.

The idea of confidence, of the emotions of the population, is an incredibly important one in economics. John Maynard Keynes called it 'animal spirit.' And if people are feeling generally good about the future, they're more likely to spend money, to start new companies; companies are more likely to hire people, make investments.

What we want as an economy is companies and people, you know, working hard to come up with creative ways to be more productive. We don't want companies and people working hard to lobby government for special tax cuts.

What there is no dispute about is whether or not China is a currency manipulator. They are a currency manipulator. They actively intervene every single day to keep the value of their currency less than it would be against the dollar than if it floated freely. We think. Even China barely disputes that.

A rule of thumb: If the company you work for provides a product or service that's pretty much the same as what was offered last year and a few years before that, it might be time to start looking for something new.

Whenever you hear news about jobless claims or the unemployment rate, you should translate that in your mind to one simple phrase: Stay in school.

If the American government can't stand behind the dollar, the world's benchmark currency, then the global financial system will very likely enter a new era in which there is much less trade and much less economic growth. It would be, by most accounts, the largest self-imposed financial disaster in history.

Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: 'It does nothing! It creates chaos! It's a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry!'

'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq,' by Hanna Batatu. Few may wish to take on this massive, obscure work, but it changed my life, and I love it.

Economics is all about consumption. People either spend money now or they use financial instruments - like bonds, stocks and savings accounts - so they can spend more later.

The Internet is, among other things, a massive, chaotic marketplace. Too much information, it turns out, is a lot like no information.

The cardinal rule of taxation is that whatever you put a levy on, you'll inevitably get less of. Taxing corporate activity means less investing, less hiring, fewer jobs and a smaller economy, which hurts the rich, the poor and the middle class alike.

Like a bottle of wine or a promising college quarterback turning pro, C.E.O.'s are similar to what economists call experience goods: you commit to a price long before you know if they're worth it.

To put it simply and a bit crudely: Our economy is demanding more well-educated workers than our schools are providing. To attract this scarce resource, communities have to offer more than just jobs.

The American dream always meant that anybody willing to put in a hard day's work could make a decent living. That's just not true anymore for people without at least some post-high school education.

Economics is not a discipline that comes to correct answers - economies are too complex.

A majority of Americans support Social Security and Medicare, a progressive tax system and a government that regulates business in the public interest, but most share deep skepticism about the government's ability to do all this well.

When you see a merger between two giants in a declining industry, it can look like the financial version of a couple having a baby to save a marriage.

If an alien with an accounting degree touched down in America, it might conclude that we're a weird cult that spends 11 months living frugally and four crazy weeks buying tons of stuff we don't need. It wouldn't be entirely wrong, either.

Holiday binge-buying has deep roots in American culture: department stores have been associating turkey gluttony with its spending equivalent since they began sponsoring Thanksgiving Day parades in the early 20th century.

The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us.

Art is often valuable precisely because it isn't a sensible way to make money.