Professorial

I find myself asking a recurring question these days: Where are our intellectuals? Where is the Einstein of economics, someone who could speak to people in the streets one night and influence Congress the next? Joseph Stiglitz has shown up at Zucotti Park, and Paul Krugman has been right about this economy for years in the New York Times, but nobody acts on what they say. I guess Nobel Prizes don't bring the influence they used to. Or maybe we just lack the critical mass. When Einstein said "time is curved!" millions of Americans didn't pray him down. I think our problem with economic science is that so many economists are wholly owned subsidiaries of hedge funds in Greenwich, Connecticut. Too many of our financial experts live in the large, nicely furnished pockets of the expensive suits worn by market billionaires. That, I think, is what I was illustrating here.

Absent-minded Economist

The lords of money and commerce think of the dollar as an abstract thing. Hedge traders think of it as the bean in a shell game. Businessmen sometimes believe it's holy. I think it's more like the bubble coming out of a bubble-pipe.