My expertise was in public finance, particularly corporate taxation, since I had worked at the US Treasury.

My main interest, however, was in economics, not law.

Of course. I favor passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices.

My research interests since then have shifted strongly towards the economic and regulatory problems of the financial services industry, and especially of the securities and options exchanges.

If we're going to spend a lot of money to deal with the problem of 200 million guns in the country owned by 65 million gun owners, we ought to have a system which will work and catch criminals.

We spend our way to the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don't need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake. Thrift is inimical to our being.

We sometime didn't get enough to buy oats for our horses. Most banks had very little money in them.

America has always fascinated me; it's a country where you can make it from one side to the other with no money, by hook or by crook.