In the deregulated realm of US banking and finance, crime does occasionally pay for its foul deeds, not in prison time but by making modest rebates to the victims.

If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.

The art and culture that is New York, communications, finance, all these things help make up New York. The rest of the country should be happy that we are what we are.

Unfortunately, money in politics is an insidious thing - and a loophole in our campaign finance system was taken advantage of with money going to existing or new 527 groups with the sole purpose of influencing the election.

We were told this war would be over in a matter of weeks, and that the Iraqis would be able to finance it with oil sales. We were promised it was not a mission of nation building.

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

We'll have a public power authority, which will also have the ability to build power or finance power. And more importantly, we'll have more power than our economy provides. All of that will give us leverage we don't have today.

There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

In the long term, Germany didn't need a finance minister who was absent during important negotiations in the European Council. But the chancellor strongly encouraged me to stay. And everything did work out for the best in the end.

What distinguishes the campaign finance issue from just about every other one being debated these days is that the two sides do not divide along conventional liberal/ conservative lines.