Benjamin Friedman:

What is sorely missing from the protracted debate about how to clean up after the latest crisis is any real discussion of what function our financial system is supposed to perform and how well it is doing that job - and, just as important, at what cost.

For years, much of the best young talent in the western world has gone to private financial firms. At the individual level, no one can blame these graduates. But at the level of the aggregate economy, we are wasting one of our most precious resources.

These talented and energetic young citizens could surely be doing something more useful.

Economic decisions are supposed to turn on weighing costs and benefits. It is time for some serious discussion of what our financial system is actually delivering to our economy and what it costs to do that.

Richard Hamming:

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work.

Alan Kay:

If the children are being instructed in the pink plane, can we teach them to think in the blue plane and live in a pink-plane society?

J. Peder Zane:

The notion of an aspirational culture, in which one endeavors to learn what is right, proper and important in order to make something more of himself, is past.

Pico Iyer:

It seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn't pursued.

Why Not Do Something Useful?