In an extreme credit crunch, leveraged purchases of gold cause forced sales, because any price correction triggers margin calls. As a result, gold can be very volatile – upward and downward – at the peak of a crisis.

Gold has no increasing value. And if you’re really worried about, say, inflation rising, I would buy Spam. You know, you can eat Spam. You cannot eat gold.

I’m not a pessimist by nature. I’m not someone who sees things in a bleak way.

If we didn’t have greed, market economies wouldn’t be as innovative as they are. But in my view, greed has to be contained by the fear of losses, so there has to be a system where, if you take too much risk, you go into bankruptcy. You don’t systematically bail out people who take excessive risks.

All the risky things that were happening back in ’06 and ’07 are back again to the same level, if not more. So we are in the beginning of a credit bubble, but just the beginning.

I’m a rock star among geeks, wonks, and nerds.

I think it’s true that the 1 Percent or the elite are living in a world of, maybe, excessive privilege, and they don’t fully realize how much pain and suffering, how much anxiety exists out there.

I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don’t think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries.

I am just a normal human being – I am alive! Why is anyone surprised that I am human? Like many New Yorkers, I have a multifaceted life.

Technology is spurring innovation, and the so-called “demographic dividend” has brought change.