Mathematics is the handmaiden of the sciences. But mathematics also has a life of her own, gaining as much in her own development and fulfillment fro… - Paul Samuelson

My final words are cut short by this audience’s well-fed drowsiness. I will leave as a question for later discussion: Will hedge funds make our golden years more golden, or will the new concoctions of option engineers, instead of reducing risks by spreading them optimally (in fact, by making possible about 100 to 1 over leveraging), result in microeconomic losses for pension funds and, maybe someday, even threaten the macro system with lethal financial implosions?

As old problems are conquered, we expect to turn up new problems. A discipline lives on its unsolvved problems; and so, for better or worse, economics is likely to be a lively subject for as many years ahead as man can see.

Most of mainstream economics is not "big-picture economics." Our journals and textbooks are full of the grimy details about inventory cycles or the deadweight losses incident to taxes and regulation. Besides, most big pictures are wrong.