The forces of competition and the tendency to profit-maximization operate to mitigate these differences. However, the basic fact of a personnel inves… - Kenneth Arrow

In view of the magnitude of an economic system, it would take only a very small percentage of improvement in economic stability or growth to make almost any conceivable data collection worthwhile. The situation is analogous to reported results of the use of linear programming in industry; the gains are small in proportion to previous profit levels but still very much larger than the costs of the programming. No country is adequate in respect to its data. In particular the underdeveloped countries, with their ambitious programs, might well ponder whether or not the marginal productivity of investment in better economic statistics is perhaps not higher than almost any conceivable alternative; they have more need and fewer data.

I was a very polite person, though. Paul Samuelson tells these stories how he used to correct his professors. I assume that’s true. But I wasn’t that type.

We don't have much time left. We are moving towards temperature increases of around two degrees Celsius, which is going to have consequences in the tropics, and we will lose things like glaciers. That's not a theory; it's happening right now. It's not a prediction; it's happening right now. But you just sightsee near those glaciers. But the glaciers are a big source of water. And on the questions of water, in California we store our water in a snowpack. When that's gone, the rain will be the same but it won't accumulate. With warming temperatures the snowpack will not work. It might be possible to substitute with dams, but that's complicated. This is conjoined with a big energy problem and I think that we really have to encourage development in this area. Just waiting for technological improvement won't work. We need to encourage it.