We simply have to face the fact that banking is fundamentally risky. As I decided long ago when working in banks, the reason we needed to wear dark suits and have classic buildings was to look conservative in order to offset the real riskiness of what we were doing. 

While the future may bring significant volatility in financial markets, the real economic health of the U.S. economy is far better now than at any time in the past century.

Recognizing that the land is a gift, Duvall’s characters embrace redemption and service to self, to community, and (even when misguided) to God.

Few social scientists, and even fewer political scientists, have done as much to improve American life as James Q. Wilson, who died last week at age 80.

We've never had a nerd president. White House correspondents call their gala the 'nerd prom' because it sounds self-deprecating around celebrities and bigwigs.

What’s important now is not to let what happened to Fishtown be ignored. For whatever reasons, the culture that used to characterize working-class America — indeed, that made working-class America the spine of America’s civic culture — has come apart. Recognizing that this has happened is the indispensable first step in figuring out what to do next.

Baby boomers who came of age during the social and political upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s tended to call themselves Democrats. But starting in the 1980s, attitudes of the baby boomers began changing. If this transformation continues, leading more of them to embrace the GOP, it could affect the 2012 election.

Ronald Reagan signed the legislation making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday in November 1983. In January that year, public opinion was divided, with 47 percent in favor of the holiday and 48 percent opposed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. In an October 1983 Harris poll, however, 59 percent supported it.