Tasks for new US leadership

An Italian immigrant, who had been shining shoes for 20 years outside New York Grand Central Station, was asked what he had learned. "There is no free lunch in America!" answered the man. I first heard this remark one evening more than 35 years ago, on Alistair Cooke's America.

One of the most humiliating experiences in my entire professional career was the news story in May 1976 that a congressman's mistress was paid $14,000 a year from Congressional payroll, while I was earning $12,000 as an assistant professor at a university in Kentucky.

How do these two episodes connect with the current global financial crisis? It is because hard and productive work, not easy and illicit money, is the key to the present panic. It sounds simple, but it is difficult to put into practice. Printing money endlessly is a syndrome, not a solution.