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If we have an economic crisis in the Western world it's because the government makes up 50 percent or more of the economy. This is a cancer that is taking away people's freedom.

Why are we in this mess, now facing the prospect of economic armageddon? It's because the prevailing characteristic has been greed, and it doesn't matter whether it's individuals living beyond their means or governments living beyond their means or people seeking to get rich quick.

Although this crisis in some ways started in the United States, it is a global crisis. We bear a substantial share of the responsibility for what has happened, but factors that made the crisis so acute and so difficult to contain lie in a broader set of global forces that built up in the years before the start of our current troubles.

We got into a recession because the global economy went into the recession and we're a big exporting nation.

In a recession, people want to be told for two hours that everything is going to be OK. They want to escape from their humdrum or painful reality into a feel-good drama, or a love story that transcends their daily life.

This economy is not getting better and the president's policies are the reason.

Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.

The Bush Administration and the Congress have to stop ignoring this crisis in international trade. The longer we ignore it, the more American jobs will move overseas. It's just that simple.

In times of crisis, the incumbent suffers. And the bigger the crisis, the greater the punishment inflicted on those in power unless they do something that makes a change.

Since our economy is closely allied with that of foreign countries, not one of us can be indifferent to what consequences these disturbances can have at home and abroad.