A lot of attention has been going to social values - abortion, gay rights, other divisive issues - but economic values are equally important.

More people are killed by stray bullets every day in America than have been killed by Ebola here. More are dying because of poverty and hunger.

Public fear isn't something to be played with.

Government subsidies to elite private universities take the form of tax deductions for people who make charitable contributions to them.

America spends a fortune on drugs: more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations.

Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they're wrong. It's just the opposite.

The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.

You might say those who can't repay their student debts shouldn't have borrowed in the first place. But they had no way of knowing just how bad the jobs market would become.

Average working people need more fresh starts. Big corporations, banks, and Donald Trump need fewer.

Official boundaries are often hard to see. If you head north on Woodward Avenue, away from downtown Detroit, you wouldn't know exactly when you left the city and crossed over into Oakland County - except for a small sign that tells you.

Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years, if not decades, to pay off.

Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class.

What are called 'public schools' in many of America's wealthy communities aren't really 'public' at all. In effect, they're private schools, whose tuition is hidden away in the purchase price of upscale homes there, and in the corresponding property taxes.

Patagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a 'B-corporation.' That's a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment, as well as shareholders.

Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven more efficient. It has moved economic resources to where they're most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster.

What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.

Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another.

Instead of worrying about who's American and who's not, here's a better idea: Create incentives for any global company to do what we'd like it to do in the United States.

Rather than subsidize 'American' exporters, it makes more sense to subsidize any global company - to the extent it's adding to its exports from the United States.

In reality, most of America's poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.

As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.

We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It's called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy?

The 'free market' is the product of laws and rules continuously emanating from legislatures, executive departments, and courts.

America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.

It's true that redistributing income to the needy is politically easier in a growing economy than in a stagnant one.

Evidence suggests jobs are crucial not only to economic well-being but also to self-esteem.

Obviously, personal responsibility is important. But there's no evidence that people who are poor are less ambitious than anyone else. In fact, many work long hours at backbreaking jobs.

Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them.

Nations are becoming less relevant in a world where everyone and everything is interconnected. The connections that matter most are again becoming more personal.

To get back to the kind of shared prosperity and upward mobility we once considered normal will require another era of fundamental reform, of both our economy and our democracy.

Going to salsa clubs may be popular, but I feel we're really missing something as a society by overlooking ballroom dancing. If only we could persuade schools to teach it or there was somewhere young people could go on a Saturday night to learn it.

I do get stopped in the street, and people are always, without exception, really polite. I think it's because they think I can send them to prison.

Even my trolls have started taking the trouble to spell their Tweets correctly, which is thoughtful.

Serious crime is very, very rare, and I think all of us are interested because they are rare and unusual. If they were banal and everyday, we wouldn't be interested in them at all.

From time to time, I definitely look witheringly, which is why I'm well known.

The reality is that when you're a barrister, you're trained, and you've got ethical structures. You've got to follow the evidence, and that's that.

I give celebrity my undivided indifference. Now that it's here, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. And people who complain about celebrity and any kind of privilege are, all of them, whinging morons, and they should keep their first-world problems to themselves. I feel very strongly about that.

I wish I had a filter; then, I'd suspect, who knows? I'd perhaps have more friends.

I think if you put 100% into anything and you do it with authenticity and enthusiasm, then it really shines through.

When somebody teaches you to love something, you never forget that! It's such a generous thing to do.

I did a couple of plays at university, badly, where I made friends with Benedict Cumberbatch. When you see someone like him acting, it makes you think there's not much point in doing it yourself.

By the time I finished doing regular practice, most of my work was in international regulatory law, so I was advising foreign governments about their responsibility and roles in things like public inquiries.

Ultimately, whenever you have a new opportunity, do it with gusto and fun and be wholly indifferent to what other people think.

Would it be a big step forward for the LGBTQI community if there were same-sex couples on 'Strictly?' Do me a favour. Some things ain't politics, and 'Strictly' is one of them.

There are plenty of organisations making a real difference to the lives of gay people around the country that do need our help, so why undermine the wonder of 'Strictly' by politicising it?

The difficulty with American television is it's pot luck.

There's a lot of judges on TV in America. Apart from Judge Judy, the vast majority of them are terrible.

My grandfather wanted to remind us that freedom of expression is the fundamental ingredient for democracy, and all the rest is detail. It is the scaffolding around which every other freedom is based.

If the press is to be free, the state has no role in regulating what is published.

We need journalists to be fearless and hold power to account.