* “The United States is currently far more vulnerable to cyber war than Russia or China. We may even be at risk some day from nonstate actors … who can hire teams of highly capable hackers.”–Richard A. Clarke, author, “Cyber War: The Next Threat To National Security and What To Do About It.”
* “A combination of demographic change and policy change means the heady days of gasoline (use) growing in the U.S. are over.”–Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
* “The new, new, new normal is for the U.S. to be looking in pretty good shape.”–Jim O’Neill, London-based chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
* “This is the first normal Christmas in three years.”–Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse.
* “The France of the 21st century.”–Concern for direction of U.S. voiced by Mitt Romney.
* “How can you connect the whole world if you leave out 1.6 billion people?”–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who recently visited Beijing, China.
* “The liberal arts train students to write, think and argue inductively, while drawing upon evidence from a shared body of knowledge. Without that foundation, it is harder to make–or demand from others–logical, informed decisions about managing our supercharged society as it speeds on by.”–Victor Davis Hanson, author and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
* “About a generation ago, the earnest self-improvement ethic came under attack. People no longer believed that there was such a thing as a common culture that all educated Americans should study and know. The new ethos valued hipness, not class.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “I’m not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington.”–President Barack Obama.
* “If Barack Obama wins re-election in 2012, as is now more likely than not, historians will mark his comeback as beginning Dec. 6, the day of the Great Tax Cut Deal of 2010. … Holding no high cards, he managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a $1 trillion drama.”–Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post.
* “Socially useless activity.”–Lord Adair Turner, head of Britain’s Financial Services Authority, characterizing what Wall Street and other financial centers do.
* “We will return every penny received from almost 35 years of investing with Bernard Madoff. I believe the Madoff Ponzi scheme was deplorable, and I am deeply saddened by the tragic impact it continues to have on the lives of its victims. It is my hope that this settlement will ease that suffering.”–Barbara Picower, widow of Florida businessman Jeffry Picower, who agreed to return $7.2 billion that her husband reaped from the Ponzi scheme.
* “It’s unbelievable. Think about it: You lost to a guy who defrauded Medicare–in Florida!”–MSNBC’s Chuck Todd in explaining why he dubbed Alex Sink the “worst candidate” of 2010.
* “Having the casino without a cafe was like missing a front tooth. We really needed that piece of it.”–Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino president John Fontana on the opening of the new Hard Rock Cafe.
* “The market is hot for all (multifamily) assets. We’ve stopped giving away free rent. The tenant market came back. … The move-in with mom and dad has gotten tiresome.”–John Burpee, president of NAI Tampa Bay, one of the region’s largest apartment property managers.