Sublime

The historian Niall Ferguson has shown the importance of networks to key historical events like the American Revolution, the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution.

The central relationship that money crystallizes is between lender and borrower.

would be a mistake to assume that microfinance is the holy grail solution to the problem of global poverty, any more than is Hernando de Soto’s property rights prescription.

Credit and debt, in short, are among the essential building blocks of economic development, as vital to creating the wealth of nations

Securitization had produced the most toxic financial assets in the world – Fabrice Tourre was just one of an army of financial engineers manufacturing them – and had spread them far beyond the originating banks; revealingly, the near-total collapse of securitization in the course of 2008 was a key feature of the crisis.

Once again, however, the opportunity for financial innovation was provided by war.

As the example of the late Soviet Union illustrated so well, until a few years ago it was possible for states to exercise great power in the world even while wasting resources on a massive scale. When returns to violence are high and rising, magnitude means more than efficiency. Larger entities tend to prevail over smaller ones. Those governments t