Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.

Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Governments of rich countries spend some $6bn of tax money a year on disaster relief and development aid overseas, while each new earthquake, famine or tidal wave can attract 1,000 aid organisations, from the United Nations Children's Fund and Oxfam to the 'Jesus Brigades' of the American south and other charitable adventurers.

The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.