I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the fact that markets seemed to work well even though people are often irrational, lack good information and are not perfect in the way they think about decisions.

If army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule:Just do what the ant in front of you does. The ants eventually end up in a circle. There's this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long and lasted for two days; the ants just kept marching around and around in a circle until they died.

Most corporate name changes are the result of mergers and acquisitions. But these tend to be unimaginative.

Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.

The autocracies of the Arab world have been as economically destructive as they've been politically repressive.

Unlike most government programs, Social Security and, in part, Medicare are funded by payroll taxes dedicated specifically to them. Some of the tax revenue pays for current benefits; anything that's left over goes into trust funds for the future. The programs were designed this way for political reasons.

Downsizing itself is an inevitable part of any creatively destructive economy.