Of course, looking tough on inflation is part of any central banker's job description: if investors believe that inflation is going to get out of control, you end up with higher interest rates and capital flight, and a vicious circle quickly ensues.

What the investment community does like is short-term measures designed to boost share prices.

If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market were all going to help smaller companies thrive at the expense of the slow-moving giants of the Fortune 500, apparently you were wrong.

Defense contractors are able to reap tremendous profits while rarely confronting the risks for which those profits are supposed to be the reward.

I think people don't understand compound interest because typically no one ever explains it to them and the level of financial literacy in the US is very low.

There are certainly valid reasons for taking a company private, and it's also possible that C.E.O.s perform better when monitored by a small number of owners in a private company rather than by the dispersed and often uninterested shareholders of a public corporation.

If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars.