In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust.

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

Traditionally, tours were a means of promoting a record. Today, the record promotes the tour.

Of course, politicians always say they're just describing their opponents' positions, even if they are in fact offering absurd caricatures, if not outright lies.

Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape.

Until the nineteen-seventies, Western countries paid little attention to corruption overseas, and bribery was seen as an unpleasant but necessary part of doing business there. In some European countries, businesses were even allowed to deduct bribes as an expense.

Being out of a job can erode people's confidence and their sense of possibility; and employers, often unfairly, tend to take long-term unemployment as a signal that something is wrong.