On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough.

Although oil is a commodity, it's still not a commodity like coffee, which, thank God, we will have with us always. At some point the oil will run out.

Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility.

The Internet has become a remarkable fount of economic and social innovation largely because it's been an archetypal level playing field, on which even sites with little or no money behind them - blogs, say, or Wikipedia - can become influential.

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

In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else.

Companies, like people, don't much like to change.