In an ideal world, one populated by vegetarians and Esperanto speakers, derivatives would be used for one thing only: reducing levels of risk. The list of individual traders who have lost more than a billion dollars at a time betting on derivatives is not short.

Somebody told me ... that he overheard a banker's wife saying her husband was working for free this year-this was 2009. What she meant was, he was just getting his basic salary of £300,000, and no bonus. Their sense of entitlement is, in the proper sense of the word, psychotic.

The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.

In an ideal world, one populated by vegetarians and Esperanto speakers, derivatives would be used for one thing only: reducing levels of risk. The list of individual traders who have lost more than a billion dollars at a time betting on derivatives is not short.

We wouldn't care so much what people thought of us if we knew how seldom they did.

The seven Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss-Poor Performance

But knowing that you had gone wrong, and knowing how you had gone wrong, were not the same thing as knowing how to put it right.