You heard people say forty was the new thirty and fifty was the new forty and sixty was the new forty-five, but you never heard anybody say eighty was the new anything. Eighty was just eighty.
John LanchesterIn other words, RBS had its origins in a failed speculation, a bail-out, and a financial crash so big it helped destroy Scotland's status as a separate nation.
John LanchesterIn 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.
John LanchesterBut 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.
John Lanchester