Whether or not this is true for any given individual, the fact that pharma continue to spend so much on these activities suggest that as a whole, we are probably more susceptible than we believe.

FORBES: Our Limitless Capacity For Self-Deception

Still, taking into account estimates of trading volumes and margin payments, it is conceivable that an individual hedge fund, if it had no regard for counterparty risk, could have dominated trading of an individual bank's CDS on any given day.

ECONOMIST: Speculators

They are what you get when you plot data for poor and rich countries together at a given moment in time, but actual levels of various pollutants in any individual country plotted over time wiggle around a lot more.

ECONOMIST: Local difficulties