We know how to achieve higher growth: lower tax rates, cutting excessive spending, a gold-convertible dollar, free trade, modest regulation, sensible protection of property and civil rights.

FORBES: On The Public Enemies Of Prosperity Policies

Safe property rights, secure contracts and sensible economic policies make all the difference between wealth and poverty, he said.

ECONOMIST: Mancur Olson

The idea is to harmonise secrecy, intellectual-property and export-control regimes, all of which sounds sensible.

ECONOMIST: European aerospace

The interagency team could, for instance, recommend sensible reforms to our high-skilled immigration policy, improvements in intellectual-property law, better-designed grant programs that push innovative ideas from universities into companies, regulatory reform around the approval of drugs and medical devices, and policies to sustain a robust venture-capital industry and investments in science and math education.

WSJ: Why Washington has it wrong about small business

However when the US first launched its challenge in June, Intellectual Property Office commissioner Tian Lipu was quoted by state media as saying that it was "not a sensible move for the US government to file such a complaint".

BBC: 'Not sensible'

No-one sensible is now predicting the continuation of the exponential price increases that have been seen in Dubai since it opened its property market to foreigners and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest a real estate is simply not moving.

BBC: Financial crisis: Global round-up