Instead, they may simply be unable to get enough information to make correct judgments about the value of securities, or indeed may be given misleading information by insiders such as company executives or salesmen from the financial-services industry.

ECONOMIST: A must-read on the origins of the crisis

Concorde was an engineer's delight: it took the jet-bomber technologies that had evolved at the end of the second world war and pushed them to the frontiers of the possible, or indeed beyond the frontiers, given that the aircraft's initial prototype could not have crossed the Atlantic with a full passenger load.

ECONOMIST: Why Concorde was never the right way to speed up air travel

If banks are right about economies of scale, and if management and information systems can keep pace, then why should banks not go on consolidating until only three or four or five of them are left, with three-quarters of the market between them, in a given country, or a given continent, or indeed the world?

ECONOMIST: The limits to size