John Kay

The political and regulatory incentives are either to downplay risks or exaggerate them – or to do each at different times.

Successful decision-making is more limited in aspiration, more modest in its beliefs about its knowledge of the world, more responsive to the reactions of others, more sensitive to the complexity of the systems with which it engages. Complex goals are generally best achieved obliquely.

Every era spawns financial follies. Every era spawns observations that, with hindsight, protagonists wish they had not made.

Processes matter to us as well as outcomes, and so we genuinely appreciate gifts even if we don’t really care for the item.

Markets are not a well-oiled machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological system.

Maintain a clear sense of long-term objectives but acknowledge the limits on your day-to-day actions.

One lesson of recent events is that there seem to be no limits to the greed of the greedy. But perhaps the explanation is simply the one Madoff gave to the judge who sentenced him: “I made a mistake.”

Do not waste any time on sermons and the prohibition. Even if the Good Lord himself were to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, He would be ignored. Hardened gamblers only give up when they have made the resolution to quit themselves.

If you want a book on economics to take to the beach, you are spoiled for choice at the airport bookstall. What you will find falls into three categories: Thump books, microeconomics books with little economics and the macroeconomic story-teller.