John Kay

If you aim to create a dynamic, successful business, a state-owned utility is not the place to start.

The benefit of road improvements is principally the reduced time and strain on private motorists, not the economic advantages to road transport operators: that lesson should influence the way we plan our road networks. Fast roads for light traffic are much cheaper to build than superhighways.

No one wants bank managers to be replaced by civil servants. But there are a lot of perfectly competent bank managers out there, even if there are a lot of incompetent bank executives.

I do not think children should be taught that greed is the most powerful human motivation. The people who are most successful in business in the long run are people who are passionate about business, not money.

Few things corrode business efficiency and effective markets more insidiously than the discovery that it is more profitable to win the favour of politicians than to win the approval of customers.

The primary purpose of government investment in financial institutions is not to ensure that the taxpayer gets its money back – although that issue should certainly not be neglected – but to ensure that ordinary banking functions operate well.

The gap between the assumed responsibilities of government for financial services regulation and its effective powers grows ever more costly. Fannie Mae and Equitable Life are the latest examples.

The notion that extending intellectual property rights in the music industry would provide pensions for ageing and impoverished crooners is an engaging fantasy.

Mr Buffett’s success demonstrates the weakness of one economic theory, the efficient market hypothesis, and the strength of another – the central role that the pursuit and defence of economic rents plays in modern corporate life.

The political consequences of international trade are different from the political consequences of international investment. Yet the willingness of business to transcend political divisions in pursuit of commercial advantage is basically a force for peace.