It was not socialism or communism or Islamism. It was romanticism. There is no more incandescent passion than… — Ian McDonald

Economics is the most human of sciences. It is the science of wants and frustrations. It is psychology subject to the abstract, amplifying forces of mathematics.

Ayşe Erkoç learned long ago that the secret of doing anything illicit in Istanbul is to do it in full public gaze in the clear light of day. No one ever questions the legitimacy of the blatant.

At some point it will inevitably crash again: as weapons of mass destruction go, unrestricted market economies are among the more subtle but sure.