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A century ago, petroleum – what we call oil – was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water. James Buchan Uncategorized 128
All UK nuclear power stations should be shut down without delay. James Buchan Power 93
The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words, there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags. James Buchan History 87
Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue. James Buchan Wisdom 84
Rarely in modern times has there been such a revolution in commercial sentiment as occurred in 2008, or such a display in government and business of panic and helplessness. James Buchan Business 82
Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess that attends a business expansion. James Buchan Business 78
Bulls don't read. Bears read financial history. As markets fall to bits, the bears dust off the Dutch tulip mania of 1637, the Banque Royale of 1719-20, the railway speculation of the 1840s, the great crash of 1929. James Buchan History 75
Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves. James Buchan Money 75
Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing. James Buchan Power 72
Life without oil, in fact, would be so different that it is frightening to contemplate. We are addicted, and it is no comfortable addiction. James Buchan Uncategorized 71
Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission. James Buchan Science 70
Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated. James Buchan Uncategorized 70
Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes. James Buchan Peace 66
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. James Buchan Atheist 64
At the heart of banking is a suicidal strategy. Banks take money from the public or each other on call, skim it for their own reward and then lock the rest up in volatile, insecure and illiquid loans that at times they cannot redeem without public aid. James Buchan Money 64
Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required. James Buchan Business 56
Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop. James Buchan Uncategorized 56
Any new financial order for the world must tackle the three chief challenges of our age. James Buchan age 52
In rising financial markets, the world is forever new. The bull or optimist has no eyes for past or present, but only for the future, where streams of revenue play in his imagination. James Buchan Uncategorized 50
Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice. James Buchan Poetry 48
Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors. James Buchan Uncategorized 47
In modern society, where most people live in cities, and where both needs and wishes are absolved through the same remote agency - money - the distinction between wishes and needs has altogether vanished. James Buchan Society 45
What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head. James Buchan Power 45
In falling markets, there is nothing that has not happened before. The bear or pessimist sees only the past, which imprisons the wretched financial soul in eternal circles of boom and bust and boom again. James Buchan Uncategorized 43
Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader. James Buchan Uncategorized 42
Liberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise. James Buchan Uncategorized 41
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. James Buchan History 41
Saudi Arabia operates according to the belief that God made young men and women so utterly and completely without self-control that they must be physically segregated every moment of the day and night. James Buchan Women 39
It is time to end the western policy of malign neglect. It is in the interest of the whole world to help tackle the actual grievances in Palestine, Kashmir, and in central and southern Iraq, and to help the region out of its economic backwardness. James Buchan Uncategorized 38
To make a love story, you need a couple of young people, but to reflect on the nature of love, you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century. James Buchan Nature 38
Europe and North America, we are told, are less dependent on energy-intensive heavy industry than in the 1960s and 1970s. It seems we squeeze more GDP out of a barrel of oil than in those benighted days. James Buchan Uncategorized 37
Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly. James Buchan Uncategorized 36
By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors. James Buchan Money 31
One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel. James Buchan Uncategorized 30
The world dominion of western thought, forms of organisation, technology and military force is not God-given, nor eternal, nor greatly appreciated by the rest of the world. James Buchan Technology 24

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