All UK nuclear power stations should be shut down without delay. — James Buchan Climate Copy Share Image
Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated. — James Buchan Capital Copy Share Image
Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors. — James Buchan Children Copy Share Image
Any new financial order for the world must tackle the three chief challenges of our age. — James Buchan Age Copy Share Image
Bulls don't read. Bears read financial history. As markets fall to bits, the bears dust off the Dutch tulip mania of 1637,… — James Buchan Bears Copy Share Image
Life without oil, in fact, would be so different that it is frightening to contemplate. We are addicted, and it is no… — James Buchan Addiction Copy Share Image
The world dominion of western thought, forms of organisation, technology and military force is not God-given, nor eternal, nor greatly appreciated by… — James Buchan Appreciated Copy Share Image
The great disadvantage of getting older is to be obliged to relive the salient economic events of one's youth, with nothing learned… — James Buchan Disadvantage Copy Share Image
Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required. — James Buchan Always Copy Share Image
The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation. — James Buchan Civilisation Copy Share Image
Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the… — James Buchan Books Copy Share Image
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… — James Buchan Bankers Copy Share Image
What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt… — James Buchan Assad Copy Share Image
For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and… — James Buchan Bombs Copy Share Image
The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy.… — James Buchan Bags Copy Share Image
Cause and effect, the riddle of all history, is a particular devil in financial history; and never more so than today, where… — James Buchan Cause and effect Copy Share Image
Viewed from a distance, or through the eye of the All-Knowing CEO of the Universe, the crash of 2008 followed the usual… — James Buchan Borrowing Copy Share Image
Governments of rich countries spend some $6bn of tax money a year on disaster relief and development aid overseas, while each new… — James Buchan Adventurer Copy Share Image
My belief, for what it is worth, is that city dwellers cannot understand the world. Insulated from reality by complex and expert… — James Buchan Baffled Copy Share Image
Ever since the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, the Muslim world has been in slow decline relative to the… — James Buchan Aspect Copy Share Image
Europe and North America, we are told, are less dependent on energy-intensive heavy industry than in the 1960s and 1970s. It seems… — James Buchan 1960s Copy Share Image
Rarely in modern times has there been such a revolution in commercial sentiment as occurred in 2008, or such a display in… — James Buchan Been Copy Share Image
Where consumption is both conspicuous and competitive, humanity will never run out of new wishes. All the while, industry creates new desires… — James Buchan Both Copy Share Image
A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to… — James Buchan Century Copy Share Image
“I have found the funerals of friends less harrowing than the auctioning off of their property: a unique and loveable nature, already… — James Buchan Friendship Copy Share Image
One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with… — James Buchan About Copy Share Image
The theory of permanent Muslim-Christian enmity, though it flourishes in the caves of Tora Bora and parts of the American academy, was… — James Buchan Academy Copy Share Image
Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess… — James Buchan Body Copy Share Image
In falling markets, there is nothing that has not happened before. The bear or pessimist sees only the past, which imprisons the… — James Buchan Again Copy Share Image
For all their current prestige, Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts… — James Buchan Bin laden Copy Share Image
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born revolutionary who is believed by most Arab and Iranian observers to be the inspiration of the attacks… — James Buchan Best Copy Share Image
To give money to a woman - and here I must speak as a man - is to deny her special quality,… — James Buchan Appetite Copy Share Image
“Money is normative. So pervasive is its influence on our lives that it makes less moneyed ages incomprehensible, consigning them to barbarism… — James Buchan Money Copy Share Image
The prevailing ideology of the modern west - which is political economy - is in the doghouse. Having failed to notice atmospheric… — James Buchan Capitalism Copy Share Image
“My wages came to me not to satisfy any need-- mine were anyway private, affectionate, atrocious-- but to make my needs universal:… — James Buchan Civilized Copy Share Image
Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe… — James Buchan 19th century Copy Share Image
Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of… — James Buchan Colossal Copy Share Image
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. — James Buchan Dispassionate Copy Share Image
