Virginia Postrel:

In these uncertain economic times, we’d all like a guaranteed investment. Here’s one: it pays a 24-cent dividend every four weeks for 60 weeks, 15 dividends in all. Then it disappears. Unlike a bond, this security has no redemption value. It simply provides guaranteed dividends. It involves no tricky derivatives or unknown risks. And it carries absolutely no danger of default. What would you pay for it?

From the archive:

More clothes to wear, bigger cars to drive, more space to live, more power, more influence -- the plague of gigantism has hit us. In our mad rush to the big, we should remember that dinosaurs were not the most successful form of life on this planet.