Where Are the Next Car Wrecks?

"Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world."
-- Archimedes

History is silent on Archimedes' understanding of financial leverage, but it might be a fair bet that anyone who could describe such diverse problems as leverage and buoyancy would grasp the concept easily.

Whether Archimedes could extrapolate the shipping-based economy of his hometown of Syracuse to the modern credit-based economy, one wherein automobiles are manufactured as an excuse to make automobile loans, is more of a stretch: Like all ancients, he probably was a "show me the money" sort. ...