This giant of economic thinking wrote the following in his book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in 1919, a year after the end of WWI: ‘If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing consequences of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing.’

Skill, talent and ability. These define an aptitude for a task or challenge; in the context of investing, however, one should add ‘insights’ and‘research’ as components of successful outcomes in the complex environment of markets.

One’s attitude towards investing may be coloured by a multiple of different – and sometimes competing – considerations.