I was the Bernie Madoff of speculative baby trading until my prize infant gargled horse tranquiliser and died

In days of old, before mankind had conquered—perhaps destroyed—the natural world, we would attribute the vicissitudes of fate to the will of the gods. If your village was swallowed by an earthquake, your child taken by ague, your crops struck by pestilence, it was because a higher power decided it. The alternative—that these tragedies just happened—was too maddening to accept.

We have no need for gods these days. Now we have Wall Street, whose distant and inscrutable machinations ravage towns...