​Banks, cancer and Stephen Hawking

Massive fines for banks, gross misbehaviour, huge bonuses for failure, bail outs at vast expense to the taxpayer. Little wonder that politicians and pundits can almost invariably win cheap applause by describing the financial system as being a cancer on society. But in a deep way, cancer and the financial system do have much in common. They both exhibit qualities which in the scientific jargon are known as ‘robust yet fragile’.