Southeast Asia s return to prosperity since the financial crisis of 1997 has brought a region wide splurge on new weapons.

To fix the roof, we may have to accept a less extravagant summer vacation. When we pick a cheaper wine, we can splurge on dessert.

But most of the wealthy know that temporary measures result only in a fleeting blip in stock prices hardly enough to support a consumption splurge.

And as you can see from these maps of London, in the 90 years after the trains came, it goes from being a little blob that was quite easy to feed by animals coming in on foot, and so on, to a large splurge, that would be very, very difficult to feed with anybody on foot, either animals or people.