Philip Coggan is the author of The Money Machine, a guide to the city that is still in print after 33 years, and Paper Promises, which was Spears' business book of the year in 2012. He writes the Bartleby column for the Economist and is the former writer of the Buttonwood column. Prior to joining the Economist he worked for the Financial Times for 20 years. He has spent a career trying to make sense of the modern economy, even as financiers and politicians try to wreck it.