Economics is often made to sound very complicated – especially by economists. It is all fiscal this, monetary that and endogenous growth theory the other. But when you pare everything back to brass tacks, economics is really the study of common sense.

When I was last in the Gulf region in the years leading up to the credit crunch, very little about the place made sense. This is incredibly easy to say in hindsight, of course. But it was also relatively easy to say at the time. It didn't make sense, for example, to put patio heaters on the balconies of ersatz chalets sitting atop the fake alpine slope they had built in the Dubai desert. (It is like putting a fridge in a sauna in the Arctic.) And yet, that's what they did.