I turn now to the problem of financial prudence, which has become a major concern across the world in recent decades. The demands for conservatism in finance are very strong now, since the disruptive effects of excessive inflation and instability have come to be widely studied and discussed. Indeed, finance is a subject in which conservatism has some evident merit, and prudence in this field can easily take a conservative form. But we have to be clear as to what financial conservatism demands and why.