The “bezzle” is one of John Kenneth Galbraith’s best inventions. There is an interval during which an embezzler benefits from stolen money but the victim does not know he has lost it. The bezzle is the amount by which the world is better off in the meantime. Bernard Madoff created the largest bezzle in history.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s long-term business partner, described the “febezzle”. Mr Munger doesn’t have the gift for language of Galbraith, and I doubt the febezzle – the functionally equivalent bezzle – will catch on. The febezzler benefits from legally appropriated money but the victim does not yet know that he will have to pay for it. In the last decade we have all been victims of febezzlement on a scale that consigns Mr Madoff to the little leagues.