Bankers and financiers bundled debt paper into instruments they could flog around the world and the ratings agencies signed off on the Ponzi scheme.
But let's not kid ourselves: as soon as Wenger calls it a day at Arsenal that team and its new manager will be flogged around Asia or America every summer to "boost brand awareness" and "grow the business".
This, as I've come to think of it, was the moment my first life stopped, where the film broke and the reel spun around and around, flogging itself.
The case for the defence is that flogging fags around the world has little in common with lending too many euros to over-extended Irish housebuilders.
Part of the money is an advance that Channel Four is recouping from international sales; after that, it is splitting the revenue from flogging the interview around the world, with Miss Lewinsky receiving 75% of the proceeds.
Some of them, such as Viacom and Turner, have decided that selling branded channels such as MTV, Nickelodeon or CNN is the best way to make money.But flogging American culture around the world has turned out to be trickier than the big companies first thought.
And many of these happiness experts and yoga gurus appear to ignore their own advice, as they rush around flogging books and DVDs about the merits of slowing down.
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It's become a popular spot for migrants and refugees to find people smugglers who'll take them across the water towards Western Europe – so popular, in fact, that some of the local shoe shops now sell lifejackets, and kids wander around flogging waterproof cases for smartphones.
Now, we're not ones to start throwing around phrases like "flogging a dead horse" or "get on with the next single MIA", but she basically seems to be dragging her feet with the follow-up to 2010's Maya.
