If young firms are to survive near-terminal mistakes, or fluctuating demand, they need to be able to reduce staff costs quickly and cheaply when necessary.

ECONOMIST: European entrepreneurs

So there is insufficient pressure to bring down costs and deliver savings products as cheaply as possible.

ECONOMIST: Saving

For issuers, demand for their debt has reduced borrowing costs, allowing them to finance growth more cheaply than in the past.

WSJ: Investors Snap Up Eastern Europe Debt

You can think of trade as a machine (with no running costs or depreciation): goods you can make cheaply go in at one end, and goods that would cost you a lot more to make come out at the other.

ECONOMIST: Profits over people

Borrowing costs are low, so private-equity firms have financed acquisitions cheaply.

ECONOMIST: Buy-outs are booming. Why?

Baker tells me he can make a sock core just as cheaply as anyone in China or Honduras - the machine costs the same, so does the yarn, there's hardly any labor.

NPR: Alabama Town Questions an Economy of Socks