Whether electorates will be quite so quick to shackle themselves to Germanic fiscal rules is another matter.

ECONOMIST: European politics

But an unregulated environment attracts all those who do not want to play by the rules that shackle traditional money managers.

FORBES: Anatomy of (Yet Another) Hedge Fund Fraud (June 1, 2001)

In any of these cases your progeny might need to sell the company, and your name on it may shackle them in negotiations.

FORBES: How Having Your Name On Your Business Limits Your Options

In America, meanwhile, the plans taking shape face resistance, partly from the bankers they will shackle but even more from regulators and lawmakers.

ECONOMIST: Overhauling financial regulation

If student debt is not to shackle existing graduates and put off future ones, the rules could be changed so that it is dischargeable in bankruptcy.

ECONOMIST: Student loans

But background checks and assault rifle bans will not free us from our most debilitating shackle, and that is our numbness, if not addiction, to violence, particularly in film.

CNN: Despite Newtown, we crave violent movies

Consider it the true replacement for a basic feature phone, ticking all the smartphone checkboxes without having to either spend a lot up front or else shackle yourself to one carrier.

ENGADGET: IRL: Moshi's Digits gloves and the Nokia Lumia 620 on Telus

Some want to shackle capitalism with tougher rules.

ECONOMIST: Seattle comes to Washington | The

Losses on the Nasdaq this year are closely related to this destruction because trustbusters have pledged to use the Microsoft case as a precedent to impede the growth and shackle the talent of others in the information economy.

ECONOMIST: Trust in antitrust

Despite the moral, humanitarian and strategic arguments for intervention, Syria is a trap that threatens to suck external powers in and shackle them with responsibility for war-making, peacekeeping and a reconstruction effort that could eventually involve thousands of boots on the ground and billions of dollars in assistance.

CNN: Obama's no-win options in Syria

If public-sector workers cannot afford to live in the south-east of England, then the government should be changing pay scales that currently discriminate in favour of public sector workers in cheap bits of the country and against those in expensive bits, rather than reintroducing something that once looked like a boon to the poor and turned out to be a shackle.

ECONOMIST: Social housing