Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist - стр. 15
Slavery in America was not just wicked, it was lucrative: by 1860 the total capital that slave-holders had "invested" in captive human beings was three times larger than investment in manufacturing in the northern and southern states combined.
China produced more steel in two years than Britain since 1900.
The US is still the US, held together by credit cards and Indian names.
China's problems are so many, various and deep that it does indeed seem impossible that the Communist Party can survive. Yet it raises the opposite question too: what, then, has held such an improbable regime together for so long?
Creating pay structures that perfectly reflect performance is a mug's game. That hasn't stopped an entire industry of consultants and proxy advisers from trying. Setting detailed targets risks distorting behaviour.
The company that establishes itself early enjoys disproportionate rewards. First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.
One Western company urged its employees to "act like an owner" without realising that, in some cultures, acting like an owner means playing golf all day.
Bad money chases out good.
Authenticity is the secret of success; once you can fake it, you've got it.
There are more people in America who believe that Elvis is still alive than thought Obama's stimulus would create jobs.
Class identifying markers: occupation, address, accent and income.
That openness is evident across British life. The country's car industry is almost totally foreign owned (Tata has made a great success of Jaguar Land Rover); many of its biggest airports are in Spanish hands; chunks of its energy industry belong to French and Chinese investors; its football clubs make the United Nations look monocultural. Its central bank is run by a Canadian and the London Olympics were organised by an Australian. London's glitziest property developers are from Qatar and Malaysia and its stock exchange may soon be in German hands. In 2013 the proportion of shares in Britain's firms owned by foreigners zoomed passed the 50 % mark, to almost total public indifference.
What gets measured gets managed.
A country where shareholders with opinions have hitherto been about as welcome as skunks at a garden party.
Cost of capital is now king. The king seems to live in China.
What is poverty and when is a person poor? Does a family home have a dirt or dung floor? Does it lack a decent toilet? Must members of the household travel more than 30 minutes on foot to get clean water to drink? Do they live without electricity?
Lehman Brothers disaster would never have happened if it had been Lehman Sisters.
Walmart's 2.2m worldwide workforce is about the same size as China's army, excluding reservists.
We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shop, taught in the Pullman school, catechised in the Pullman church, and when we die we shall be buried in the Pullman cemetery and go to the Pullman hell.
The wealth distribution in the world is equivalent to a world of ten people, in which one has $1,000 and the other nine has $1 each.
John Maynard Keynes still best describes the challenge facing the discipline today: "Economics is the science of thinking in terms of models joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant to the contemporary world."