Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist - страница 15
You can happily go through a day consuming nothing but the products of family concerns: reading the New York Times (or the Daily Mail), driving a BMW (or a Ford or a Fiat), making calls on your Samsung Galaxy, munching on Mars Bars and watching Fox on your Comcast cable.
He was a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.
Koch Industries has also demonstrated a striking ability to reform itself. Prodded by the spate of legal suits in the late 1990s, the firm introduced a big safety programme. Charles's corporate mantra was "10,000 % compliance with all laws and regulations", by which he meant 100 % compliance from 100 % of employees.
Gold miners were supposed to be "believers" in gold rather than efficient managers out to maximise profits.
The best way to find Albany on a map is to look for the intersection of greed and ambition.
Simon Kuznets, a Nobel laureate, is supposed to have remarked: "There are four kinds of countries in the world: developed countries, undeveloped countries, Japan and Argentina."
The supply side sets the scene; the demand side provides the drama.
Facebook, Google and Groupon were all founded by people in their 20s or teens. Mark Zuckerberg, aged 27, will soon be able to count his years on earth in billions of dollars.
Relying on the import of money, workers and brains, America is a Ponzi scheme that works.
Managers who rely too much on their strengths may become hammers that see every problem as a nail.
Diamonds, famously, are a girl's best friend, graphite makes good pencil lead.
Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, has 1,500 employees in Silicon Valley trying to out-Amazon Amazon in areas such as logistics and making the most of social media.
Of the 7 billion people alive on the planet, 1.1 billion subsist below the internationally accepted extreme-poverty line of $1.25 a day. America's poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four.
When, as happened during the Napoleonic wars, a slaver's ship was captured by French privateers, the blacks aboard were often treated more carefully than the white seamen. The blacks were prized goods and their worth soared as commodity-based booms in the New World overwhelmed the sentiments of liberty, equality and fraternity. Once enslaved, the Africans were valuable as "investments (purchased and then rented out as labourers), credit (used to secure loans), property, commodities, and capital, making them an odd mix of abstract and concrete values."
Hundreds of jobs depend on Hollywood productions: blockbusters may require the help of as many as 1,000 firms. Producers need massages, assistants require stationery and starlets want scented candles and fresh roses; let alone what props managers, set-builders and costume departments will holler for.
Aluminium was once more costly than gold. Napoleon III, emperor of France, reserved cutlery made from it for his most favoured guests, and the Washington monument, in America's capital, was capped with it not because the builders were cheapskates but because they wanted to show.
The farthing was once made of silver, was steadily switched to cheaper copper, tin and bronze.
I am young and unemployed and face a lifetime on the dole. Why? This morning I collected my jobseekers allowance from my bank, where I have it paid directly into my account. I did not see a cashier, but withdrew money from a cash point. Then I went to the supermarket and bought French apples, German sausage and Danish bacon. I scanned the items at a self-service till, no need for a check-out assistant. I went home, switched on my Chinese computer and applied for jobs online. I do not send letters through the post; e-mail is more convenient. I then shopped online, I rarely use local shops. Who can I blame for the lack of jobs?
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