Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist

When Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader, died in 1997 his only post was chairman of the China Bridge Association.

Shopping with coupons and jars of loose change. Watering down milk to make it go further. Using washing up liquid instead of shampoo. Inventing excuses for skipping lunch. Having to walk everywhere. Sharing beds and baths. Mending clothes that are themselves second-hand. Reviving old newspapers as makeshift lampshades. Always being tired – poverty in austerity.

The first is that entrepreneurs routinely see opportunities where everyone else sees problems.

A surprising number of great companies were born out of fury and frustration.

When Wal-Mart tried to impose alien rules on its German staff – such as compulsory smiling and a ban on affairs with co-workers – it touched off a guerilla war that ended only when the supermarket chain announced it was pulling out of Germany in 2006.

When things went wrong for Middle Eastern tribes a couple of millennia ago, the accepted remedy was to send a sacrificial goat out into the wilderness to placate the gods.

The practice continues today, but the voters have replaced the gods, and highly paid businesspeople the goats.

Why do Americans spend such huge amounts of time, money, water, fertiliser and fuel on growing a useless smooth expanse of grass? Much better to cultivate something useful, like tomatoes.

Walmart did not become a $200 billion company without running down a few pedestrians.

Water flows towards money.

The recovery has resembled third-world traffic, where juggernauts and rickshaws, cars and cycles ply the same lanes at different speeds, often getting in each other's way.

Shoppers have been able to buy from out-of-state merchants since Sears issued its first mail-order catalogues in the 19th century.

Warren Buffett: "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked."

The new strategy looks more promising, but as always success will depend on implementation.

Consider an imaginary Englishman's day. He wakes in his cottage near Dover, ready to commute to London. Chomping a bowl of Weetabix, a British breakfast cereal resembling (tasty) cardboard, he makes a cup of tea. His privatised water comes from Veolia and his electricity from EDF (both French firms). Thumps at the gate tell him another arm of Veolia is emptying his bins.