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

It is spending 35 times as much on imports of soya beans and crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper – indeed, China has swallowed over four-fifths of the increase in the world's copper supply since 2000.

The world knows what it wants, but cannot agree on how to get what it wants.

The financial results of Chinese companies that global investors wish to buy into can be as unintelligible as the dialect spoken in the company town. It is said (with apparent sincerity) that some Chinese firms keep several sets of books – one for the government, one for company records, one for foreigners and one to report what is actually going on.

Nokia must still work to keep its chin above the waves.

The problem is that as soon as fun becomes part of a corporate strategy it ceases to be fun and becomes its opposite – at best an empty shell and at worst a tiresome imposition.

Roads, railways, water and gas mains, sewage pipes and electricity cables all move things around.

So do the blood vessels of animals and the sap-carrying xylem and phloem of plants.

Beekeeping is one example beloved by economic theorists. Bees create honey, which can be sold on the market. But they also pollinate nearby apple trees, a useful service that is not purchased or priced.

The story of Ireland is like a fairy tale: from rags to riches and back to rags again.

The full-blooded, unapologetic pursuit of America's national interest.

The rich world is in the middle of a management revolution, from "motivation 2.

0" to "motivation 3.0" (1.0 in this schema was prehistoric times, when people were motivated mainly by the fear of being eaten by wild animals).

Then there is "gladvertising" and "sadvertising", a rather sinister-sounding idea in which billboards with embedded cameras, linked to face-tracking software, detect the mood of each consumer who passes by, and change the advertising on display to suit it. The technology matches movements of the eyes and mouth to six expression patterns corresponding to happiness, anger, sadness, fear, surprise and disgust.

An unhappy-looking person might be rewarded with ads for a sun-drenched beach or a luscious chocolate bar while those wearing an anxious frown might be reassured (some might say exploited) with an ad for insurance.

Romantics say that the bank used to prosper by deliberately not having any strategy at all.