Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist - Кузнецов Сергей Александрович - Страница 11

"Corruption is rampant at high levels, and at low levels," said an FBI agent, before adding: "and all levels in between".

"Republican gluttons of privilege" who had "stuck a pitchfork in the farmer's back".

It takes pride in sticking to its companies through thick and thin.

Marriott likes to buy to the sound of cannons and sell to the sound of violins.

Once upon a time the overstressed executive bellowing orders into a telephone, cancelling meetings, staying late at the office and dying of a heart attack was a stereotype of modernity. Cardiac arrest – and, indeed, early death from any cause – is the prerogative of underlings. The best medicine, then, is promotion. Prosper, and live long.

Of course, successfully picking the leader of a big public company has always been tricky, because the job requires at least two quite different skills. Like the fox, a chief executive must know lots of little things, must manage successfully the key day-to-day aspects of the business. But like the hedgehog, he must also know one big thing: every three or four years, he will have to take a substantial strategic decision, which may mortally wound the business, if he gets it wrong. Plenty of giants, such as Cable & Wireless and AT&T, have had leaders who passed the fox test but failed the hedgehog one.

In business, as in photography, it pays to stay focused.

This new elite is not just a breed apart. It lives apart, in bubbles such as Manhattan south of 96th Street (where the proportion of adults with college degrees rose from 16 % in 1960 to 60 % in 2000) and a small number of "SuperZips", neighbourhoods where wealth and educational attainment are highly concentrated. These neighbourhoods are whiter and more Asian than the rest of America. They have less crime and more stable families. They are not, pace Mr Gingrich, necessarily "liberal": plenty of SuperZips voted Republican in 2004. But they are indeed out of touch.

Hopkins was the most flamboyant advertising genius of the early 20th century – the man who convinced millions of women to buy Palmolive soap on the basis that Cleopatra had washed with it, and got the world talking about puffed wheat with the claim that it was "shot from guns" until the grains puffed to eight times their normal size.

There is no limit to human ingenuity in finding new ways to go bust.

Mr Murray starts by lamenting the isolation of a new upper class, which he defines as the most successful 5 % of adults (plus their spouses) working in managerial positions, the professions or the senior media. These people are not only rich but also exceptionally clever, because America has become expert at sending its brightest to the same elite universities, where they intermarry and confer on their offspring not just wealth but also a cognitive advantage that gives this class terrific staying power.

In the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville marvelled that in America the opulent did not stand aloof from the people. A great cultural gap separates the elite from other Americans. They seldom watch "Oprah" or "Judge Judy" all the way through. In fact they do not watch much television at all. They eat in restaurants, but not often at Applebee's, Denny's or Waffle House, chains that cater to the common taste. They may take The Economist, with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and perhaps the New Yorker or Rolling Stone. They drink wine and boutique beers (and can discuss them expertly) but only in moderation, and they hardly ever smoke cigarettes.

Most students of taxation know the advice that Jean-Baptiste Colbert, treasurer to Louis XIV, offered the beleaguered taxman: pluck the goose so as to get the most feathers with the least hissing. But suppose the goose is housed on one farm, eats the birdseed scattered in a second, and lays its eggs in a third. Which farmer gets the plumage?