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

Acquirers only want the family silver, not the dross.

You can display your yacht in a way that you can't show off your house or hotel suite, because there is always the option of weighing anchor and taking it into the middle of the ocean where you don't have to socialise with anybody except the glitterati. Superyacht owners are always dropping in on each other as they criss-cross the seas, to compare not just their vessels but also their guest lists. When the Monaco Yacht Show started in 1991 there were just 1,147 superyachts (that is, yachts longer than 30 metres) in the global superyacht fleet. Today there are 4,473, with another 473 under construction.

To make or to buy is perhaps the most basic question in business.

It is hard to when bubbles will pop, in particular when they are nested within each other predict.

Politician + pump prices + poll = panic.

America's dynamic economy creates and destroys around 5m jobs each month.

Returns on rare coins over ten years to the end of 2016 were 195 %, easily beating art (139 %), stamps (133 %), furniture (–31 %) and the S&P 500 index (58 %). Coins are more portable than paintings or furniture, and boast a higher value-to-volume ratio. Stamps may be lighter, but, come doomsday, cannot be melted down. Today, global sales of rare coins are estimated at $5bn–8bn a year, with 85 % of the market in America.

An authoritarian government can provide certainty, at least in the short term. In 1922, when Mussolini took power in Italy, its equity market returned 29 % and its government bonds 18 %, according to Mike Staunton of the London Business School. Hitler's accession in 1933 saw German shares return 14 % and bonds 15 %.

If you want to get rich, goes a Chinese saying, first build a road.

The bond market looks about as intimidating as a chihuahua in a handbag.

One calls him the best possible pilot of the worst possible aircraft.

Notes such as one with a face value of 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars are worth much more now as a novelty on eBay (where they sell for about $45) than they ever were in shops in Harare.

Like politicians, financial regulators know that late on a Friday is a good time to slip out bad news.

The National Resistance Movement in Uganda bribed voters with hoes, saucepans, seeds, sugar and salt.

Richard Nixon saw China's potential in 1971 ("Put 800m Chinese to work under a decent system – and they will be the leaders of the world"). But, before he died in 1994, he came to fear that "we may have created a Frankenstein".

Everyone is a capitalist these days. That means keeping a much closer eye on those who manage that capital.

Pushing down prices on one side of the platform may cause charges on the other side to rise, a bit like a waterbed.

"Cocaine," said Robin Williams, a comedian who was rueful about addiction, "is God's way of saying that you're making too much money."

Children are sometimes reassured that new siblings arrive via friendly storks. The reality is messier. Money creation is much the same. The "stork" in this case is the central bank; many think it transfers money to private banks, which act as intermediaries, pushing the money around the economy. In reality, most money is created by private banks.

In a recent report McKinsey, a consulting firm, looked at five measures of Africa's economic connection with the world: trade, investment stock, investment growth, infrastructure financing and aid. It found that China is among the top four partners in each of these.