“Think of a herd of gazelles in the wild,” adds Chris, our law enforcement expert. “They’ll get attacked by one or two or three lions and what is their immediate response? They run away. A lion may get one of them, but the herd escapes. Every second that you’re moving away from a shooter you’re making it harder for him to shoot you. Anything you can do to get away and increase that distance will help. Also consider the effect a crowd of fleeing people has on an attacker: confusion and bewilderment. Running away is your best defense.”
Journalists, Repression And The Global Conspiracy That Never Was
Now I know who is to blame for the global jitters. Whether it’s the Chinese economic wobble dragging down world markets and panicking investors, or wars in the Middle East flooding European shores with refugees, the same global conspiracy is at work. It is journalists, with pens and keyboards, cameras and smart phones, wielding their extraordinary power of destruction on an otherwise orderly, prosperous world.
That’s what an increasing number of governments would have you believe.
Why I Don’t Believe Chinese GDP Data
No less than the second in command of China, the Premier Li Keqiang, has stated that Chinese GDP data is unreliable and “man-made”. To put this in perspective, the current Premier of China, second in command for the entire country, leading economic policy formulation, a Phd in economics, having spent essentially all his career inside public administration in various posts throughout China advises you not to trust GDP figures or the economics professor in the United States who has never lived in China and has no specific expertise in China.
China Blames a Different Boogeyman Each Time the Economy Stumbles
In a humiliating televised confession, Wang acknowledged that “I acquired the news from private conversations, which is an abnormal way, and added my personal judgment and subjective views to finish this story” (which, you know, is how journalism usually works). In the United States when someone accurately predicts a downturn or policy change, we practically throw him a ticker-tape parade; in China, they throw him in jail.
The World’s Greatest Jeweller
Unlike the big, heavily branded jewellery firms—Cartier, Graff, Harry Winston—JAR has just one small shop, a blank-fronted place in a dull plaza in Paris, and doesn’t spend a sou putting adverts in glossy magazines. Or indeed anywhere. Because secrecy is JAR’s secret weapon. You won’t find the shop’s address in any directories; as a rule, would-be customers have to be vetted and introduced, like Freemasons, by a friend. Rosenthal himself maintains a Garbo-like silence in the face of the press, giving only a handful of interviews in his 37-year career and—at least partly for reasons of security—never, ever allowing himself to be photographed.
