A big Chinese province admits faking its economic data

• “Stop This Greed”: The Tax-Avoidance Political Campaign in the OECD and Australia, by Chris Berg and Sinclair Davidson

Funny currency purchasing In cash real estate in Canada and Australia ... 

A big Chinese province admits faking its economic data Economist

Chinese social media as a form of surveillance

Larry White criticizes the move toward cashlessness

Tim Steiner has an elaborate tattoo on his back that was designed by a famous artist and sold to a German art collector. When Steiner dies his skin will be framed – until then he spends his life sitting in galleries with his shirt off.

“The work of art is on my back, I’m just the guy carrying it around,” says the 40-year-old former tattoo parlour manager from Zurich.

A decade ago, his then girlfriend met a Belgian artist called Wim Delvoye, who’d become well known for his controversial work tattooing pigs.

Delvoye told her he was looking for someone to agree to be a human canvas for a new work and asked if she knew anyone who might be interested.

…The work, entitled TIM, sold for 150,000 euros (£130,000) to German art collector Rik Reinking in 2008, with Steiner receiving one third of the sum.

“My skin belongs to Rik Reinking now,” he says. “My back is the canvas, I am the temporary frame.”

As part of the deal, when Steiner dies his back is to be skinned, and the skin framed permanently, taking up a place in Reinking’s personal art collection.

“Gruesome is relative,” Steiner says to those who find the idea macabre.

Here is the Black Market of Real Art , via the always excellent Tim Harford, author of the new and excellent book Messy

According to the World Economic Forum, the greatest threats to humanity in 2017 are:

• Donald Trump (oops – just kidding)

1. Extreme weather – flash floods, heatwaves and drought. Global warming is real.
2. Large scale migration.
3. Deadly terrorist activity.
4. A devastating natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane.
5. Massive data theft.

To this I believe you can add:

• The growing rage of the forgotten middle class and the flight to populism and protectionism (the natural precursor to fascism).
• A deadly pandemic / virus travelling globally at lightning speed.
• A lack of moral, purpose-driven leadership at the political level in a growing number of key economies, both developed and developing.
• The rise and rise of Putin’s single-minded determination to destabilise the West and “recreate the Soviet Empire”.
• The de-unification of the US as President Trump fails to bring harmony (or at least tolerance) to the Greatest Nation on Earth.