The drawings all went for six-figure sums, bringing the total for the collection to £412,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £58,000.
There are the manufacturers for whom loyalty to U.S. shareholders far exceeds loyalty to U.S. workers, and the investment bankers who have made vast sums bringing Chinese companies to foreign stock markets.
Suddenly required to spend vast sums bringing democracy and prosperity to Afghanistan and Iraq, America's emaciated civilian agencies could do little more than write huge checks to the megacontractors that grew fat off the "war on terror".
Then the government admitted it would only hit its closely watched target for the primary fiscal surplus of 3.1% of GDP by omitting some infrastructure spending from the sums, bringing forward dividends from state-owned firms and raiding the sovereign wealth-fund it set up in 2008.
Also, the Landlady's comment to Brother Sum – "We brought a gift you cannot refuse" is an obvious parody of the same, to which Sum replies (in the dubbed version of the film), "Ha!
My own experience at dim sum best brought home why so many in Chinatown are optimistic, even insistent that, as Paul Lee, an assistant to the president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, put it: "Business is going to come back, but whether it's sooner or later we can't figure out".
Parks and his colleagues are fighting Warwick University's decision to award its vice-chancellor, Nigel Thrift, a £42,000 pay rise – a sum that brings his total salary to £316,000.
Had Wigan not paid a six-figure sum to bring Sam Tomkins back from the NRL next year, the demand from Warriors fans for the Australian full-back Matty Bowen to continue playing would have been heard on both sides of the Pennies, such has been his form this year.
Much like present-day City, the Chelsea squad of the mid-naughts seemed unbreakable, with its Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, paying record sums to bring in players that wreaked havoc, snatching the championship title from United for two years running.
