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Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service.

I'm Tim Halford.

It is of course 2014. Happy New Year.

But before we look forward, this week we'd like to look back.

Some of the most intriguing, striking or just playing delightful numbers of last year.

And what better place to start than with Dr. Pippermangren, founder of

Principalist Asset Management and former Financial Market Advisor to President George W. Bush.

For me, the most interesting number this year is the number 73.

It's the periodic table number for an element nobody's ever heard of called tantalum.

And yet, we're incredibly dependent on this rare earth metal.

It's essential for all telecommunications, defense equipment.

Your mobile phone won't work without it.

And I think it's interesting because it serves as a reminder that in the world economy,

lots of the most important things that we need are actually very limited in the supply.

And there are lots of things that in the world economy that we need to think about,

the limits on the supply.

And I don't mean this is like a tree hugging green person.

...