Tax
Monday, August 29th, 2011In the US, Buffett has been mocked for his admission in the New York Times this month that he felt bad about only paying $6.9m in tax last year, 17.4% of his taxable income, while his staff paid an average of 36%.
In the US, Buffett has been mocked for his admission in the New York Times this month that he felt bad about only paying $6.9m in tax last year, 17.4% of his taxable income, while his staff paid an average of 36%.
The thing I found difficult was the noise. I’m a bit deaf but it is so loud that you can feel it in your guts. I can’t help feeling that there are going to be a lot of deaf people living here in 20 years time.
One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia.
“This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you still here?”
Khan, who remains one of Cook’s top lieutenants to this day, immediately stood up, drove to San Francisco International Airport, and, without a change of clothes, booked a flight to China with no return date.
[…]
Though he’s capable of mirth, Cook’s default facial expression is a frown, and his humor is of the dry variety. In meetings he’s known for long, uncomfortable pauses, when all you hear is the sound of his tearing the wrapper of the energy bars he constantly eats.
Mike Janes, who worked with Cook for five years, ultimately as head of Apple’s online store, recalls a Macworld conference in New York when Cook convened a meeting in the afternoon after one of Jobs’ mesmerizing morning keynotes. “A number of us had tickets to see the Mets that night,” says Janes, now CEO of an event ticket site called FanSnap. “After hours, he was still drilling us with question after question, while we were watching the clock like kids in school. I still have this vision of Tim saying, ‘Okay, next page,’ as he opened yet another energy bar.”
Man must always bear in mind that God is omnipresent and is always with him; that God is the most subtle matter everywhere diffused … Let man realize that when he is looking at material things he is in reality gazing at the image of the Deity which is present in all things. With this in mind man will always serve God even in small matters.
My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.
My mom used to say it to me, and my wife says it now. There’s even a slogan that says it! “Approach all situations with a joyful mind.”
One December evening the cry of ‘Fire!’ echoed through the plant. Spontaneous combustion had broken out in the film room and within moments all the packing compounds, film and other flammable goods had gone up with a whoosh…
When I couldn’t find Father, I became concerned. Was he safe? With all his assets going up in smoke, would his spirit be broken? He was 67, no age to begin anew. Then I saw him in the plant yard, running toward me.
‘Where’s Mom?’ he shouted. ‘Go get her! Tell her to get her friends! They’ll never see a fire like this again!’
At 5:30 the next morning, when the fire was barely under control, father called his employees together and announced: ‘We’re rebuilding!’ One man was told to lease all the machine shops in the area. Another, to obtain a wrecking crane from the Erie Railroad Company. Then, almost as an afterthought he added, ‘Oh, by the way. Anybody know where we can get some money?”
Later on he explained, ‘You can always make capital out of disaster. We’ve just cleared out a bunch of old rubbish! We’ll build bigger and better on these ruins.’ With that he rolled up his coat for a pillow, curled up on a table and immediately fell asleep.
It also brought me and Dad back together. Our relationship had virtually broken down when I first became ill. His best friend Bert was my doctor, and Bert had thought I was making it all up. Dad was caught between loyalties – me or Bert. And for a long time it looked as if he had chosen Bert. Eventually, he came back to me, but we needed to do a lot of bridge building. And this was where the Floyd came in.
It was summer 1974, and he would take afternoons off work (a massive sacrifice for him because he was a workaholic) and come into my bedroom and listen to the Floyd with me. There were two beds in my room. I lay on mine, he lay on the other, and we shut our eyes and concentrated.