Record levels of cash are piling up in corporate treasuries, idling. The only way to break this cycle of fear is to break it.Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz • Following the lead of Warren Buffett and pushing for more responsibility from those that can afford it. While Buffett went after super-rich taxpayers; Schultz instead is going after corporations that are sitting on piles of cash, yet are staying on the sidelines and choosing not to hire more people — or worse, putting that money into political campaigns in hopes of putting business-friendly leadership in power in 2012. While Starbucks has had union issues and gay rights issues crop up recently, the company does have a reputation for treating its employees better than most corporations of its size. Kudos, Howard. source (via • follow)
I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.Warren Buffett • Arguing in an editorial for the New York Times (titled, fittingly, “Stop coddling the super-rich”) that Congress needs to raise his taxes and those of people with incomes topping $1 million. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he writes. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.” Wait … a super-rich guy offering more money up in taxes? Be still our hearts. And don’t tell the Koch brothers … they might disagree with this stance. source (via • follow)
I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.Warren Buffett on CNBC (via sonicbloom11)
Protip: Trust a guy with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. During Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, the investor icon suggested that if Congress failed to raise the federal debt ceiling in the middle of May (as some completely uninformed RedState blogger suggested and Timothy Geithner pleaded against), it would be the “most asinine act” in the chamber’s history. And Congress has done a lot of stupid crap in their day. Perhaps we should listen to this highly-regarded rich guy! (photo by Medill DC’s Flickr photostream) source
» A pretty hefty one-time charge: While Goldman Sachs’ profits for the current quarter, $2.74 billion, were down 21 percent from a year earlier because of the payday to their sugar daddy, if you don’t count the payment to Warren, their profits — $8.38 billion — would have been up by 49 percent from a year earlier. In other words, they’re richer than we are and Wall Street is celebrating.
» Widening his lead: Carlos Slim has not only benefited by expanding his own personal wealth (we’re sure that New York Times investment was a huge part of all that … heh), but the two guys directly behind him – Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – have been giving away much of their wealth lately. Slim has too, but he’s kept a tighter grip on it than those two.
» The only name people care about: Is it us, or does the Mark Zuckerberg one seem designed to make people look for ulterior motives? Because it seems that’s what people are already doing. You know, nobody ever questioned BILL GATES for this, and he had a lot more public relations work to do after that antitrust stuff than Zuckerberg ever did.
Jay-z may not have that vitamin water money to his name like 50 Cent, but he does OK for himself. The rapper recently showed up on the cover of Forbes with Warren Buffett, and he’s managed to continue to bring in millions of dollars on his own brand by signing the right business deals and finding ways to creatively work with partners. One could argue that you could have a whole business strategy class on how Jay-Z works in business, because he knows how to time his moves very well, and has really only had a small handful of flops (that first collaboration he did with R. Kelly comes to mind). Some more details:
» Other business ventures: Don’t think that he stops with clothes and songs. He also has a restaurant chain to his name, The 40-40 Club; a Greenwich Village bistro, the Spotted Pig; a co-ownership stake in the Carol’s Daughter beauty line; and best of all, an ownership stake in the New Jersey Nets, which will end up in Brooklyn in 2012 thanks partly to him.
» And he’s just getting started: The next thing on Hova’s agenda? He has a book coming out with a fairly interesting concept – basically, he took the lyrics to dozens of his hit songs and explained them in depth. “Decoded” also has Microsoft on board for the advertising campaign. Because that’s how Jay-Z rolls. He gets corporate sponsors to back his projects, and the corporations win because they can bank on Jay-Z’s name to give them cool points. And let’s face it, Microsoft can use as many of those as they can get.
For 20 years, I fought the textile business before I gave up. As instead of putting that money into the textile business originally, we just started out with the insurance company, Berkshire would be worth twice as much as it is now.Warren Buffett • Explaining what the “dumbest” stock he ever bought was. Wait, what? Is he really claiming Berkshire Hathaway as his dumbest stock purchase ever? Yes, and the reason for that is that Berkshire was initially a textile firm, when in reality he should have started a new insurance business as his corporate shell. He initially bought out Berkshire partly to get rid of the former owner, whom he clashed with, which put him in a very strange spot. “I had now committed a major amount of money to a terrible business,” he notes. Buffett made most of his money off of insurance – specifically GEICO, which we bet you didn’t know he owned. The company handles other random stuff, including Ginsu knives and The Buffalo News, but one thing Berkshire no longer creates is textiles. The last legacy plant closed way back in 1985. source (via)
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