“Treat your enemies with courtesy, and you'll see how valuable it really is. It costs little but pays a nice dividend: those who honor are honored. Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing.” LittlesPayEnemyNiceHonorCostLosingAdvantageTreatsValuableHonoredCourtesyPolitenessDividends Author:Baltasar Gracian
“In many societies the domestic social costs of adjustment to changing patterns of comparative advantage are believed to outweigh the advantages of further trade liberalization.” SocialCostAdvantageTradePatternsAdjustmentComparative Advantage Book:The Political Economy of International Relations Source: The Political Economy of International Relations
“The reason we form networks is because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs. It's to our advantage as individuals and a species to assemble ourselves in this fashion.” ReasonFormIndividualFashionCostBenefitsAdvantageSpeciesConnected Author:Nicholas A. Christakis
“One has to understand China correctly. Our management there consists of native Chinese, we produce locally and our suppliers also come from China. In this way, we too can also enjoy the cost advantages.” WayEnjoyProduceCostAdvantageManagementChinaChineseNativeSuppliers Author:Tulsi Tanti
“During the last five years, those four advantages-costs, products, people, goodwill-have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough-38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success-this new paradigm-has a name: "Doing well by doing good". It is a better way to bigger profits.” PeopleWayYearsWellsHas BeensMadeMightLastsNamesBusinessCompanyMillionsSupportFiveSawsFourProductsCostAdvantageBiggerSalvationDefinitionsProfitDebtCustomersMade ItPrimariesFive YearsSustainabilityInitiativeShrinksMarketplaceParadigmDoing GoodBetter WaysGoodwillRecessionsInterfacesDefinition Of SuccessLast Five YearsTrough Author:Ray Anderson
“The government - the ultimate short-term-oriented player - cannot withstand much pain in the economy or the financial markets. Bailouts and rescues are likely to occur, though not with sufficient predictability for investors to comfortably take advantage. The government will take enormous risks in such interventions, especially if the expenses can be conveniently deferred to the future. Some of the price-tag is in the form of back- stops and guarantees, whose cost is almost impossible to determine.” IfsGovernmentPainFormTermEconomyPlayerImpossibleRiskCostAdvantageUltimateFinancialDetermineEnormousSufficientGuaranteesExpensesInvestorsRescueInterventionShort TermTagFinancial MarketsPredictabilityPrice TagBailouts Author:Seth Klarman
“The most interesting biofuel efforts avoid using land that's expensive and has high opportunity costs. They do this by getting onto other types of land, or taking advantage of byproducts that aren't used in the food chain today, or by intercropping.” TodayUsedOpportunityInterestingEffortLandTypeCostAdvantageChainsExpensiveMost InterestingTaking AdvantageFood ChainBiofuelsOpportunity Cost Author:Bill Gates
“In fact, a large part of what we think of as economic activity is designed to accomplish what high transaction costs would otherwise prevent or to reduce transaction costs so that individuals can negotiate freely and we can take advantage of that diffused knowledge of which Friedrich Hayek has told us.” ThinkingFactsIndividualEconomicCostActivityAdvantageAccomplishTransactionsHayekFriedrich Hayek Author:Ronald Coase
“When the President is making it harder to mine coal, to use coal, to take advantage of our gas resources, to make it harder to get our oil resources - all those things combine to make our cost of energy higher than it needs to be, and it drives away enterprises from this country. It sends it to places that have lower-cost energy.” NeedsCountryUseEnergyPresidentMinesHigherCostResourcesAdvantageHarderOilEnterpriseGasCoal Author:Mitt Romney
“Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.” MenIdeasMomentsLastsDiesNatureAnimalCostAdvantageStrikesClockPetFuneralTheologianCeremonyDisturbedMiscellaneousLawsuitUnwelcome Author:Voltaire
“If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try which can sink each other fastester. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infintely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of Nations, does not that of Court Governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation, places, and offices.” IfsThinkingMenTryingDoeGovernmentPurposeNationsAnswersMoralPolicyBuildingOughtVictoryCostOfficeOceanReflectionAdvantageCourtRidiculousRationalAbsurdPermitTaxationFillingNavyExclusivePretence Author:Thomas Paine
“When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.” StatesHandsAgeWinningLosesLossRichTaughtProudCostOceanEternalGainsAdvantageSlaveStoresRageHungryKingdomsRuinsMortalsFirmSoilShoreBuriedDecayTowersLoftyBrassInterchange Book:Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Problems Solved Source: Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Problems Solved