“The record of the rocks contains very little, other than bacteria and one-celled plants until, about a billion years ago, after some three billion years of invisible progress, a major breakthrough occurred. The first many-celled creatures appeared on earth.” YearsFirstsLittlesEarthThreeRecordsProgressRocksCreaturesMajorsYears AgoPlantBillionsInvisibleBreakthroughBacteria Author:Robert Jastrow
“Some years ago one oil company bought a fertilizer company, and every other major oil company practically ran out and bought a fertilizer company. And there was no more damned reason for all these oil companies to buy fertilizer companies, but they didn't know exactly what to do, and if Exxon was doing it, it was good enough for Mobil and vice versa.” IfsKnowsYearsReasonEnoughCompanyMajorsYears AgoVicesOilRanGood EnoughVice VersaOil CompaniesFertilizer Author:Charlie Munger
“Industrial agriculture now accounts for over half of America's water pollution. Two years ago, Pfiesteria outbreaks connected with wastes from industrial chicken factories forced the closure of two major tributaries of the Chesapeake and threatened Maryland's vital shellfish industry. Tyson Foods has polluted half of all streams in northwestern Arkansas with so much fecal bacteria that swimming is prohibited. Drugs and hormones needed to keep confined animals alive and growing are mainly excreted with the wastes and saturate local waterways.” YearsTwoAmericaWaterAnimalHalfAliveGrowingIndustryNeededDrugWasteMajorsYears AgoAccountsEnvironmentalConnectedLocalsStreamsTwo YearsChickensSwimmingFactoriesPollutionAgricultureThreatenedConfinedHormonesClosureTysonBacteriaArkansasTwo Years AgoOutbreaksMarylandShellfishWater PollutionNorthwestern Author:Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“Many years ago making movies was something. It was the major entertainment just to go to the cinema, once, twice a week. At the time, something like 400 million people went to the movies.” PeopleYearsMillionsWeekMajorsYears AgoEntertainmentCinema Author:Costa-Gavras
“A hundred years ago-even 20 or 30 years ago-it was possible, if not always easy, to close major business by calling on and satisfying a key decision-maker. Today, every piece of business entails multiple decisions, and those decisions are virtually never made by the same person. Not only do you have to contend with multiple decisions, but the people who make those decisions may not even work in the same place.” PeopleIfsYearsMayPersonsMadeTodayEasyDecisionPiecesKeysCallingMajorsHundredYears AgoMakersSatisfyingMultipleDecision Makers Author:Brian Tracy
“Speaking as someone who bought the party line for far too long, you would be amazed what you can believe if you keep convincing yourself the press, the libs, the universities - hell, everyone but a few on the religious fringe and big business - are out to get you. I was lucky - I started to snap out of this a couple of years ago and hopefully will now apply to both major parties the same skepticism and cynicism I had in the past reserved for Democrats.” IfsYearsBelieveLongBigsWould BePastReligiousLinesPartyHellCoupleLuckyMajorsYears AgoPressesDemocratUniversityHopefullyCynicismSkepticismAmazedConvincingFringeReservedSnapsBig BusinessConvincing Yourself Author:John Cole
“I don't know if there is an existing model that anyone can hold on to right now. Every [piece of] advice about how to go about in the record business you would get 5 years ago is no longer valid. Everything is changing very rapidly and there is an increased sense of anger and despair among artists that are not major-selling megastars.” IfsKnowsYearsArtistRecordsPiecesAdviceRight NowDespairMajorsModelsYears AgoSelling Author:Olof Arnalds
“That's been lost. It's a huge problem. What you have is you have the major institutions of the world all wanting to deleverage. They want to take down their assets and liabilities. What seemed so easy to borrow against a year ago now looks like rat poison to them. So they're trying to deleverage. There is only one institution in the world that can leverage up in a way that's all a countervailing force to that, and that's the United States Treasury.” WorldWayWantTryingYearsLooksStatesProblemLostForceEasyUnitedUnited StatesHugeMajorsYears AgoInstitutionsPoisonAssetsRatsTreasuryLiabilityAssets And Liabilities Author:Warren Buffett
“On both of my major trips to North Korea, the leaders of the country made it plain that they want to make progress towards doing away with nuclear weapons and towards ending the longstanding, official state of war which persists between North Korea and the United States and South Korea, a war which has continued since the ceasefire over fifty years ago. That sort of thing happens quite often when we meet with people who are kind of international outcasts with whom the government of the United States won't meet.” PeopleWantYearsKindMadeWarCountryStatesGovernmentHappensUnitedLeaderUnited StatesProgressMajorsWeaponsYears AgoSouthInternationalNuclearThings HappenMade ItOfficialsFiftyNuclear WeaponsPersistKoreaNorth KoreaOutcastSouth KoreaCeasefire Author:Jimmy Carter
“Entrepreneurship rests on a theory of economy and society. The theory sees change as normal and indeed as healthy. And it sees the major task in society – and especially in the economy – as doing something different rather than doing better what is already being done. This is basically what Say, two hundred years ago, meant when he coined the term entrepreneur.” YearsTwoDifferentDoneTermEconomyCreativeTheoryHealthyNormalMajorsHundredYears AgoTasksDestructionEntrepreneurEntrepreneurshipUpsetDeclarationDissentBeing DoneManifestosCreative Destruction Author:Peter Drucker
“Saudi Arabian oil production is at or very near its peak sustainable volume (if it did not, in fact peak almost 25 years ago), and is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future. There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption.” IfsWorldYearsFactsMajorsYears AgoProductionsOilQuantityDeclineConsumptionVolumeProbabilityArabiaSaudi ArabiaSaudisForecastsPetroleumArabianPeak OilOil Production Author:Matthew Simmons