...Everyone has heard the saying; “nice guys always finish last,” at least once in their lifetime. Although it is commonly said, it doesn’t mean it’s correct; just because a person happens to be nice and a good moral person doesn’t mean they can’t lead a successful life. A general misconception is that it takes greed and selfishness in order to become wealthy, but that just isn’t so. It can be seen throughout society quite easily that one can be a first-class citizen without having to dive into the dark side, so easy that all one has to do is to drive through my cul-de-sac and meet my neighbors to see how wealth and a moral life are not mutually exclusive. One person that practically everyone in the world knows, has been keeping up with his morals while becoming one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates. Bill Gates, or most wealthy people should feel a strong obligation to give and sacrifice even just a small part of their wealth to those who happen to be less fortunate. I have been able to see from personal experience, how wealthy people are able to contribute to society in a positive manner. Livermore California is a suburban town in the San Francisco Bay Area and is my home. Through living here, I have been able to witness how the wealthy go about their lives. My father, Gregory, has been able to build himself a fair amount of wealth yet he has never broken the law, taken advantage of people or been greedy. Before we dive into Gregory’s moral accolades...
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...Delprøve 2 - A: The study in the relation between wealth and happiness is a rather complicated matter, as it is very difficult to precisely define personal happiness. The central question in this research and discussion is of course if being wealthy increases overall life happiness. 1. Text 1 describes, with basis in several studies, how economical success is very insignificant when it comes to personal happiness. Nonetheless, an increase in wealth does undeniably influence happiness, but it is on a much more superficial level, where personal and social success influence overall happiness in a deeper and more important manner. The text also points out that money largely influences the level of happiness only when the basic necessities are being established, but after this point future increase in income and materialistic goods are not connected to overall happiness in a significant way. The last view in the text emphasizes how we tend to pay attention to the wrong things in life, as we overestimate the value of money, instead of valuing personal and social wealth higher. The primary point in text 2 is that spending money on experiences instead of luxury goods is proved to produce longer-lasting satisfaction. The reason for this is that materialistic wealth tends to aim at outdoing others, as you would always want to have the bigger flat screen, the faster car and the newer cell phone, while it is less likely that you would compare your experiences in such a fashion....
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...Introduction The finest way of transforming today’s family standard to achieve its highest potential possible is through the means of effective educational system. Being freed from the oppression of illiteracy, gaining knowledge and skills, and a process of critical self-upgrading is the best art of building a progressive family. Pursuing adult learning as a community is one way of taking this advantage. Adult learning is the process where adults are engaged in systematic learning activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Modern family is, a group of people affiliated by recognized birth by marriage, or co-residence, which is developed in the middle of the 20th century in a period of stability. This modern family is more like the USA or Switzerland families which or of social reconstruction after the second world war (as for other European countries). The effect of adult learning in this modern family is the way that adult learning can alter the communities’ culture as a whole through instilling into individuals the purpose of learning, readiness of learning and the motivation to learn. I believe the foundation of every perfect and progressive society is the success story of the families that exist with in. Everyone has a specific purpose in life; everyone’s task is unique as is his specific opportunity to accomplish that very mission. Humans by nature have different interests and passions on diverse kind of paradigm that planet earth...
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...who the Proctors’ care about Elizabeth wants John to go to court to tell how Abigail and the girls were lying. Afraid of Abigail telling on the affair, John Proctor is very hesitant to go to Salem. After Elizabeth tells John to hurry up and decide whether he is going into town, “I have good reason to think before I charge fraud upon Abigail…” (Miller, 194). Proctor decides that trying to save Rebecca Nurse and the others will only lead to Abigail ruining his name. Proctor, after being left amuck at the whole situation, leaves his anger out on Mary Warren. These decisions Proctor made will have resurgence later in “The Crucible”. John Proctor makes many choices that effects how he is resembled to Salem and also himself. Shortly after Proctor refuses to go to court and tell on Abigail as fraud, Cheever takes Elizabeth to jail for suspicion of witchcraft. This is where Proctor makes a choice that is no petty. He threatens Mary Warren to go to court beside him and say that Abigail and the others are a fraud. Being extremely nervous in court,...
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...Warren Buffet Warren Buffet was born on August 30, 1930. He is one of the most financially and personally successful businessmen of our time. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate holding company, which is based with it;s headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska; Buffett's hometown. His net worth is around $60 billion, and increases with every passing minute. I chose to write about Warren Buffett because he is a person I have always been quite interested in. He is such an incredibly smart and savvy businessman, but he is also a philanthropist. Buffet (2006) announced that he planned to donate more than 80 percent of his wealth to a handful of private charitable foundations. He has gone against what many of the stock "experts" say about investing in fashionable trends. He has made a habit in his career to purchase undervalued stocks until they turn a profit. During his career, he has made several decisions regarding trades and stock choices, which have been highly doubted by analysts and other people in the business, but he chooses to stick to his plans, and comes up in top in the end. An obstacle that he had to face during his journey to success was the decline of the U.S. textile industry. When this happened, he chose to purchase insurance companies, and using its cash flow to become the owner of several other businesses. He even chose to purchase stocks in Coca-Cola when that particular stock was not favorable in 1998...
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...GEICO’s intrinsic value was larger than purchase value, Berkshire Hathaway’s intrinsic value increased, so the stock price went up. The $718 gain in Berkshire’s market value implied that investors thought that: GEICO was underestimated, Berkshire bought it with a cheap price. C) Total dividend is much larger than purchase price. In all, it is a super good investment. (3) About early investment in GEICO: (4) Convertible preferred stocks: A) Interest rates are very high (compare to the yield of the 30 year U.S. Treasury bond: 6.86%): about 9% on average. B) Most convertible preferred stocks’ market values are larger than par values. In all, they are very good investments. 3、 (3) Estimated method Discounted free flows of cash of the business: We estimate the future free cash flow of every year, and specify the discount rate, the discount rate maybe the long term bond’s yield or the average cost of equity. Then we can calculate the present value of the business. (4) Alternatives to intrinsic value are market value and book value. (5) Why Buffett rejects book value and market value: Book value only reflects the past history of a business’s net asset, it does not mean the business’s future earnings. Market value is not stable, it may be larger or smaller than the intrinsic value greatly. Range of possible intrinsic values for GEICO: 125/(1+ 11%)^5) = 74.18 Why the estimated cost of equity is so high? If we use 30 year ...
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...just promised its members a chance to earn $175 000 (R1.07 million) a year in free shares if certain targets are met over a three-year performance period. For the initial performance period, the goal is an 8 percent annual compounded increase in earnings a share. If the goal is met or exceeded, the outside directors will each receive the then value, in cash, of the free shares. If the goal is not met, the directors receive no pay at all. A new three-year performance period begins each year. Previously, Coca-Cola's outside directors received $125 000 a year in a combination of fees and free shares of Coca-Cola stock. On the surface, this looks to be a fine idea and was endorsed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who is retiring from Coca-Cola's board next week after 17 years. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is the company's biggest shareholder. Coca-Cola's directors will no longer be sitting on Mount Olympus judging the performance of their hired hands. From now on, directors will be sweating alongside the company's top managers, with everyone pulling like mad to reach a goal that is in the interests of shareholders. Sounds wonderful. What could possibly be wrong with this gutsy expression of pay-for-performance? Plenty, as it turns out. First, if directors are going to be paid solely on achieving performance goals, then it means they will have a vital stake in making sure those performance goals are...
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...Case 1: Warren Buffett 1995 Question 1: Warren Buffett's (Buffett) track record as a value investor and sheer financial strength has earned him an incredibly valuable reputation within the financial industry. Being an anomaly in the investment world; when he talks – the market follows. This is noticeably seen in the increase in equity of $718 million. ------------------------------------------------- Question 2: GEICO Outstanding shares April 30, 1995: 67.89 million, of which 34.22 million owned and 33.67 million purchased at $70; total price $2.3 billion. A Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) derived cost of equity equaled 10.99% percent via a risk-free rate of 6.86 percent, a beta of 0.75, and an equity risk premium of 5.5 percent. k = 6.86 + 0.75 ((5.5)) = 10.99% Using Value Line’s forecast & the above discount rate and share information: the following low end & high end NPV are calculated: Low end: -$335.57 High end: $389.89 For methodology in calculation of intrinsic value refer to ‘1995-Question 2’ in the accompanying “excel“spreadsheet for the analysis. Using Value lines cost of equity; the investment yields a negative Net Present Value (NPV) on the low end. The investment will not add value to the firm and the acquisition of GEICO doesn’t seem to be a good one. The high end range yields a positive NPV showing the investment rather is rather a prudent one. The discount rate used is highly subjective and is influenced by the risk premiums chosen...
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...Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Paper HSM/260 Ashley Turner August 26, 2012 Angela M. Jennings “Right now, just over 1 billion people—about 15 percent of the people in the world—live in extreme poverty. On most days, they worry about whether their family will have enough food to eat. There is irony in this, since most of them live and work on farms. The problem is that their farms, which tend to be just a couple acres in size, don’t produce enough food for a family to live on.” Bill Gates Bill and Melinda Gate believe in using their fortune and fortunate circumstances, to help others in the United States and in the world. They believe that when each person that lives in the United States, has the opportunity to develop their talents, society will thrive. They also want to help the rest of the world as well. Their Global Health Program harnesses advances in science and technology to save the lives of those in poor countries. They want to focus on the health problems that have a major impact in developing countries but are not getting enough attention and funding. Using the latest tools—seeds, vaccines, AIDS drugs, and contraceptives, for example, they have made impressive progress. “If we don’t make these success stories widely known, we won’t generate the funding commitments needed to maintain progress and save lives”, (Bill Gates Foundation, 2012). With the programs that have been funded and produced by Bill Gates and others on his developmental team, we can help...
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...Question 1: What is your interpretation of changes in stock prices of Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power Plc on the day of acquisition announcement? Answer: Deal announcement cause increment in share price of both Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power. The possible reason could be that the investor saw this deal as win-win situation for both the companies. The deal created value for both the company. Berkshire became more diversified and Scottish Power got good value from the deal. A possible reason for increase in share price of Scottish Power may be due to the fact investors saw this acquisition as good sign for Scottish Power and the deal taken as proof that Scottish power is in good condition. It is possible that the investors perceived potential synergies between PacifiCorp and MidAmerican. Question 2: Is the Berkshire's offer for Pacfic Corp was in line with the range of peer firm valuations? Answer: From Exhibit 10, we are able to see the following value for PacificCorp MV Equity as Multiple of: | Average Value | EPS | Book Value | | | | | 4,277 | 5,904 | 5090.5 | 4,308 | 5,678 | 4993 | In the case it is stated that the deal will take around 12 to 18 months to close. We will now calculate the PV of the deal. Risk free return rate as per case is 5.76% Beta for Berkshire is 0.75 The long term market return is 10.5% Cost of equity for Berkshire = 5.76+0.75(10.5-5.76) =9.32 % Using this...
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...Answer A 1. Give an outline of the views on the relation between wealth and happiness presented in texts 1 and 2 Text 1: Text 1 is written by David Brooks and it’s an op-ed column. He starts off by telling about Sandra Bullock’s life – she winning an Academy Award but also her husband being an “adulterous jerk”. He asks if anybody would trade publicity with having a personal life. He continues to happiness. If you have a successful marriage and you encounter a lot of personally setbacks, either on the job or financially you will remain happy. But if you have an unsuccessful marriage and you encounter a lot of happiness, financially or getting a promotion, you will remain “significantly” unfulfilled. Money can’t give you happiness. The United States is richer than it was 50 years ago but researches show that Americans aren’t any happier than 50 years ago. Even on a personal level if you win the lottery – you will be happier until you have bought your material goods, and you will go back to your old self. The activity that will make you the happiest is sex. Just as being married “produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year”. “Most people overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives” Text 2: Text 2 is written by Stephanie Rosenbloom and is an article. She starts off by telling about the economy, which is not very good. Consumers saved more than 4% more on their after-tax income then normal, which is alarming because...
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...Warren Buffet Charity & Community Involvement Charity Work Aside from Warren Buffets accomplishments as a successful investor, he has also demonstrated his ability to be an influential role model to those in his community through his involvement. One of the ways he does this is through his extensive donations to charity. Perhaps one of the largest donations that Warren Buffet has made throughout his career is to the Gates Foundation, which supports the improvement of health and education, mainly in poor countries. Buffet plans to donate $31 billion dollars to the Gates Foundation. This generous support will contribute to making the Gates Foundation the biggest and most successful organization of its kind. (New York Times, 2006). In addition, Buffet now serves as a trustee for the Gates Foundation. Another $6 billion in donations was given to charities such as the Susan Thompson Foundation, named after Buffets late wife, the Howard G. Buffet foundation, named after and run by Buffet’s son, the Susan A. Buffet foundation which is run by Buffet’s daughter and finally the NoVo Foundation which is run by Buffet’s other son Peter. These charities cover a variety of causes dealing with abortion rights, environmental issues, educational opportunities for low income children, anti-nuclear proliferation issues and human rights. (New York Times, 2006). In addition to Buffet’s donations to privately owned charities, his leadership capabilities are also demonstrated in his charity work...
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...John F. Kennedy Assignation and the Insufficient Investigation Student Name SS310-19: Exploring the 1960s - An Interdisc. Approach Teacher’s Name May 01, 2012 Introduction There have been many events over the years that influence the world. One in particular was the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Many events that have occurred since can be traced back to the Assassination. After 49 years the world is still questioning the facts of the assassination. There have been many investigation yet the questions are still there. Section one President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1962. President Kennedy was shot during a motorcade ride through Dallas, Texas. The President’s motorcade had just entered Dealey Plaza when several shots were aimed at the President. President and Mrs. Kennedy and Texas Governor and Mrs. Connally were passengers in the Presidential Limousine along with two Secret Service agents. Governor Connally was seriously wounded during the shooting. The President was taken to Parkland Hospital where efforts to save his life were unsuccessful. The President was pronounced dead 30 minutes after the shooting. There were hundreds of people in the Dealey Plaza that day to see the President and First Lady as their car passed by. Many spectators with their cameras were there to capture a once in a lifetime chance to see the President and Mrs. Kennedy. These people were witness to one of the biggest events in American History...
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...Learning how to live within your means can sometimes be through trial and error.Being thrifty and living frugal will soon become quite popular among our society. Learn from someone with experience and who can show you how to live a quality of life that will not hurt ones's pocket. Having success of being thrifty takes time and experience. Living frugal has been a challenging skill for the working middle class; which includes myself; we need thrifty success. Due to the economy, I have been trying to find ways of keeping more money in my pocket; at the same time,financially being able to keep my living expenses to a minimum. I have analyzed each individual living expense. In each category, I have found avenues of getting the best out of every buck we spend on living expenses. Most of the time household financial management is a sink or swim. Fortunately, budgeting does not require a fancy college degree. Basic arithmetic is the basic requirement of successful money management and living frugal. As we all know, the working class literally works paycheck to paycheck. It is good to have a emergency cushion if an unexpected major expense happens. I know everyone does not have $100,000 just sitting around to be waited on for an unexpected expense. I learned a long time ago for my grandmother that it is always good to save something even if it is just five dollars. That five dollars that you save every week by week or every time you get paid, adds up if you look at the sum...
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...Warren E.Buffett, 1995 一、個案簡介 1995 年 8 月 25 日，Berkshire Hathaway 公司的執行長華倫˙巴菲特將收購 GEICO 公司尚未取得的 49.6%股權，並以高於市價 26%，每股 70 美元的價格溢 價收購，震驚市場。雖無法證明此項收購案對 Berkshire Hathaway 有任何實質 上的貢獻，但其股價立刻上揚，市值也顯著增加。 關於華倫˙巴菲特 一位名聲顯赫的投資奇才，締造出有史以來最佳的投資績效(1965~1994 平 均報酬率為 28%)。一旦投資錯誤便迅速對外承認，和作為一位優秀的執行長， 其低調和不凡的風範獲得許多人的愛戴。在哥倫比亞大學就讀碩士期間，發展出 一套價值投資法的哲學，不同於一般商管學校所教授的財務投資理論，並是他能 夠獲得非凡成就的主因。 巴菲特的投資哲學 價值投資法的基礎在於尋找出價值被低估的股票，巴菲特在哥倫比亞大學時 期首次接觸到這個概念，備將此法予以調整，把其他市場未明確給定價值的各項 因素皆包括進價值評估範圍內，如經銷權、品牌資產等。 Berkshire Hathaway 公司形容自身為“一間擁有多元化業務分支機構的控股公司”，涵蓋的業務群 有保險事業、報社、衣料、家庭用品、傢具、糖果批發商等。Berkshire Hathaway 採取相當嚴格的併購策略，列出多項標準，比如必須展現長期的營利能力、沒有 負債、自主管理、給定的價格等。 GEICO 為一家保險公司，Berkshire Hathaway 持續的收購 GEICO 的股票，雖有受 到通貨膨脹及意外率上升的負面影響，但整體而言有不斷的成長。巴菲特提出三 點作為收購 GEICO 的理由：其一，GEICO 為美國第七大汽車保險業者；其二， 資深經理人的投資型態與巴菲特相近，可望在未來延續公司的一貫性；最後，為 該產業中成本最低者。 二、分析與討論 1. Berkshire Hathaway 投資 GEICO 後，因為市場訊息不對稱，當日股價即上 揚 2.4%，公司整體市值的上升也是此項投資帶來的正面影響。此外，本組推斷 巴菲特雖無執行重大實際改革 GEICO 的計畫，卻願意付出 26% 溢價的原因還有 兩個。一為 GEICO 本身的隱含價值，即其剩餘 49.6%股權的價值與當時實際股 價相比，金額更高，所以 Berkshire Hathaway 願意以溢價收購，反映此公司的 真實股價。二為 Berkshire Hathaway 本身在購買剩餘股票前已經持有 GEICO 的 50.4%股權，當其買下剩餘股票時，原先其所持有的股票價值實質也具有 premium，可藉此拉抬 50.4%本身持有的價值。綜合以上兩點，推得 Berkshire Hathaway 既覺得買進的股票確有其價值，買進本身已持有股份公司的剩餘股票 拉抬本身股票，也能夠為本身股票增值，有一舉兩得的效果。 而由訊息公布後市值的增長高達 7 億 1,800 萬美元，我們可藉由以下算式推 估 GEICO 的隱含價值 P： 718 Million = [34.25 Million × ($70 − $55.75) ] + [67.9 Million × (P − $70)] 得 P 為 73.38641。也就是 Berkshire Hathaway 以超乎市場行情的價格買下 GEICO 剩餘股票，相當於對市場送出訊息，表示他們認為 GEICO 當下股價是被 低估的，而同時市場對此事的反應讓 GEICO 的隱含價值達每股 73.38641...
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