You have the refugee crisis triggered by Syria. That's got a lot of costs associated with it. Domestically, budgets are incredibly tight because the economy's not generating the growth that makes for easy trade-offs.

Customers want high quality at low prices and they want it now.

Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.

A company needs to have good business reflexes, to be able to marshal its forces in a crisis or in response to any unplanned event.

Contrary to Piketty’s rentier hypothesis, I don’t see anyone on the [Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans] whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since. In America, that old money is long gone - through instability, inflation, taxes, philanthropy, and spending.

Success is a miserable teacher. It tempts intelligent people to believe they cannot lose. And it is an unreliable guide to the future.

Digital reading will completely take over. It's lightweight and it's fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.