Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930) is
an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. Buffet is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway[5] and consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008[6] and as the third wealthiest person in 2011.[7] In 2012, American magazine Time named Buffett one of the most influential people in the world.[Wikipedia)
Below are some of his most famous quotations:
1. ON SPENDING.
If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.
2. ON TAKING RISK.
Never test the depth of a river with both feet.
3. ON INVESTMENT.
Do not put all eggs in one basket
4. ON EXPECTATIONS.
Honesty is a very expensive gift. Do not expect it from cheap people.
Your turn. 1. Pick up one of these adages and explain how it has applied to you in a certain moment of your life. Tell us about your experience.
2. How does the adage apply in economics? Give an example.
Never test the depth of a river with both feet: It means don't throw yourself entirely into a situation if you don't know what is happening. For example, many people because of lack of money choose to go to work abroad without first inquire what company it is about and if it even exists. So they can get there and discover that actually have no secure job or they are subjected to work hard and they are not paid. So they have spend lot of money to get there and finally they are very sorry.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, but I think that it also means that you should always leave room for other possibilities, opportunities. Not knowing your new company doesn't necessarily means that you encounter something bad, but in the same time it doesn’t necessarily means that it covers all of your needs. So that's why I think you should never "put your entire money on the same horse".
DeleteDo not put all eggs in one basket: this applies in economics, in business very well because if you want to make an investment you can not risk all your money in one company, because if the company goes bankrupt you lose all your investment. The idea is to put your money in several company and if one fails you still have another investment and you do not risk everything in one single opportunity. In conclusion, you can not risk all for one thing specially in economics so do not put all eggs in one basket.
ReplyDeleteHonesty is a very expensive gift. Do not expect it from cheap people. In my opinion honesty is a gift that everybody is born, the people choose to keep it or not. Nowadays in our society there are many people who succeeded in their business through honesty but there are people who believe that it is better to be dishonest in order to gain more money in their business. I think that a cheap man is a man without honesty (dishonest) which sooner or later he will pay for his lack of honesty.
ReplyDeleteDo not put all eggs in one basket: Thinking on instrument, this quote warns us not to put all our money in one business, because it can be risky to lose everyting.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, we have to invest money carefully.
It would be the most appropiate to invest less of our economies in several places or business. Because if I have bad luck that one of them to fail, other will help us recover our lasses.
In conclusion, we have to think 10 times before investing money in someting.
Hi Georgiana,
Deletewelcome to the class blog. It would be nice if you could customize your gmail account with a photo.Looking forward to it!
Hello teacher,
DeleteThanks for the welcome! I customise my gmail account with a photo, but i don't know why not see. Ihope to display on the following comment!
Ok, now can you join this site? Look at the sign on the right above. You can use the same photo.
DeleteFinally YES, my photo appear on the blog .
DeleteThanks!
Yes, Georgiana, this is the photo you uploaded when you created your Google account.
DeleteNow you have to Join this site! On this page, up, right hand corner you will see this button. Click on it and follow the steps. Then your photo will also appear in the Members section together with those of other students.
Never test the depth of a river with both feet. Thinking about the vast majority of people who would do anything to earn a living, we are always exposed to the risk of fall for those employers who promise a big salary for a thiny job. And when a person is hired is subject to heavy work without the promised money. Sometimes we feel trapped without something to do and we jump on the first occasion thet comes to us, then realizing thet we've made a huge mistake. We have to first think, than act.
ReplyDeleteIoana,
DeleteI couldn't help correcting some of your recurrent errors: thAt and "We have to think first (word order), thEn act".
I can tell you of an experience that I had regarding this quot, but the problem was that I didn't know it at the time. It was back in 2010, I ended up winning a lot of money on betting on the World Cup over the course of the championship and in the semifinals I decided to go all the way. I putted everything I had on one mach and I lost it all..
ReplyDeleteHow does this adage apply to economics? Just don't invest all in one thing, invest in all sorts of stuff and always have a back-up plan.
Actually your experience has to do with economics, more specifically personal investment.
DeleteClau, can I challenge you to find some spelling errors you've made in your comment above?
Well well, I read my comment several times and I didn't find any mistakes. If there is an error I think it has something to do with "I putted.." it doesn't sound very good :P
DeleteThat's right, it's "put" even in the past. And two typos, I hope. See them?
Delete"Honesty is a very expensive gift. Do not expect it from cheap people."
ReplyDelete1. Cheap people don't really have good values in life, thus, they do not appreciate sincerity.
I had a friend in high school who was always complaining about not having enough money for our activities, clothes, books, for not having a caring family and so on. I used to feel sorry for her, sympathize her and help her every way I could. The end was that when she found somebody who had the possibility to help her more that I did, she just "dumped me"! :) Finally, I discovered she was not even that unfortunate, but more with a lack of total honesty! :)
2. A good business needs a great management. The future success of managers and leaders centers on their ability to develop and sustain the levels of trust and honesty in an organisation and its leadership.
I pick up the second adage because this is full of true for me. People should always have a plan B in every situation because the life can change in every second. It happened to be prepared for something but most of the times I fell down I tested the depth of the problem with both feet and I wasn’t prepared for a change.If you have a business, don't invest all your money only in an area and develop more.In this way you avoid to lose everything.
ReplyDelete'If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.'
ReplyDeleteThe advertising industry is filled with offers on goods that we don't need. And thanks to this industry we buy them, and start thinking that we just can do without them. So, in order to get those unneeded goods, and be happy as the people in the comercials, we must sell some things.
The things that we sell are not allways tangible, they are not always things.
We could 'sell' our health for working extra hours to get the money, to get the things. The time we spend with our family or friends might suffer also for those extra hours. And don't we all need our health, family or friends? It's better not to sell these.
A good advice when you want to buy something expensive, is to wait a few days, and see if you still need it. You might change your mind...
Yes, Renate, if only we were that wise when shopping. The last time I returned home with something I did not need was this week - a piece of clothing! Has it happened to you?
DeleteI'm not that strong, I hardly can say no to something pretty, especially if it's on sale.
DeleteYou can be attracted by some things that are on offer(for exemple: you buy a thing and the second one is free) and when you see thst offer you buy it, even if you don't need it, because its price took your eyes. This type of offer can happen to a company and when that company must buy something that it needs, it doesn't have money for buy it because it bought something else it didn't need.
ReplyDeleteHonesty is a very expensive gift. Do not expect it from cheap people.
ReplyDeleteHonesty it is not an expensive gift, because everyone receive it, the main problem it is that they do not know how to apprecied that gift and they throw it away. And that`s how they become "cheap people". A "cheap people" it is a person that has no self-respect, in that case we couldn`t expect honesty and respect from them, they will always search to dessappoint us. For exemple it is very imporatant to trust our emplyees, because a worker of disbelief or a liar can bring down the entire company.
2. I understand from the second sentence that if we test the depth of a river with both feet is a figure of speech, that applies in economics well, because if we want to put for example all our money in a investment and don't have left nothing else, if that investment will not go right we will not have nothing left, and it's very dangerous to do that.
ReplyDeleteAlexandru,
DeleteI appreciate your comments but I hope you learn something as well:
- an investment
- don't have anything left (we cannot use two negations in one sentence, as we do in Romanian)
- if that investment does not work (we cannot use "will" in "if"clauses)
- we will not have anything left (again double negation)
"Never test the depth of a river with both feet." It`s always better to check before you trust. In any situations of life, family, friends, jobs or anything else you must be prepared for the worst, but fight for the best. And is always good to have a "B" plan.
ReplyDeleteI like a lot this qoutation:'' if you buy things you do not need,soon you have to sell things you need''
ReplyDeleteNowadays is very important to be attentive on what you spend you money.There are so many things that invite you to buy it,and makes you think that they can be indispensable in your life,but indeed they are useless and don't help you.The marketing area is developpd and steal your eyes and then your minde just on theirs benefits.I gave you just a small example with a woman who likes a lot doing shopping and always she buy a lots of make-ups. Her pleasure is to spend money on this kind of things till one day when she realise that she has so many useless things and decided ton sell a part of her mke-ups.She prepared a thousand of products for selling but she forgot the mirror.In fact she needed that mirror,it was the object she use it every day.One cliente came and wanted to buy some make-ups but also the mirror.Then the women said she didn't have a mirror,only one that she use it every day.The condition to sell her make-ups was to sell it with a mirror,so she sold her unique mirror and than she though how stubborn she was till that day.She bought only things she didn't use it.
The same happens in economy,the state focus on minor thing,they do the bridges but not the roads.