America

"Early on we were predominantly European, with two thirds of our profits coming from this large, sophisticated market. Germany, Belgium, Norway and France led the way. We struggled with competitiveness in Italy and withdrew. The UK has been a disappointment. Skills are not what they were, energy is expensive, unions have been aggressive (unlike Germany, where the unions focus on encouraging employers to invest for future growth), although to be fair they have been much more constructive and willing to engage in proper discussions about the genuine health of our businesses over the last ten years, and the government has been uninterested or lacklustre at best. America has been resurgent on the back of world-beating energy costs and frankly fine management. Whereas Europe has slowly squeezed the life from much of its manufacturing base with carbon taxes, complex legislation, high labour and social costs, America has gone into overdrive."

"My parents never considered themselves poor or oppressed or downtrodden. Why should they have? They had ambition. They had hard work. They had each other. And they also had me, their first and only child, a brand-new generation to carry their dreams forward. America was the land of opportunity. Lucky for us, we were here."

"Go to North America to be a free man. Get a decent, nice job and earn a lot of money. If you have money, the world is yours; you can travel, live decently and enjoy arts, and you can further improve yourself. You can achieve these only if you live in a completely free country like America."

"Audacity, the principal ingredient in most informal and thus evolving organizations, is nowhere more evident than in guer- rilla warfare, which carries not knowing your place to the ulti- mate. Yet in every situation where guerrilla forces have been victorious because of the aggressiveness of local commanders— from colonial America to modern-day China, Algeria, Cuba— the next stage is so woefully predictable it has become a cliché: a hierarchy is formed, frozen in time, and fixed in place. While"

"André gave the character a voice, made him practice every sport, every profession, every clownish act. He inflated or deflated at will, smoked cigars, danced the waltz, transformed into a puppet, spoke in front of a blackboard. He conducted an orchestra in London, entered the arena in Spain, or participated in a rodeo in America. Always good-natured, full of humor, in dazzling form—thanks to the Michelin Exerciser—and devilishly pedagogical."

"“And since then, Keynes’s thought has continued to impregnate the entire liberal economy. Whereas in reality, Keynes had rendered the worst of services to America and the world. By artificially creating purchasing power, the link between the act and the consequences has been broken, and we have become accustomed to living in perpetual ‘cavalry.’"

"“And since then, Keynes’s thought has continued to impregnate the entire liberal economy. Whereas in reality, Keynes had rendered the worst of services to America and the world. By artificially creating purchasing power, the link between the act and the consequences has been broken, and we have become accustomed to living in perpetual ‘cavalry.’"

". Even if things go smoothly, China’s economy is likely to overtake America’s as the world’s largest, which will surely prompt more people to ask: *How did they do it? How did China advance so quickly, particularly in such complex areas as advanced electronics?* Some portion of the disquieting answer is that Apple taught them. Year in, year out, Apple took the most cutting-edge designs, processes, and technical understandings from around the world and scaled them in China. One supply chain expert even adopts the language of a crime scene as he considers the whodunit at the heart of China’s advances in electronics. Look around, he says, “There’s Apple DNA everywhere.”"

"In his seminal work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the Austrian-American economist and social theorist pessimistically predicted that the leaders of the free market would allow themselves to be converted to a creed hostile to their own existence because they would be unable to articulate a moral basis for free enterprise. In Washington, I became convinced that Schumpeter was right. America’s leading colleges and universities—the training ground for America’s leaders—were increasingly pro-socialist, pro-government regulation, and anti-capitalist in their philosophy, direction, and mission"

"Luxottica becomes the largest user of New York's John Fitzgerald Kennedy airport, where planes loaded with frames arrive from Italy to be immediately distributed to every corner of America."

"“This is a sympathetic film about a communist, and while you may think it’s amusing for a capitalist company to do this, I work for a protocapitalist, Charles Bluhdorn. I don’t talk to Charlie about decisions to make a movie or not make a movie, but for this one I have to. I can’t put Gulf + Western in a position of being taken by surprise by the controversy this film will cause.” We were still very much in the Cold War with the Soviet Union (it would be ten more years before it would collapse). When the idea was put to Bluhdorn, he surprised us by saying that of course Gulf + Western would support the movie. He said the greatest thing about America is its tolerance, even encouragement, of open discussion on any subject."

"“There was always a latent desire to do something on my own, to spend an interesting life. During my student days in America, I happened to see an enlarged photo of a computer chip in a science magazine."

"Jay Gatsby, however, discovers too late that only America's hereditary aristocracy can ignore the rules."

"The US launch has given the company’s staff a boost in confidence. Less than a week later, the first store in Spain opens. Over the following years, Stefan Persson cuts ribbons at new H&M stores in countries including Poland, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. H&M now sells more than five hundred garments per minute worldwide. And Stefan Persson has fulfilled his promise of reaching America."

"The way Middelhoff acquired the American publisher Random House for Bertelsmann is a legend in itself: Middelhoff flew to New York and delivered a powerful speech to the Jewish owners of the publisher. Almost like Heinz Berggruen when selling his collection to Germany, he built a "bridge of reconciliation" between America and Germany to seize a new historical opportunity: "That a German corporation will in the future take care of the legacy of Jewish literature and current Jewish writers.""

"The day after the press presentation, the planes were full. America was immediately won over: it was this battle that Dior wanted to win. If he had not made this bold move, the transatlantic market risked being lost. During the five years of war, the bridges had been broken between Paris and American fashion."

"They thought it was possible, but that it would be pretty hard. Importantly, however, they couldn’t see any complete show-stoppers. I thought, bugger it, my marriage is finished, I’ve got nothing much to do with my time, oh heck, I may as well have a decent go at this. If this invention is going to be useful anywhere, the obvious place is America. They’ve got the money, plenty of water and a love of freedom. So, almost straight away, in early April 1997, I hopped on a plane and flew to Detroit. I pulled out the Yellow Pages, found a joker who knew something about the car industry to be my guide and spent three months interviewing engineering consulting firms to develop this thing."