Europe

"Whereas we have seen the carbon tax ‘stick’ in Europe, which has emphatically failed to work, we now have a ‘carrot’ in the USA called the Inflation Reduction Act. Almost half a trillion dollars of government grants and assistance are now in place to attract the world’s best green energies and technology to the USA. If you wish to invest in hydrogen, carbon capture, solar or wind, head west, young man."

"Remember, nuclear energy is not only green, it emits no carbon emissions, it also has virtually no variable costs and hence once built is extremely competitive. The major growth spurts in the world economy in the last two centuries can be clearly correlated with step changes in energy cost. Europe today finds itself unable to be competitive in steel, cement, plastics and ammonia (fertilizer) – the bedrock of a strong economy. The USA is the reverse."

"China and the Middle East are regions where our ambitions have grown. Whereas Europe, and particularly the UK, are squeezing the life blood out of manufacturing, with overburdened legislation and excessive energy costs, stemming from poor energy policies, China has blossomed. In its pursuit of self-sufficiency, it has built an immense industrial infrastructure of the highest quality. To illustrate, if you take ABS plastic, which is useful for car dashboards and refrigerators, amongst myriad other uses, China was barely a player in 1990, with a trivial market…"

"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."

"BYD was founded in 1995 and is a private high-tech enterprise. At the beginning of its establishment, BYD had only 20 employees and was virtually unknown in Shenzhen, a city filled with many enterprises. However, unexpectedly, 14 years later, it developed into a high-tech private enterprise listed in Hong Kong. Now, BYD has built nine major production bases in Guangdong, Beijing, Shaanxi, Shanghai, and other places, covering nearly 7 million square meters in total area, and has branches or offices in the United States, Europe, Japan, and other places, with a total of more than 130,000 employees and total assets of nearly 35 billion yuan."

"Contradiction between its isolation and its global dynamism. Located in a hard-to-access region (Clermont will likely not be connected to Paris by highway before the end of this decade), far from car manufacturers, major universities, financial institutions, and national and European political assemblies, Michelin nevertheless manages to find in this loyalty to its roots the sources of its originality, strength, and common sense. Its expansion is largely explained by this fierce determination to draw fully and abundantly from its own earthy and rural roots."

"He is the first industrialist in this century to aim to become the largest shareholder of a bank in Europe, which are now almost always public companies with dispersed control, led by managers more comfortable managing international funds than local entrepreneurs."

"He thinks New Zealanders’ aversion to the sharemarket goes back to the 1987 crash, which was for New Zealand like the global financial crisis of 2008–09 was for the US and Europe. ‘The GFC brought America and Europe to their knees whereas in New Zealand, partly because of good economic management by the government at the time and partly because we had already made structural changes to our economy after the ’87 crash, we fared better than most.’ For New Zealanders, he thinks the psychological effect of the crash was so severe that it reminded him of people in the post-war era who were so traumatised by what they had been through that they vowed to never buy a Japanese-made camera or car. ‘I think there are people who were so badly affected by the crash that they vowed never again to invest in shares. Thirty years later the psychological effects are still there, though a new generation who did not personally suffer might now be more open to the idea.’"

"One role I decided not to play myself was chef. Though I had fantasized early on about leading the kitchen (and in fact had seen being a chef as my only legitimate avenue into the business), it increasingly dawned on me that as much as I loved to cook, I was much more suited to becoming a restaurant generalist. My culinary education in Europe had provided the necessary foundation with which to communicate clearly about food with chefs in their own language."