Investment Week (June 14)
A charity lunch with Warren Buffet sold for a record $2.63 million on eBay. All told, some 77 bids were placed for this lunch at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse on New York’s Third Avenue. The winning bid was anonymous. The auction benefits the Glide Foundation, a charity Buffet has supported annually with similar auctions. The previous high bid for a Buffet lunch was $2.1 million in 2008.
Tags: Charity, Record, Warren Buffet
The Times—London (June 12)
The Times says the International Whaling Commission (IWC) “must suspend any vote until it has established all the facts.” The vote refers to lifting the moratorium on whaling. The facts refer to alleged “grubby dealings” by Japan to buy votes “with overseas aid, cash payments in envelopes and the offer of prostitutes.”
Financial Times (June 11)
The rumbling in the world’s “assembly plant” is healthy. Striking Chinese workers are merely doing what has been done in “every successful east Asian country.” Rising wages are “a natural consequence of the country’s development and of the operation of labour markets.“ Both worker skill and productivity have increased throughout China, making it “entirely natural for pay… to rise to reflect those returns.”
Tags: China, Productivity, Strikes, Wages