As Cline points out, Buffet resembles Bill Gates who when asked about Christianity said that he is not a believer and does not attend church regularly, but finds the moral teachers of Christianity useful and inspiring (Cline 2006). Is this so bad? Both of them can teach most people about the need to work, save money and then give back to the society that nurtured them.

This seeming dispute between faith and reason is hardly new and is an illusion that is easily dispelled. After all, Christianity did not come out of a box with Luther's theses in 1517. The seeds had already been planted in the High Middle Ages/Early Renaissance as learning revived in the wake of the Crusades. This cultural awakening of the High Middle Ages raised issues that scholars such as the great Thomas Aquinas wrestled with in his classical Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica. He held…...

Warren E. Buffett, 1995
There are several assumptions Warren Buffett might have made when he purchased GEICO. He is famed for saying that acquiring executives think of themselves as beautiful princesses whose kisses will turn 'frogs' -- underperforming companies -- into handsome princes. Believing they can "release the imprisoned princes" (Hambrick & Hayward, 1997, p. 103+). He also said that he'd observed many kisses but very few miracles.

Why, then, might he have bought GEICO, a company admittedly perking along just fine without him, especially considering the acquisition premiums. In view of the increase in share price, it is likely Buffett was relying on the target's pre-existing stock price inadequately reflecting the value of the firm's resources and its prospects. This has been called hubris by some analysts, but it is hubris only if it fails. In the case of Buffett, it did not fail.

In fact, Buffett may have been operating from…...

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References

Colvin, G. (1992, June 1) Champion pay for a nonchamp CEO. Fortune. Retrieved October 9, 2005 from www.highbeam.com.

Hambrick, D.C. And M.L.A. Hayward. (1997) Explaining the Premiums Paid for Large Acquisitions: Evidence of CEO Hubris, Administrative Science Quarterly, 42 (1), 103+. Retrieved October 9, 2005 from www.questia.com.

Henry, J. (1998, November). Buffett in Buffalo, Columbia Journalism Review, p. 58. Retrieved October 9, 2005 from www.questia.com.

How Buffett cleaned up Salomon. (1994, June 20) U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved October 9, 2005 from www.highbeam.com.

Roger Lowenstein's Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist which is the biography of arren Buffett. In addition to the actuarial math (of which Buffett is a master), the book is unique among biographies because it spells out the various qualities that have made Buffett such an adroit investor.
However, in the opinion of this author, the best quality that he manifested is the quality any good investor must have, which is to go long. hile Buffett has a number of remarkable abilities, including a veritable inexhaustible appetite for numbers and a photographic memory, many people do not have these and still become rich. The thing that Buffett shares with so many investors is this ability to invest for the long-term. In short, he is not a day trader. Rather, he is investing in businesses that he has made a commitment to. He wants to see them grow and is…...

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Works Cited

Lowenstein, R. (1996). Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist. New York, NY: Broadway

Books.

Warren Buffett is widely regarding as one of the greatest investors of all-time. As the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, he commands an empire that encompasses railroads, candy, homebuilders, and underwear. His company now has a market cap of over $ billion and is widely considered one of the best run companies in the world. Every year, Warren holds his annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Here over 100,000 participants fly from around the world to listen to Warren Buffetts advice. During this over 6 hour sessions, participants ask a litany of questions that range from investment advice to life advice. Much of this advice is almost always posted on prominent financial websites and publications.Warren Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1930. He developed an early interest in investing through his father, who was a stock broker and an eventual congressman. Warren often read books in the public library related…...

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References1. Robert G. Hagstrom, Jr.. The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Greatest Investor. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1994. 274pp.2. Robert Heller. Warren Buffett. New York: Dorling Kindersley. 2000. 112pp.3. Andrew Kilpatrick. Warren Buffett: The Good Guy of Wall Street. Donald I. Fine. 1995. 304pp.4. Andrew Kilpatrick. Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett. Andy Kilpatrick Publishing Empire. 1996. 730pp.5. Roger Lowenstein. Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. New York: Random House. 1995. 473pp.6. A. M. Panrolling. Warren Buffett: An Illustrated Biography of the World\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Most Succesful Investor. John Wiley & Sons. 2004.

In fact, Lampert is cited as still frequently drawing his top picks from consulting the shareholder letters of Buffet, and drawing from Buffet's advice to guide him in his own investment decisions.
arren Buffet is famed as the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Like Buffett, Lampert is said to seek investments in "stable businesses with predictable income streams that have very strong brands," that are currently suffering troubled fortunes but are not fundamentally misguided in their core brand concepts (eiss, & DiStefa 2007). For example, in his own investment strategies, Buffet resisted the dot.com boom and bust, by and large, and so did Lampert. Buffet prefers companies that are traditional blue chips that produce products you can see, touch, and can count upon to build a customer base steadily, over time.

Likewise, Lampert has staked his reputation upon companies such as Kmart and Citigroup, amongst others, which were experiencing difficulty…...

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Works Cited

Irwin, Neil. (24 Mar 2005). "Merger approved, Sears-Kmart can focus on reshaping stores." The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 Apr 2008 at  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64648-2005Mar24.html 

Weiss, Miles & Joseph N. DiStefa. (16 May 2007). "Lampert's ESL Fund holds $800 million Citigroup stake." Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 9 Apr 2008  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&refer=us&sid=ai5qQcW6SJTI

Unleashing Human Potential: Treating People Like People.
The idea that one can accurately predict the future performance of an organization based on a given set of variables is a very fascinating proposition. In many ways it's no different than gambling on a professional football team. In both cases the key variable or determining factor is personnel. The company with the shrewd, "vivid spirited" CEO and the out-of-the-box thinking sales team has the greatest chance of success, as does the football team with the uber-accurate star quarterback and the injury-resistant running back (Fisher).

This should, of course, come as no surprise. In theory it makes perfect sense. However, in practice, in the real world, prognosticating success is not that easy. For one thing, corporations do not operate in a vacuum. There are external forces in play, many of which are beyond a corporation's control, that affect their capacity to perform at maximum…...

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Works Cited

AUTHOR? 2010 Sustainability in Key Professions: Accounting: An Action Research

Program Final Report, Macquarie University, NSW 2109.

Fisher. (n.d.), 'The People Factor -- The Second Dimension' PUBLISHER/JOURNAL

pp. 197-202.

Charitable Contributions and Tax Benefits
Unfortunately, much of the elite of the upper class are afforded leeway and loopholes on tax obligations that allow them to pay much less percentage wise than other taxpayers in different income brackets. Much of this is due to the ability to use tax deductions, like charitable contributions in large amounts, to lower their annual personal incomes before taxes. However, many of the top contributors to charity donate above the maximum allowances for charitable deductions, showing a clear resolution to give based on ethics, rather than for the sole purpose of tax deductions alone,

Bill Gates is currently one of the top money makers in the world, yet he is also one of the largest contributors to charitable institutions as well. The amounts of donations Bill Gates contributes to various charities, including his own charitable foundation, is well over the top end limit of what is allowed…...

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References

Kim, Susana. (2011). Warren Buffett reveals 'billionaire friendly' tax return. ABC News. Web.  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/10/warren-buffett-reveals-billionaire-friendly-tax-return/ 

Jacob, Deborah. (2011). Charitable giving by Steve Jobs may forever remain a mystery. Forbes. Web.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2011/10/06/charitable-giving-by-steve-jobs-may-forever-remain-a-mystery/ 

Mail Foreign Service. (2010). Bill Gates makes the world's biggest ever single charitable donation worth 6.2 billion pounds for vaccines for children. Mail Online. Web.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247067/Bill-Gates-makes-worlds-largest-charitable-6bn-vaccines-poor-children.html 

Squatriglia Chuck & Espinosa-Solis, Suzanne. (2000). Intel co-founder sets up $5 billion foundation: Gordon Moore Foundation. San Francisco Chronicle. Web. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Intel-Gordon-Moore-Foundation.htm

Diversification
How important is it for you to diversify your investment portfolio? How would you diversify your investment portfolio?

Although 'the stock market' is often spoken of as a collective entity, in reality it is made up of a many different types of industry subsets. Furthermore, stocks are not the only assets investors should have: bonds, CDs, and more conservative and risky investments make up the full 'buffet' of available ways to allocate funds. The right 'menu' of investments will vary depending upon the investor's age, comfort with risk, goals, and other factors. "To build a diversified portfolio, an investor should look for assets whose returns haven't historically moved in the same direction, and, ideally, assets whose returns move in the opposite direction. This way, even if a portion of your portfolio is declining, the rest of your portfolio is designed to be growing. Thus, you can potentially offset the impact of…...

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References

The pro's guide to diversification. (2013). Fidelity Investments. Retrieved from:

 https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/guide-to-diversification 

Risk and return: Diversification. (2013). PreMBA test. Retrieved from:

http://ci.columbia.edu/ci/premba_test/c0332/s6/s6_5.html

Diversification
Portfolio diversification as a form of risk management is one of the cornerstones of modern investment theory. According to the theory, the ideally-diversified portfolio is 'deeply diversified' within each asset class and also 'broadly diversified' across all the asset classes within the portfolio (Simon 2010:2). Asset classes consist of "stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, precious metals and collectibles;" forms of market capitalization (micro-, small-, mid- and large-cap); style; sectors; industry types; and geography (Portfolio diversification, 2012, Investing in mutual funds). The objective of diversification is that "risk has virtually been eliminated within each class" by combining lower and higher-risk assets (Portfolio diversification, 2012, Investing in mutual funds). Theoretically, the perfectly diversified portfolio should incur no additional risks to the investor greater than what is posed by the general market conditions. There is always risk in investment, but portfolio management is designed to minimize the risk.

To achieve this objective, modern…...

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Bibliography

Buffet, Warren. 1965. Letter to partners. Value Investing World. Accessed:

  [17 Aug 2012]http://www.valueinvestingworld.com/2007/08/warren-buffett-on-diversification-1966.html 

Calmar ratio definition. 2012. Investopedia. Accessed:

  [17 Aug 2012]http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/calmarratio.asp#axzz23nrArUdJ 

Business Critical Thinking
To whom it may concern:

'Logically speaking...' How often do we say this simple phrase? There is a presumption that logic is not only good, but that the human mind can easily calculate the pros and cons of most decisions. However, the human brain did not evolve to naturally gravitate to an emotion-free, Spock-like way of evaluating options. "hen people face an uncertain situation, they don't carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on mental short cuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. The short cuts aren't a faster way of doing the math; they're a way of skipping the math altogether" (Lehrer 2011). The sooner we admit this, the better we can cope with the challenges with which life presents us; the sooner a business organization admits this, the better it can guard against irrationality, or at least plan for…...

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Works Cited

Gabor, Deborah. "Deirdre McCloskey's market path to virtue." Strategy + Business. 43 (2006)

[4 Jul 2012]  http://www.strategy-business.com/article/06211?pg=2 

Holt, Jim. "Two brains running." The New York Times. 27 Nov 2011. [4 Jul 2012]

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

America- Democracy or Plutocracy?
The United States of America is often hailed as the first and greatest modern democracy in the world. Most Americans believe that the United States is the example the rest of the world should emulate, and that it offers its citizens the power to make decisions through its free and fair elections. Yet at the same time, others say that the United States of America has ceased to be a democracy and instead become a plutocracy. A plutocracy is a state that is ruled by the wealthiest people, rather than by free and fair elections in which all citizens have an equal voice. Recent political developments have caused fear from those who believe the United States is moving toward plutocracy, but at the same time, other equally important developments have shown that it remains, at least for the time being, a democracy.

Although the United States has a…...

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Works Cited

"The Court's Blow to Democracy." Editorial. The New York Times. January 21, 2010. Web. April 26, 2011.

"Health Care Reform." The New York Times. . March 4, 2011. Web. April 27, 2011.

Rolnik, Guy. "Warren Buffet: The U.S. is moving toward plutocracy." TheMarker.com. March 4, 2011. Web. April 27, 2011.

Tremblay, Rodrigue. "The United States of Corporate America: From Democracy to Plutocracy." Global Research Canada. January 22, 2010. Web. April 26, 2011.

S. It too had run into a deep recession and too sought ways out of it by considering tax options. In a similar way, both candidates running for the South Korean presidency in the 2012 presidential elections vowed to "to prioritise "national reconciliation," better "economic democracy" and social welfare" (BBC News (17 December 2012) South Korea's presidential candidates) and to do this via easing South Korea's income gap between rich and poor by adjusting tax burden appropriately. No wonder, that U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated her and stated that he "is looking forward to working closely with her administration on issues of mutual concern" (ibid). The two nations currently have a lot in common and Ms. Park seems to be treading the path that Obama has in mind.
Conclusion

Our recent recession goes by various names. It is called, in turn, the Great ecession, the Lesser Depression, the Long ecession, and the…...

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References

Condon, S. (December 19, 2012) the middle-class tax hikes in Obama's "fiscal cliff" plan. CBS News.

Grosz, D. (Dec 19, 2012) Rich Make Out Like Bandits in Fiscal-Cliff Negotiations. The Daily Beast

 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/19/rich-make-out-like-bandits-in-fiscal-cliff-negotiations.html 

 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57559974/the-middle-class-tax-hikes-in-obamas-fiscal-cliff-plan/

ehavioral Finance and Human Interaction a Study of the Decision-Making
Processes Impacting Financial Markets

Understanding the Stock Market

Contrasting Financial Theories

Flaws of the Efficient Market Hypothesis

Financial ubbles and Chaos

The stock market's dominant theory, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been greatly criticized recently for its failure to account for human errors, heuristic bias, use of misinformation, psychological tendencies, in determining future expected performance and obtainable profits.

Existing evidence indicates that past confidence in the EMH may have been misdirected, as the theory's models do not show a thorough understanding of trading operations in a realistic light.

Researchers have suggested that a variety of anomalies and inconsistent historical results demand that traditional financial theories, namely the EMH, be reconstructed to include human interaction as a key decision-making process that directly affects the performance of financial markets.

This research paper aims to determine whether or not there is a need for a refined financial model that incorporates the…...

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Bibliography

Barrett, Larry. (January, 2001). Emotional investing a recipe for disaster. CNET News.com.

Bernstein, Peter. (1998). Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Brennan, Phil. (March 12, 2002) The Great Stock Market Scam. NewsMax.com.

Business Week. (September 29, 1997) The Perils of Investing Too Close to Home.

Coca-Cola Company. Specifically it will discuss and analyze the case study, including relevant facts and recommendations regarding the study. Coca-Cola is one of the most well-known and famous brands in the world, and it has been in existence since the late 1800s. This case study indicated that it faced several ethical issues in the last decade that eroded its credibility and created strife inside and outside the company.
Facts

The facts of Coca-Cola are legendary. One writer notes, "Both the Coca-Cola brand and company took an early lead in the soft-drink industry, for the brand achieved national distribution early on and the company has consistently dominated the industry" (Wolburg, 2003). Coca-Cola is one of the world's leading soft drink manufacturers, and they sell their product in at least 200 countries worldwide. They were the leading soft drink company for decades, and their main rival is PepsiCo, who they have been engaged…...

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References

Author Unknown. The Coca -- Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises.

Dubinsky, A.J., Nataraajan, R., & Huang, W. (2004). The influence of moral philosophy on retail salespeople's ethical perceptions. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 38(2), 297+.

Meyer, K.E. (2004). Perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies. Journal of International Business Studies, 35(4), 259+.

Wolburg, J.M. (2003). Double-cola and antitrust issues: Staying alive in the soft drink wars. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 37(2), 340+.

social commentator, Thomas Frank, has published an insightful article in the February, 2011 issue of Harper's magazine assailing the members of what he describes as the privileges class in America failure to exhibit empathy and understanding for the plight of the working and middle class. In the article, entitled "Servile Disobedience," Frank states, "The rich are different from you and me (T. Frank). They are ruder and less generous. They don't get what others are thinking and apparently they don't really care." In offering these comments, Frank echoes the thoughts offered many years before by the writer and poet, Ralph aldo Emerson. Emerson saw the United States as being infected with "selfishness, fraud and conspiracy (Emerson)."
Frank in his article laments that, "e need the rich to be nicer. e need the rich to discover brotherly love, and fast." He recognizes that among the rich there are a number who…...

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Works Cited

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: Modern Library, 2000.

Frank, Robert. "Millionaires Support Warren Buffett's Tax on the Rich." 27 October 2011. Wall Street Journal. 1 December 2011 .

Frank, Thomas. "Servile Disobedience." Harper's February 2011.

Kraus, Michael W. "Social Class, Contextualism and Empathic Accuracy." Psychological Science (2010): 11716-1723.