Word: goldings
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...Gold's alliance with Pottery Barn was just the first in a string of special relationships with retailers that has given him unmatched access to middle-class American households and has impressed industry watchers. "It's quite unusual to have captured them to the extent that he has," says Donna Warner, veteran editor of urban-style bible Metropolitan Home. These relationships come partly from connections Gold made during his stint as a buyer: when Pottery Barn decided to start carrying furniture, a friend there made sure its buyers knew about Gold and vice versa. He has also consistently backed...
...secret of Gold's success has been an exceptional knack for supply-chain management. Every shipment passes under the watchful eye of a full-time statistician, a "master planner" who constantly surveys retailers and wholesalers, anticipating their demands so the factory can be ready with the necessary personnel and raw materials. In 2001 mad-cow disease had most manufacturers scrambling to fill orders for leather furniture, but not Gold: when the epidemic first made headlines, he bought up $5 million worth of South American hides, enough to keep the club chairs rolling for the next eight months. Result...
Throughout all this, Gold's only false move may have been not taking out his brand earlier. Plagiarism is epidemic in the furniture industry, and there are few designers who haven't borrowed, if not stolen, from his work. But, as is not the case with Chanel perfume or Rolex watches, few people care whether their slipcovered sofa is an authentic Mitchell Gold or a knockoff, and that could hurt him. Nonetheless, there's no arguing with his influence: he is everywhere. Walk into any hipster apartment from New York City to Nashville, Tenn., and you will see his work...
...Computers and other appliances contain valuable materials: gold, platinum and other electrical conductors are used in microchips and motherboards; lead is in solder and computer monitors; copper can be mined from wires and internal circuitry. But in China, which according to ban receives nearly 90% of America's castoffs, recycling is a crude process carried out in places like Guiyu by tens of thousands of peasants equipped with the most rudimentary of tools. Components must be laboriously broken apart by hand. Some are dipped in acid baths to leach out precious metals, while the plastic covering on wiring is sometimes...
...take me out of town, however. That required a bit more planning. Once again I used history as my guide. For hundreds of years the Chao Phraya served as the main entrance to central Thailand. Immense wooden barges patrolled its banks, exchanging cargos of teak and rice for gold, precious stones and imported goods from abroad. The ancient Thai capital of Ayuthaya was considered to be the entryway to Asia and ambassadors from as far away as France, Portugal and Japan camped at its doorstep seeking concessions and passage from the Thai Kings. Some of the old teak rice barges...