Word: minimum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Characteristically, Buffett had done his homework: he'd found out in advance, for example, that my wife was born in Salisbury, North Carolina. But after a minimum of small talk to put us at ease, it was down to more serious matters. When I mentioned how difficult I'd recently found it to do the right thing by lowering the fees I charged my fund's shareholders, Buffett nodded sympathetically and observed, "People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional." When I asked if it would get any easier, he replied with...
...nothing approach to alcohol. The policy panel and many groups like it around the country now maintain that all kids should wait until they turn 21 before having their first drink. That may sound uncontroversial; after all, isn't underage drinking illegal? Actually, no. When Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, it explicitly allowed kids to drink at home or in "private clubs or establishments." Similarly, under most state laws, it's legal for those under 21 to consume alcohol under certain conditions. Only six states, mostly rural ones, ban underage alcohol consumption completely...
...studies' authors offer sensible recommendations, like mandating a minimum driving age of 16, braking slowly and wearing a helmet while riding (which probably won't fly at the country club). Most important, drivers shouldn't be casual. Golf may be a wimpy game--but those carts are dangerously strong...
...shop. "We conceived of this as a public-transportation system, so it operates as one," says Bernard Parisot, president of JCDecaux NA, the outdoor-advertising company that runs Vélib with the profits it makes from selling ads on bus shelters and billboards. To help keep impatience to a minimum, Vélib sends cell-phone alerts about which stations have bikes available. "It's a real revolution," says Parisot. So much so that the mayors of New York City and Chicago have made visits to get a better idea of how a Parisian-style program might work in their cities...
...because, in some ways, auditing is helping to promote the very practices it purports to detect. In The China Price, Alexandra Harney describes how Chinese suppliers set up "five-star factories" whose model working conditions impress auditors, while also creating "shadow" factories to meet actual order deadlines. With a minimum of paperwork or safety codes, staffed by migrant workers who often put in 12-hour days seven days a week, these shadow factories are unregulated, but common. The craze for auditing has, paradoxically, led factory owners to create such factories. It also sops up resources that could be channeled toward...