I used to have to beg and borrow £25 to hire some French windows. I started producing in 1967, and I was in debt until 1981. Having a think about whether you can afford 'this' or 'that' is a good discipline to have, to maximise what you can achieve to the highest standard.
Having a think about whether you can afford 'this' or 'that' is a good discipline to have, to maximise what you can achieve to the highest standard.
The debate we won't be having is whether or not the debt ceiling should be raised. We will not have a situation where people will hold the American economy hostage in order to achieve a specific agenda - at least not until 2013. So we think that is incredibly important as a matter of economic good.
I do think that all economies need a sense of fiscal discipline especially over the midterm and if you are in the middle of a debt crisis you can't borrow your way out of a debt crisis. That's logically impossible.
The thing about discipline is that people misunderstand the word discipline. People think discipline in the dog world is punishment. Discipline is how you achieve what you want to achieve in life. You have to be very focused, very disciplined, very consistent, very diligent. All of those things.
We're like on a rollercoaster and I don't like that because a sign of a good team is consistency, and consistency is a work ethic and it's about producing that standard, and if you can produce that standard week in, week out, whether you win or lose, that's a different thing.
The things to watch are whether the country's borrowing costs are rising, whether its budgetary allotment for payments on the debt is increasing, and whether it is spending on good priorities. Those big, scary debt numbers are not as big and scary as they used to be.
We have to decide whether our fear is going to get the better of us. Once upon a time we had a standard in our country that was 'innocent until proven guilty.' We've given up on so much. Now, people are talking about a standard that is 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.' Think about it. Is that the standard we're willing to live under?
It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do.
I bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows RSVP, The Best of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, and Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates a House the Size of Vermont.
I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.
We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.'
I actually don't think there is any difference between French and American cuisine. French cuisine was always about discipline, about ingredient, about creativity, but also about simple. I see America as very similar in these rights.
I try not to borrow, first you borrow then you beg.
UNIX has a philosophy, it has 25 years of history behind it, and most importantly, it has a clean core. It strives for something - some kind of beauty. And that's really what struck me as a programmer. Operating systems that normal home users are used to, such as DOS and Windows, didn't have any way of life. Nobody tried to design Windows - it just grew in random directions without any kind of thought behind it. [...] I don't think Microsoft is evil in itself; I just think that they make really crappy operating systems.
You'll have to hire people to expand your business. But it's a good discipline to really question if you need each and every hire.
I used to feel guilty about having nice things, because there was so much good I could be doing with that money. I always tell people that, if you can afford what I'm wearing, then you can afford to make a difference. But fashion has taught me that it's not a bad thing to love yourself and take care of yourself.