sibaroni     05 Jun 12 11:46 
He is worth many millions today, and a completely down to earth bloke as well; you wouldn't pick him in a crowd.


Guess he just made provision for tax instead of actually paying it.

No, he paid his tax all right.  I included it to give a sense of the guy - he was prudent and used common sense.  He didn't try flighty financial tricks.

He took on a couple of lads and trained them.  They were charged out to to his customers and paid a wage.  The lads were very loyal to Phil, wouldn't hear a word against him.

Sometimes when Phil had cash, he bought a house did it up and kept it with a tenant.  He always vastly improved his own house.

A couple of friends wnated to open a bar restaruant.  They went into a three way partnership, with Phil extending the properties they bought and kitting it out for a third share.  They have a number now.

And on it went.  Common sense, hard work.

I know it is in a totally different area, but Martin Lewis seems similar.  He set up a web site in his bedroom and was dedicated to it.

I can't think of a better story frankly - but it does expose socialism and socialists in the worst possibe light when they are unable to applaud the success.

or turning 3 bags of kindling into 6 queen anne chairs.

That's not true about the Icelandic bank.

I read Lewis's page about the Icelandic bank and didn't invest in it because of his warnings.

Private accounts were covered by the government's guarantee anyway.

Sometimes when Phil had cash, he bought a house did it up and kept it with a tenant.  He always vastly improved his own house.

Oh I see, a property speculator. Obviously there's no luck at all in benefitting from a highly volatile property market.

Those people who bought just before the market went tits up, they were different...(for some reason).

You can't say well done to Lewis, on a sample size of one.

I already did say he deserved his money. If it makes you feel any
better "well done Martin". 

He has been through two property crashes.  Neither affected him because he buys the house, puts in a tenant, and carries on.  Because he doesn't borrow or live beyond his means, because he hasn't changed much And you seethe.  The socialist in you hates him.  Here is the news.  He has paid more tax than you and provided more employment than you.  Or most of us on here..

You misunderstand me. The investor in me hates property speculators. They are idiots with a child's faith in ever-rising, unsustainable property values. The enviromentalist in me hates their useless over-supply poisoning the landscape with bricks and mortar. The patriot in me despairs at this never-ending useless non-productive economic focus on a single, culturally valueless sector that is destroying British society...and so on.  The socialist in me barely registers at this stuff. I doubt Warren Buffet thinks any different.

And, vulgar as it is to talk about money but you haven't exactly left me much option, I very much doubt this guy has paid more tax than me, and certainly has not employed as many people.

I don't even know why you are sounding off about this stuff since you admitted yourself you know nothing about business. The point of capitalism is capital, the winners being those who risk it, something neither right nor left have ever argued. You want to see someone work hard go find a nurse. Capitalism is not and has not ever been about rewarding hard work.

Reading about Martyn Lewis's good luck I wonder if the BBC,or any of its producers, are due any money out of this deal as he seems to have been promoted endlessly on the Jeremy Vine show, Radio4 and other programmes to help build up his profile and the value of his business.

I most certainly have not said I know nothing about business and I happen to run a million pound turnover business.

I'm assuming it is actually profitable? Turnover really means nothing.
It is way more impressive to say "I have a business with £10,000 profit pa"
than it is to talk about any kind of turnover figure.

But irrespective of what you have done, and my very genuine mate Phil has done, or Martin Lewis has done - you were on here earlier (I cannot be bothered trawling through the posts) telling us that all if not most capitalist success was down to luck.

What I actually said was that the capitalist is renumerated over and
above the value of his labour because he is risking his capital. This
is not something cheese thinks. This is something accepted by every
economist of the left or right anywhere, indeed it comes from the
conservative bible, Smith's Wealth Of Nations. It was
subsequently used by Marx as the basis of much of his research.

In short, I am stating a fact, not an opinion.


I am very lucky in what I do; I get to witness other people's businesses every day.  I meet people who make fortunes and people who lose them.  There is luck of course.  But mostly luck has little to do with it.  Some people like to be employed.  Some start businesses.  Some want businesses that suit their lifestyle.  Some are more ambitious than that.  And of the last group, some win ; some lose.

You are perpetuating a fallacy. Most people can't even afford
to set up a business because the capital entry requirements
are way too high. Of those that can very few outperform the average
over time.

So then rich employer tax paying man; have you got lucky?  Have all
the businessmen you deal with got lucky?  Or are able people building
businesses?

Yes, there is a strong element of luck, as should be perfectly obvious.

I explained to you above why: there are so many unpredictable variables
that no amount of hard work will compensate for should they align against
you. You persist with this weird puritan notion in spite of the obvious
evidence to the contrary.

Cheese has a valid point sib, quite a few small and medium businesses have had a turnover that has yielded no profits or even a loss over the last few years. Some have struggled to stay in business to maintain qualified staff hoping for an upturn or just to regain an upward trend to enhance a possible sale. It is profit that counts ,not turnover.

"I'm assuming it is actually profitable? Turnover really means nothing.
It is way more impressive to say "I have a business with £10,000 profit pa"
than it is to talk about any kind of turnover figure."

Utter horsesh*t.  If a business makes millions for 5 years in succession, and then loses 10k the following year due to an extraordinary P&L item, then do you think you'd be more interested in the fact that it lost 10k or the fact that it has a 100 million pound turnover?

"Cheese has a valid point sib, quite a few small and medium businesses have had a turnover that has yielded no profits or even a loss over the last few years. Some have struggled to stay in business to maintain qualified staff hoping for an upturn or just to regain an upward trend to enhance a possible sale. It is profit that counts ,not turnover."

Disagree.  Turnover illustrates a business's potential.  Profit is simply a yearly snapshot of realisation of that potential. 

If someone told me they owned a business with a £5 million turnover, that tells me far more than if they said they had a business that made £100k last year.

"Running a law firm is not a real business, theres no plant or product, you just need a secretary, a desk, a pencil and a shelf full of law books."

This is a bit harsh.  Turnover is their fees, but their costs are significant.  Salaries, premises, promotion, indemnity (this will be a big one I'd imagine) and professional fees just off the top of my head?

"java, sorry but you're wrong here. It is impossible to lose money as a solicitor, no stock, no plant, no real investment, a massive % of your income is legal aid so you wont get knocked. Most firms go skint because they cant sell the stuff they've bought or made"

Well I'd agree solicitors are far less likely to go bust than a firm that has significant fixed costs, but I still think turnover is a more useful number than profit for all businesses.

The fact that solicitors are less likely to suffer from cashflow pressure shouldn't change that fact?

I'll go back to what I said earlier and I stick by it:

"If someone told me they owned a business with a £5 million turnover, that tells me far more than if they said they had a business that made £100k last year. "

how is turnover an indicator of business potential?
if you are selling high value product items of say 30k an item (cars,boats) you dont need to sell many to turnover a million,
if you are selling electronic components at 3 to 5 p an item you have to sell a lot more to reach your million turnover ,
the bottom line is if you are making 2p on you 5p switch/diode you have made £200k on your million sales.
if you have only made 5k profit a car on your 1 mill turnover your man with the switches  is considerably more wealthy than yow..

"Imagine I have a business, turnover £3m, no debt, £100k profit, I want to sell as I'm 65.

You have a business turning over £5m, £2m debt, £100k loss, you want to sell to bail out."

It is obvious the lower turnover business finds a buyer.  But we can all come up with extreme examples, I've shown this already.

Business 1:  10k turnover, £200 profit for year
Business 2:  £5 billion turnover, 100k loss for year

Which one do you want for free?  Which one do you reckon has the potential to make you rich with a bit of tweaking?

java, I'm not sure whats going on here tbh.

I'm soory to say this but it seems you've never bought or started a business.

Blackie.  I haven't run a small business,
would never have guessed java

"you are selling high value product items of say 30k an item (cars,boats) you dont need to sell many to turnover a million"

This example is silly.  The car man only has to make 33 sales to get to his million.  The diode man has to make 20 million sales.

Perhaps.  But a single year of profit is less informative than turnover for the same period.