Pillow Book of Talmud Wisdom

Chapter 14 Achievement and Wisdom Always Go Together—Jews on Shrewdness (1)
In Jewish commercial law, on the one hand, Jews represent the most law-abiding merchants.On the other hand, it is also a representative of opportunism.The Jewish culture, which is full of contradictions, just shows the flexibility of its nation.

As the "Talmud" says: We act by faith, not by sight.

wealth and wisdom always go together
商业化的社会永无等式可言，当你抱怨生意难做时，也许有人正点钞票累得气喘吁吁。这里面的奥妙就在于：你认为1加1应该等于2，而他则坚持1加1可以大于2。

The shrewdness of the Jews is best highlighted by the following story, which has been sung thousands of times:
A Jewish millionaire walks into a bank.

"Excuse me, sir, do you have anything we can do for you?" The salesperson of the loan department asked carefully, while looking at the clothes of the visitor: expensive suits, high-end leather shoes, expensive watches, and tie clips inlaid with jewels... …

"I want to borrow some money."

"Okay, how much do you want to borrow?"

"$1."

"Borrow only 1 dollar?" The salesman in the loan department opened his mouth in shock.

"I only need $1. Is that okay?"

The mind of the salesperson in the loan department immediately started to run at high speed. This person is so luxuriously dressed, why did he only borrow 1 dollar?He is testing our work quality and service efficiency!He pretended to be happy and said, "Of course, as long as there is a guarantee, we can do it no matter how much we borrow."

"Okay." The Jew took out a lot of stocks, bonds, etc. from his luxurious leather bag and put them on the counter, "Can these be used as guarantee?"

The salesman made an inventory: "Sir, the total is 50 U.S. dollars, which is enough as a guarantee, but sir, do you really only borrow 1 U.S. dollar?"

"Yes, I only need $1. Questions?"

"Okay, please go through the formalities, the annual interest rate is 6%, as long as you pay 6% interest and return the loan after one year, we will return these guaranteed stocks and securities to you...

After the rich Jewish man left, the bank manager who had been on the sidelines couldn't understand why a person with $50 would go to the bank to borrow $1? "

He chased after him: "Sir, I'm sorry, can I ask you a question?"

"of course can."

"I am the manager of this bank. I really don't understand. You have 50 U.S. dollars in property. Why do you only borrow 1 U.S. dollar? If you want to borrow 30 yuan or 40 yuan, we will be happy to serve you of……"

"Okay! I might as well tell you the truth. I'm here on an errand, and it's inconvenient to carry these coupons with me, so I asked several vaults to rent their safes, but the rent was very expensive. So I I went to your bank to deposit these things in the form of guarantee, and you will keep them for me, and the interest is very cheap, it only costs 6 cents a year..."

The manager woke up like a dream, and he admired the gentleman's approach very cleverly.

The national characteristics of careful calculation make Jewish commercial law invincible in the world market.Mr. Fujita (surname Fujita, name Tian), the founder of McDonald's fast food restaurant in Japan, used to work at the headquarters of the League Movement in Tokyo. He found that there was an American soldier who went to various places on holidays, but the income of this American soldier It is impossible to pay for such high-end consumption.After in-depth research, Fujita discovered that the American soldier was a Jew who lived frugally. He resold the daily necessities distributed by the headquarters to others for profit, pooled them into a sum of money, and then lent them to fellow soldiers who were eager to use the money.In order to avoid bad debts, the Jewish soldier recovered the loan on the same day the headquarters paid his salary. With such a turnover cycle, the Jewish soldier is of course richer than his compatriots who live on their own.

Since then, Fujita has opened his eyes to Jewish commercial law. In 1971, Fujita took the lead in launching McDonald's burgers in Japan. The price of each burger was reduced to 65 yen during non-holidays and [-] yen on holidays.The careful calculation of the Jewish business law has created a huge fortune for Fujita, who has learned from others.

Among the many reasons that enable Jewish businessmen to be shrewd and become more and more shrewd, there is an extremely important factor with unique Jewish characteristics, which is the mentality of Jews, including Jewish businessmen, towards shrewdness itself.

There is no doubt that there are shrewd people in all countries and nations in the world, but their attitudes towards shrewdness itself are quite different.The Chinese are not unsavvy. They can be astute to the point of inventing "great wisdom is like a fool", which can be said to have reached the extreme state of shrewdness.However, it is precisely from the fact that "great wisdom" needs "ruoyu" that we can see that in the mentality of the Chinese people, shrewdness is a species suitable for living in dark corners, more or less like a buffoon.Most of the Chinese allusions are the admonition of "being clever will be misunderstood by cleverness".But the Jews are different.The Jews not only appreciate, value and respect smartness very much, but also appreciate, value and respect it openly, just like their attitude towards money.In the eyes of the Jews, shrewdness seems to be a thing in itself, and shrewdness can exist in the form of "smartness for the sake of shrewdness".Of course, this does not mean that shrewdness can be so shrewd that it has no practical effect, but that it is generally difficult to measure shrewdness by other value measures besides practical effect, and shrewdness does not need to bow its head to be tried or listen to reprimands in religious or moral courts.The following joke is arguably the most vivid and concentrated display of this mentality of the Jews.

After the United States and the Soviet Union successfully carried out manned rocket flights, Germany, France and Israel also jointly developed a plan to travel to the moon.The rocket and the capsule are ready, and the next step is to choose the space pilot.

The staff first asked the German candidates what kind of treatment they would be willing to take part in the space flight.

"Give me $3000 and I'll do it," said the German man. "Keep $1000 for myself, $1000 for my wife, and $1000 for a house fund."

Then they asked the French candidate, who said, "Give me $4000. $1000 for myself, $1000 for my wife, $1000 to pay back the mortgage on the house, and $1000 for my lover."

The Israeli candidate said: "I can do it for $5000. $1000 is for you, $1000 is for me, and the remaining $3000 is for Germans to drive spaceships!"

The shrewdness of the Jews revealed by this joke needs no further explanation.Jews don't have to do business (fly spaceships) but just crunch numbers.Moreover, if it is a financial figure, it can enjoy the same treatment as a high-risk worker. This is one of the most notable features of the Jewish businessman's business style.

Surprisingly, this is not a harsh satire of other peoples' extraordinarily shrewd Jews, but a joke invented by the Jews themselves.

In all fairness, the Jews did not exploit the Germans, and the Germans can still get the $3000 he asked for. As for whether they got it from the relevant committee or the Jews, this is not reflected in the money.As for the price offered by the Jews themselves, since they are allowed to self-declare, there is nothing wrong with him declaring higher. How to arrange it is purely his personal freedom, just like the French openly treat their wives and lovers as economically equal.Therefore, in this joke, the shrewdness of the Jewish pilot did not go beyond the "legal" line.

And to be honest, in terms of the results alone, pilots of any country would be satisfied if they were in this "$1000 for free" position.

But whether in joke or in real life, they will not make such a request, and they will not even think about it, because this "too explicit shrewdness" is denied at the subconscious level: they will do it for their own. Shrewd and ashamed!
But judging from the joke itself, we don't feel at all that the Jews are ashamed of being "too shrewd". complacent" mood.As for the consideration of whether it is "too explicit", it will not affect their shrewd calculations at all, let alone their appreciation of shrewdness itself.They regard shrewdness as something dignified and even worth showing off!It can be said that nothing is more crucial and more important to the development and prosperity of the shrewd than this kind of frank attitude.Jewish businessmen can be said to be becoming more and more shrewd while laughing at their own fruitful shrewdness!

Most of the Jewish people's jokes are shrewd jokes, but in real life Jewish businessmen are more shrewd people, and they are also shrewd people who have the same frank and innocent attitude towards shrewdness.

The well-known wealthy Jewish businessman Hartung was the only one among the Jews who came to Shanghai who went from abject poverty to riches. His shrewdness is well known in Shanghai, and it has almost become a legend, and is regarded as a typical Jewish businessman.

In 1901, Hartung independently established Hartung Foreign Firm, specializing in the real estate industry.Hartung's shrewdness in business and his attitude towards shrewdness can be seen from his calculation of land rent and house rent.

Hartong rents out general houses and small pieces of land for a short period of time, usually 3 to 5 years.The short lease term not only facilitates timely recovery when needed, but also increases the rent amount each time the lease is renewed.On Hartong's land, even a small stall has to pay rent.There was a cobbler who set up a cobbler's bag at the entrance of all the alleys in Hartong, and he had to pay a land rent of 5 yuan a month.Every time Hartung collected land rent from him, he always said kindly to him: "Get rich, get rich." But money is indispensable.

Hartung's time unit for calculating rent is also different.At that time, general real estate owners in Shanghai collected rents according to the solar calendar months, but Hartong contracted rents according to the lunar calendar months.As we all know, a solar month generally has 30 or 31 days, while a lunar month has 29 or 30 days, so there is one leap month every three years in the lunar calendar, one leap month in five years, and seven leap months in 3 years.Therefore, according to the lunar calendar, one month's rent can be charged every 1 years, 5 months' rent can be charged every 1 years, and 19 months' rent can be charged every 7 years.

In addition, after Hartong developed, it spent 70 taels of silver to build the largest private garden on the beach at that time, named "Aili Garden".In order to facilitate the management of employees in the park, Hartung has made clear regulations on the responsibilities and grades of employees, and made corresponding badges.But even such a badge indicating job responsibilities has to be purchased by employees themselves.The production cost of each badge is only 5 copper plates, but the "retail price" is 4 cents!
Hartung's shrewdness can be said to have reached the extreme, and he even has to calculate whether there are 29 days or 30 days in a month.But on the other hand, such shrewdness certainly requires a certain amount of calculation ability, but after all, it does not require much intelligence. What is really needed is probably a mentality, a mentality about shrewdness itself.Anywhere, not only to be shrewd in ways, but once a shrewd idea is conceived, to be carried out with conviction, regardless of what other people may think.It can be said that the colleagues at that time adopted Hartung’s method of collecting small rents instead of widely adopting his method of calculating rents according to the lunar calendar. .When merchants of other nationalities hesitate or even put aside their astute ideas for the sake of appearing too shrewd, they distance themselves from Jewish merchants, and they are inevitably at a disadvantage in dealing with Jewish merchants. It's decided.

(End of this chapter)