In early August, the new British Prime Minister Brown arrived at Camp David, the President's holiday resort in Maryland, USA, to hold talks with Bush.
This is Brown's first visit to the United States since he became prime minister. There has been a lot of speculation about the future direction of relations between the two countries, so this meeting between the two heads of state has attracted special attention.
According to US media reports, before Brown's visit, the US expressed concerns and dissatisfaction about Britain's possible early withdrawal from Iraq.
In his talks with Bush, Brown reiterated that Britain's policy in Iraq would not change and that no withdrawal plan would be announced.
Brown then left Camp David and traveled to New York to give a speech on global development issues at the United Nations.
At this time, Barron also came to New York, but Brown did not come with him. This time when he came to America, Brown showed his frugality. He came to America from England by civil aviation, not a government charter flight, nor did he take Barron's private plane.
Then he also arrived in New York by train. After giving a speech at the UN, Brown and Barron met with New York Mayor Bloomberg.
Brown, Barron and Bloomberg ate hot dogs together on the streets of New York...
A British Prime Minister, a Duke and the fourth richest man in the world, and a New York Mayor and billionaire, were all as carefree as ordinary people, standing on the street eating cheap fast food like hot dogs. Such people-friendly actions were also photographed by reporters and immediately made the front page headlines of many newspapers.
According to reporters, Abdus Salam, a hot dog vendor on the streets of New York, told them that Brown and the Duke of Devonshire ate plain hot dogs without any condiments, while Bloomberg added some mustard.
Although there were many reporters around them when they were eating hot dogs, they did not answer any questions.
When asked only how the hot dog tasted, Brown gave it a thumbs up.
Bloomberg paid for this hot dog "meal" for only three dollars. Of course, he also gave a tip, but this is negligible for Bloomberg, who is worth billions.
At this point, Barron can only silently apologize to Cameron in his heart - when he visits the United States after taking office, he will have to find another way to "show off"...
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Bloomberg is the famous owner of "Bloomberg". In 2001, he successfully ran for the position of mayor of New York City and took office in 2002.
In Barron's previous life, Bloomberg served as mayor of New York City for 12 years until the end of 2013, when he stepped down after three terms in office.
His annual salary as mayor of New York City is only a symbolic $1 - that is to say, the hamburger Bloomberg treated his guests today cost him three years' salary...and even more if expenses are included.
Interestingly, according to Forbes, Bloomberg's net worth in 2001 was $4.5 billion, and in 2014, his assets had skyrocketed to $33 billion.
As for whether the surge in his assets during his tenure as Mayor of New York City is related to his position... that depends on one's own opinion.
After all, if we compare him with other wealthy people, such as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, his net worth was 2 billion US dollars in 2001, and by 2014, it had become 32 billion US dollars. The growth of his assets in more than ten years is even more exaggerated than Bloomberg's.
Of course, if we ignore the fact that Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, is an e-commerce website that just happened to catch the trend; while Bloomberg mainly relies on selling financial information - Bloomberg is his company.
As for why no one can compete with him in this regard, well... maybe it's because their service is particularly good.
Anyway, it is possible that they are not doing it for money, but just want to serve the people of New York for free...
In addition to treating Brown and Barron to hot dogs on the street, Bloomberg also invited them to a banquet he hosted that night, where singers were invited to perform.
Other guests that day included media tycoon Murdoch, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Ford Chairman Bill Ford.
It is obvious that Bloomberg specially invited Bill Ford to the event to show his goodwill to Barron. During this visit to the United States, Brown also talked to Bush specifically about the acquisition of three British car brands held by Ford by the Caesar Fund. According to previous media reports, it is no secret that the Duke of England hopes to get their car brands back through the Caesar Fund.
In this way, Bloomberg acted as a "middleman" and provided the "heads" of the two companies with an opportunity to meet privately.
"You should know, Mr. Ford, that no one will be willing to pay the price you are asking for, and continuing to hold these brands will only cause Ford to continue to bleed..."
Bill Ford's last name indicated his relationship with Ford. Barron clinked glasses with him and said:
"With all due respect, of all the people who are claiming to be interested in these brands right now, ours is the most sincere offer."
"Everything needs to be discussed slowly, right? Your Highness, in addition, although we do have the idea of selling one or several brands, the final decision still needs to wait until the new CEO takes office next month. I hope he can decide these based on his plans for Ford, rather than letting me decide in advance..."
It seemed that Mr. Ford was not moved by Barron's words. He said slowly:
"And I'm curious, why do you want to buy these brands? If, as you say, they will only continue to lose money... is it just to bring these brands back to the UK?"
"Believe it or not, it's time for those British brands to return to Britain."
Baron shrugged and said,
"Of course, it doesn't have to be one of these Ford brands. It could be another brand, like Rolls-Royce or Bentley. It depends on the final price - and I have enough patience to wait."
…
"Mr. Murdoch, nice to meet you. By the way, I need to congratulate you. MySpace has been developing very well recently."
Compared with the conversation with Bill Ford, there was no substantial progress in the acquisition of the three British car brands. Of course, Baron would not simply think that he could convince the other party through such a conversation. This is a business, and to agree on a price, one of the parties always needs to make concessions. He can make concessions, but not too much.
Next, Barron saw Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, walking towards him and started chatting with him.
It is indeed as he said. After News Corporation bought MySpace for US$700 million, which was higher than the acquisition price in Baron's previous life, MySpace has developed very well until now. Not only has it always maintained the second place in social networks after Woaw.com, but its key indicators such as the number of users and the number of active users have also increased greatly, and its advertising revenue has also achieved a breakthrough. This year, Google also reached an agreement with MySpace that as long as MySpace's click volume increases significantly for three consecutive years, it will become MySpace's exclusive search engine provider for three consecutive years on the condition of paying US$300 million each year.
In addition, MySpace also successfully entered the Chinese market under the name of Juyou.com - behind this was the help of Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng.
In Barron's previous life, in the social networking field, MySpace was the pioneer and Facebook was the follower, and Facebook eventually won. But now, Woaw is the pioneer and MySpace is the follower, but I'm afraid MySpace still cannot win.
"Thank you for your compliments, Your Highness. However, in the field of the Internet, I still need to learn more from you young people. This is not an area I am good at. For example, Woaw is indeed a strong opponent."
As expected of an old fox, Murdoch didn't seem to want to talk too much on MySpace, but turned the topic to another aspect:
"By the way, you also invested in the Sinclair Group, but it seems that they have encountered some troubles recently..."
"I don't pay too much attention to these. After all, the investment in Sinclair Group was purely a cooperation between us. But I believe that Mr. John Smith is fully capable of dealing with these minor troubles."
Fox Television, owned by News Corporation, is also one of the most powerful television broadcasting companies in the United States. Its current scale is not too far behind that of Sinclair Corporation. In the past, Sinclair Corporation even spent a huge amount of money to acquire some of the local TV stations under Fox Television. In the media sector, News Corporation is still very powerful.