projected 2013 EPS of

their friendly and easygoing demeanor, and there is something very attractive about it. Freezing cold temperatures can mean wearing an extra heavy coat when out and about in the Midwest. I love how you see a sea of black coats on the streets but when you go into a bustling restaurant it is a discount to its own book value, but at a discount to the luxury sector average of 5.1x, per FactSet. Here too, liquidity helps explain at least a portion of the discount. In France, only Hermes shares have a higher Cheap Chanel Baglevel of insider control (with Hermes's founding family controlling over 70% of the company's votes); we note that Kering, owner of brands such as Gucci, is "only" 40.9% controlled by Artemis Group, the holding company of CEO Francois-Henri Pinault, and many of the world's remaining luxury brands, such as Tiffany (TIF) or Burberry (OTC:BURBY) have far larger proportions of their outstanding shares available for public trading. We note that Dior also trades at a discount to LVMH itself, even though the two companies are, for the most part, functionally equivalent, Dior Couture aside. Dior trades at less than 15x forward EPS, whereas LVMH trades at over 19x

(based on projected 2013 EPS of €7.13). Dior also trades vibrant with happy faces and sharp dressing.ng born here, but by being born into families that provide an upbringing of good health and education plus valuable social networks. Yet you often hear people deplore lesser beings' ability to get good work when they owe their own careers and opportunities to such connections and to having started out with something to their name. How many of us really do it all on our own, without calling on any relatives or social and business contacts? (People who struggle to imagine the disadvantaged alternative would do well to read a New York Times article, ''How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment'', by Nancy Ditomaso.) Another eye-opening read is Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2013, which details inequities that are

 plain unconscionable. If we were really as Louis Vuitton damier ebene canvasclever as we imagine, not to mention caring, we'd see in the statistics a denial of opportunity that is criminal in its stifling of human and economic potential and immoral in its creation of avoidable suffering. The bottom half of the world's people survive on barely 1 per cent of the world's wealth; the top 10 per cent hold 86 per cent of all assets. Net assets of $US4000 put a person in the better-off half. Just $US10,000 qualifies for the top third. Average Australian wealth per adult is 40 times tha We know you're big into entertaining, so if you could host a dinner party anywhere in Chicago, where would it be? Who would you invite, dream-dinner-party style? I would love to rent out the top of the Signature Room at the John Hancock Tower and throw a lavish "Flappers and Dappers" dinner and dancing party. The invite list would include: