Page 68 - How To Get Rich

Annan acknowledged talking with New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani
about the project and how to stop it.
It will not fit here, the Ukrainian ambassador, Volodymyr Yel’chenko,
told CNN, because it overshadows the United Nations complex.

When the protests became vocal, I used my own brand of diplomacy
and refused to say anything critical of the United Nations. I predicted that
many ambassadors and UN officials would end up buying apartments in
the building. Sure enough, they have.
But as soon as we were in business, the city hit us with an enormous
tax assessment, costing us over $100 million more than we thought we
should pay. We decided to take the only action possible. We sued the city

for $500 million.
For four years, we fought this case. The city lawyers held their ground,
and we held ours. We could have given up. It’s not easy to take on the
government and win, especially when the issue is taxes, but I knew we had
a case.
Finally, after many conversations, we reached a settlement. The city

agreed to cut our taxes seventeen percent and give us the ten-year tax
abatement that we sought if we would agree to withdraw our lawsuit and
subsidize two hundred units of affordable housing in the Bronx.
The lawsuit saved us approximately $97 million. We never would have
gotten any of it if we hadn’t taken dramatic action.

Sometimes You Still Have to Screw Them

For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back.
I once made the mistake of saying that in front of a group of twenty priests
who were in a larger audience of two thousand people. I took some heat
for that. One of them said, My son, we thought you were a much nicer
person.

I responded, Father, I have great respect for you. You’ll get to heaven.
I probably won’t, but to be honest, as long as we’re on the earth, I really
have to live by my principles.
When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as
violently as you can. Like it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye.
Be paranoid. I know this observation doesn’t make any of us sound
very good, but let’s face the fact that it’s possible that even your best
friend wants to steal your spouse and your money. As I say every week