Buffettique Discussion Threads

[traderabc] 10/5/2011 09:16

Warren Buffett and the Boys of Wall Street

Janet Tavakoli
President, Tavakoli Structured Finance



Buffett's Gentle Treatment by the Financial Press

It's easy to like Warren Buffett; he's a relief in comparison. No financier has as long a track record or has garnered so much good press for so long as Warren Buffett, the CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway. His language and business demeanor has been exemplary, and his public statements against malfeasance and hubris have been a welcome oasis in a business riddled with multi-decade frauds and scandals. He's been the rock star of the financial world.

It's as if there was a pact among the financial press to overlook foibles as long as no scandal could be directly tied to Warren Buffett's actions. Suddenly that's changed.

[traderabc] 19/4/2011 19:43

Min 13 ish, Buffet and Munger as corrupt as the rest of them, it's no new revelation and it is the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.


[KR139] Keiser Report – Murderers & Martyrs!
April 19th, 2011 by stacyherbert
Respond

We interview Janet Tavakoli.

[traderabc] 27/1/2011 12:14

Peter Schiff - Warren Buffett is Dead Wrong

[traderabc] 27/11/2010 16:25

Markets, inflation, China, Buffett, GM

[traderabc] 17/11/2010 16:47

Warren Buffett Gives Uncle Sam A HUGE Wet Kiss In Pro-Bailout Op-Ed In NYT

Nov. 17, 2010, 4:32 AM



Warren Buffett has come out defending the U.S. bailouts of banks and companies like GM, in a letter published by the New York Times.

Bailouts saved the entire U.S. economy from disaster, ie. not just the banks, he says:


Read more:



Warren Buffett: If The Bailout Didn't Happen, I Would Be Eating Thanksgiving At McDonald's


Read more:

[thelongandtheshortandthetall] 29/10/2010 13:30

re gold, i cant help but think its a hedge againsts everything going wrong. dollor goes down, buy gold. house prices, fall buy gold. economy slows, buy gold.
WHEN things get sorted and optimism rules this hedge may not be required.

if 5% of all the gold held by banks and contries etc was to be sold, the price would drop through the floor. prob by 50%

the price of gold reminds me of tulipmania. over priced. its a self fullfilling dream with a good bit of greed mixed in. gold does have some engineering uses and looks ok as jewery. the base for the beleif in gold most probably is cultural. the value of things are set by what someone is prepaired to pay. when the price is higher than what people are prepaired to pay it will fall

the gold bull walks up the stairs and the gold bear will jump out of the window.

i wouldnt dream of shorting gold tho as who knows the price per oz could treble from here.

[traderabc] 09/10/2010 10:14

Has Warren Buffett missed a trick by ignoring gold?

America's most famous investor, the Sage of Omaha has always disregarded gold investment as fundamentally flawed and has missed substantial gains as a result.
Author: Don Dion
Posted: Friday , 08 Oct 2010

[traderabc] 29/9/2010 12:44

29 September 2010 Last updated at 10:11


US billionaires host banquet for China's wealthiest
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing




The event has inspired debate in China about what it means to give to charity

US billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are to host a dinner in Beijing for some of China's richest people.

The pair say they are in China to learn about philanthropy in the country. Many suspect they want to persuade their guests to give more to charity.

The two men have already convinced a number of extremely wealthy Americans to give away half their fortunes.

There is great secrecy surrounding the event - organisers have not revealed who is on the guest list.

[traderabc] 28/9/2010 18:28

First 10 mins, Max uses both barrels..


[KR81] Keiser Report – Markets! Finance! Baby Formula!
September 28th, 2010 by stacyherbert

Stacy Summary: We look at the Walmart's baby formula breadlines and Charlie Munger's bailout blessings. In the second half of the show, Max goes to Washington DC to talk to sports writer Dave Zirin about the sports industrial complex.

[traderabc] 24/9/2010 17:58

In other words, bend over America, the bankers haven't finished with you yet....



Buffett to taxpayers: Get over your anger

Bloomberg News


Taxpayer anger against President Barack Obama and Congress is counterproductive because policy makers took measures including deficit spending to stimulate the economy, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC.
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"Sentiment has turned very sour in the last three or four or five months," the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in an interview broadcast Thursday.

"I hope we get over it pretty soon, because it's not productive,'' Buffett said. "We will come back regardless of how people feel about Washington, but it is not helpful to have people as unhappy as they are about what's going on in Washington."

More than three-quarters of U.S. investors view Obama as anti-business and are pessimistic about his policies, a Bloomberg survey this month indicated.

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, even after an $814 billion stimulus measure enacted last year and other government actions.

The Federal Reserve has kept the benchmark overnight lending rate target close to zero and said this week that it was prepared to ease policy further.

"The truth is we're running a federal deficit that's 9 percent of gross domestic product," Buffett said. "That's stimulative as all get out. It's more stimulative than any policy we've followed since World War II."

Buffett also said that the economy remains in a recession, by his definition, because most people and businesses still aren't doing as well as they were before the financial crisis.

Buffett's assessment of the economy contradicts the view of experts who announced this week that the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Buffett said he uses a common sense standard to evaluate the economy. Buffett gets insight into the health of the economy through the performance of Berkshire's many subsidiaries.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

[traderabc] 22/9/2010 20:38

Amazing Arrogance, Gall, Chutzpa, and Unmitigated Effrontery from Berkshire Hathaway

It's hard to know exactly the precise words to describe the arrogance and unmitigated effrontery of Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who today rattled off an insane barrage of insensitive comments regarding the bailouts.

[tenapen] 19/9/2010 15:54

Hi traderabc,
I enjoy your Jim Rodgers thead, cheers,

IMO Soros is a clever cookie and beats Uncle Warren. I like to listen to Gerald Celente who is a straight talking bloke.

[traderabc] 19/9/2010 12:26

Buffet versus Soros, who is right?

Gerald Celente: US Economy = Depression



Russia Today
Sept 18, 2010

Famous investor and billionaire George Soros referred to the US economy as "blah," saying he expects a further slowdown. US President Barack Obama has insisted however that the US economy is heading in the right direction. Gerald Celente, the director of the Trends Research Institute said the economy is not just blah, it's in a depression. It's the summer of the greatest recession," he said.

[traderabc] 30/8/2010 16:05

'Perhaps I'm wrong with some of my criticism of the Gates Foundation.'

Then again perhaps I'm not..


Gates Foundation ties with Monsanto under fire from activists



Maureen O'Hagan and Kristi Heim
Seattle Times
Monday, August 30, 2010

For two years, local activists on a shoestring budget have been trying to document connections between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Monsanto, the company vilified by some for its heavy involvement in genetic engineering of crops.

Try as they might, their work got little attention.

That all changed with the news, reported by The Wall Street Journal last week, that Monsanto was among the foundation's most recent portfolio investments. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says the foundation bought 500,000 shares of the stock between April and June; on Friday, the total value was $27.6 million.

[traderabc] 18/8/2010 18:01

The One Percent - Jamie Johnson

Warren Buffett disowns granddaughter for being in this documentary.


1% of the US population controls nearly 40% of the wealth in America, this was back in 2006.

In this hard-hitting but humorous documentary, director Jamie Johnson takes the exploration of wealth that he began in Born Rich one step further. The One Percent, refers to the tiny percentage of Americans who control nearly half the wealth of the U.S. Johnson's thesis is that this wealth in the hands of so few people is a danger to our very way of life. Johnson captures his story through personal interviews with Robert Reich, Adnan Khashoggi, Bill Gates Sr., and Steve Forbes, during which both Johnson's and his subjects' knowledge and humor shine. And he's not afraid to butt heads with Milton Friedman, the economist who coined the term "the trickledown effect." He also shows how the other half lives.




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[traderabc] 04/6/2010 16:41

This is intresting.

Dan Pink - The science of motivation 1/2

[traderabc] 04/6/2010 13:50

Buffett: Derivatives Still a Ticking Time Bomb

By Annie Lowrey 6/2/10 2:24 PM

I'll have a story up soon on today's testimony from Warren Buffett, the head of investment giant Berkshire Hathaway, to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on the role of credit rating agencies in the financial crisis and recession.

But here's one nugget. Brooksley Born, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates certain kinds of derivatives, used her time to ask Buffett multiple questions about the financial instruments, contracts derived from the price of another asset that will come under new regulation once the financial regulatory reform bill passes. Derivatives trading accounts for up to 40 percent of revenue at some Wall Street banks, and their regulation is the subject of intense lobbying by financial firms that do not want to have to exchange-trade derivatives or put trades through clearinghouses.

Born quoted Buffett's shareholder letters declaring derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that while now latent are potentially lethal" and "time bombs both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system."

In response to questions about the instruments, Buffett said that derivatives "accentuated enormously the leverage in the system" and contributed to the financial collapse. He described his acquisition of reinsurance company GenRe, which came with 23,000 derivatives contracts, and how he sold off all of them for $400 million at a loss because he felt he could not understand them. "It was impossible," he said, noting he had never heard of most of the counterparties and "couldn't pronounce their names."

"The only answer was to get out of the business," he said.

Born asked whether major investment banks, such as J.P. Morgan Chase, have the capacity to understand their derivatives contracts and their risks. Buffet replied, "I think they're dangerous. I'll say this: I don't think I could manage them. ... It's hard for me to imagine a regulatory system that could supervise something like that."

Finally, Born asked him, "In your view, is the derivatives market still a time bomb ticking away?"

Buffett responded, "I would say so."

[traderabc] 11/5/2010 11:20

Moody's CEO Dumped Shares The Day SEC's "Wells Notice" Arrived -- And So Did Buffett!

[traderabc] 11/5/2010 00:23

Edited Supporting Central bankers is the exact opposite of supporting humanity.

Min 4.50 Buffet involved in pump and dump scheme.

Max Keiser On The Alex Jones Show May 10th 2010 pt 4/9 (The Stock Market Glitch)

[liarspoker] 10/5/2010 07:53

Furthermore I have doubt about the Gates Foundation, if there are questions to be asked about its true motives, is it so bad to state them on this thread, if only once?

Not at all. But your original comment was that Buffett has not and won't contribute to humanity so in order to avoid sidestepping the issue we should concentrate on facts ie how many people does BH employ directly and indirectly etc etc. Don't get me wrong I liked reading and watching your links but like I said it's a bit too conspiracy theory for me ( though like I also said we all hold inethical stocks in our portfolios and pensions ).

[traderabc] 09/5/2010 22:51

traderabc - an alternative view is always welcome but to me it all looks like too much consipracy theory going on there.


LP, perhaps there is, or perhaps some of today's conspiracy theories will become tomorrow's 'historical facts', time will tell no doubt, whether in our time or not.
As far as the conspiracy theories and the truth go, the wild eye tin foil hat wearing loons seem to have been coming out way ahead of the consensus adherents for quite a few years now. A bull market for them if ever there was one.



As for Buffet, I have read a biography, and have followed up with further research, in comparison to his peers and in many ways he is an exemplary example of a very rich dude. However his support for the big banker class is a place I could never find any common ground.

Furthermore I have doubt about the Gates Foundation, if there are questions to be asked about its true motives, is it so bad to state them on this thread, if only once?

[liarspoker] 09/5/2010 20:34

traderabc - an alternative view is always welcome but to me it all looks like too much consipracy theory going on there. I am sure that I can find ethical faults with your investments too especially with what you hold in your pension. Do you know what shares are in your pension and do you know what damage those shares are causing to the world ? As for an alien disease that rapidly clogs blood and causes most of the population to die - well I can present a 101 different scenarios. Perhaps Buffett should leave his billions to the mob, at least the money's use will be more transparent that way. :O)

[traderabc] 09/5/2010 18:58

Here is a book that casts a lot of light on the subject of human 'progress'.

A good review

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2003)



and a bad one