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Bill Gates is known as the world’s most successful capitalist and is less famous for being the world’s biggest philanthropist.

You might think that Warren Buffett's $34 billion bid for the rest of Burlington Northern Santa Fe ( BNI - news - people ) is the most eye-catching investment decision of the day. While the Oracle of Omaha's bullish bet on America is hardly insignificant, I would like to direct your attention half a world away and ostensibly in a different investment medium: spot gold. India's central bank bulked up that nation's gold reserves by 55% with the purchase of $6.7 billion worth of gold from the International Monetary Fund, which is selling gold reserves to raise funds for lending...

Buffett's Big Bet: $34B On 2nd-Largest Railroad Freight expectations: Warren Buffett goes `all-in' with $34B bet on railroads and the economy By Samantha Bomkamp,November 3, 2009 NEW YORK (AP) -- The biggest name in investing is making what he calls an "all-in wager" on the U.S. economy -- $34 billion to own a railroad that hauls everything from corn to cars across the country. The acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the nation's second-largest railroad, would be the biggest ever for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment company. It's a natural fit for the Oracle of Omaha, a city with a...

Arthur Laffer said-- "You can't raise taxes on the rich. These people know how to get around taxes," says Laffer. "Warren Buffett pays no taxes because all of his wealth is in unrealized capital gains. There's no tax on unrealized capital gains, so how do you get it? You have to tax poor people." LINK Warren Buffet sure talks about taxes a lot for someone who essentially doesn't pay any since the vast bulk of his wealth consists of unrealized capital gains. Appreciation of Berkshire Hathaway stock that he just sits on and never sells anyWarren Buffet lives modestly...

We have all heard plenty about Government Sachs but very little about BO supporter Warren Buffet. Since this WELFARE QUEEN just made another Fortune I thought you should see this. As a side note remember when Durbin said "Frankly the banks own the place?" He should know a thing or two about that on a personal level! Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s earnings picked up sharply in the second quarter, reversing a first-quarter loss as the company rode a wave of gains in its vast stock portfolio. The Omaha, Neb., conglomerate run by Warren Buffett posted net income of $3.3 billion, or...

When I was 14, Warren Buffett wrote me a letter. It was a response to one I’d sent him, pitching an investment idea. For a kid interested in learning stocks, Buffett was a great role model. His investing style — diligent security analysis, finding competent management, patience — was immediately appealing. Buffett was kind enough to respond to my letter, thanking me for it and inviting me to his company’s annual meeting. I was hooked. Today, Buffett remains famous for investing The Right Way. He even has a television cartoon in the works, which will groom the next generation of...

Ethics: Sen. Dick Durbin cashes out of the market and invests with a key Democratic contributor after a Treasury briefing warning of collapse. Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Dodd's Irish cottage appraises at triple the value he's disclosed.Those investors who rode the stock market down to the bitter end and saw their 401(k) accounts evaporate in the morning sun could have used the information Senate Majority Whip Durbin had at his fingertips on Sept. 19, 2008, when he sold $42,696 worth of mutual fund shares. By the end of September, Durbin had sold investments totaling $116,000.

Don't think that cap-and-trade legislation comes at a cost? Well, think again. In a June 9 interview on Bloomberg as the U.S. House of Representatives was considering the Waxman-Markey bill, David Sokol, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (NYSE:BRK.A) MidAmerican Energy Holdings and a contender to succeed Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, explained capping carbon dioxide (CO2) would be a policy decision his industry would deal with, but trading emission credits was another matter. “Let me break it in two parts,” Sokol said. “The caps – trying to reduce CO2 by 83 percent by 2050 and then some interim steps...

When Warren Buffett speaks, it’s usually worth paying attention. This time, the Oracle of Omaha is voicing concerns about the ability of some battered local and state governments to pay off their debts. The idea of cities and states facing insolvency is alarming for sure, and Buffett isn’t alone. Moody’s recently assigned a “negative outlook” to the creditworthiness of all the nation’s local governments. The agency has rarely made such a sweeping generalization but said the magnitude of this recession warranted the move. The comments are the latest to have shaken the once-staid world of municipal bond investing. Traditionally, muni...

Traditional Americans who love their country as it is are aghast at the socialization program that is under way, the unimaginable debt being piled up, and the ineptness and the incompetence of Obama, his staff and his appointees. Perhaps many of us, like me, came from poverty in childhood, and have achieved a standard of living beyond our wildest dreams. What we want most is for our children and our grandchildren (and for legal immigrants) to have the same opportunities and freedoms to succeed (and sometimes to fail) that we had. Almost all of the people I talk to are...

[VIDEO] Excerpt: Then came Warren’s big but (which is totally unrelated to Michelle Obama’s big butt): “…Job one is to win the war, the economic war. Job two is to win the economic war. And job three. And you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I would, I would absolutely say for the, for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are, you know, are contentious. And I also, I also would do no...

WASHINGTON -- Key Senate Democrats are wavering in their support of legislation that would give more power to labor unions, dealing a setback to labor's top priority as businesses warn of the damage the bill would cause. A woman wears a model house on her head during a rally in Washington to support the "Employee Free Choice Act." The battle over the "Employee Free Choice Act" -- expected to be introduced Tuesday -- is seen as a power struggle among labor unions and businesses, as well as a test of whether moderate Democrats and Republicans will push back on Democratic...

Warren Buffett, the US investor dubbed the Sage of Omaha, continues to be a cheerleader for equities despite recent spectacular misjudgments on the timing of his buy and hold philosophy. In a wide ranging interview with the CNBC television todayhe insisted that over 10 years, "you will do considerably better owning a group of equities" than US treasury bonds. This echoed his comments to the New York Times in Oct­ober that he was buying US equities. Since then the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen by over 26% and more than 2,300 points as it tests lows which have not...

After saying the economy has “fallen off a cliff,” legendary investor Warren Buffett this morning rapped political leaders for not being united enough in dealing with what he called an “economic Pearl Harbor” about six months ago. Buffett, who supported Barack Obama in the election, didn’t let Democrats skate, but he particularly singled out the GOP. “They really do have an obligation to support things that are clearly designed to fight the war in a big way,” Buffett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning. “I think that the Republicans have an obligation to recognize this as an economic war...

Billionaire Warren Buffett said unemployment will likely climb a lot higher depending upon how effective the nation's policies are, but he remains optimistic over the long term. Buffett said the nation's leaders need to support President Barack Obama's efforts to repair the economy because fear is dominating Americans' behavior and the economy has basically followed the worst-case scenario he envisioned. "It's fallen off a cliff," Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on CNBC. "Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen." ... He predicted that unemployment will...

In another clip from the CNBC interview today, Billionaire investor Warren Buffet said there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" in Washington, D.C., referring to too many voices speaking out on what needs to happen to turn the Economy around. Buffet likens the current crisis to an "economic Pearl Harbor," and said if it is a war then you cannot have every member of Congress planning battle strategy and then second-guessing every move that is made. But at the same time, Buffet seemed to take a shot at the Democrats and President Obama when he said that if you...

Here is video of Billionaire Warren Buffet in an interview with CNBC today saying in an interview that the U.S. Economy has "fallen off a cliff." Buffet says he has seen more drastic changes in American consumers than at any time in his lifetime. He believes the fear Americans have has changed their spending habits, and that will not be altered quickly. Buffet said the core of the problem goes back to the belief that housing prices could only go up and never down, a belief he said everyone had - including himself. Buffet said this economic disaster will end,...

"All good things must come to an end, but all bad things can continue forever." -- Unknown Last week, I suggested that Warren Buffett's star was crashing back to earth. Barron's Senior Editor Andrew Bary penned a similar piece over the weekend. Armed with some additional information, I have made tentative conclusions regarding the intrinsic value of Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A Quote - Cramer on BRK.A - Stock Picks) common shares. At year-end 2007, Berkshire's investment portfolio had a cost of $39.2 billion and a market value of $75 billion. Since the end of third quarter 2008, the value of Berkshire's...

DETROIT - Fledgling Chinese automaker BYD Auto Co. Ltd. - a Chinese battery maker with backing for its auto venture from billionaire Warren Buffet - announced yesterday that it plans to formally enter the crowded and competitive U.S. auto market by 2011. Eyes Toledo for Plant Site

Sometimes I wish there were a humane way to get rid of the rich. Without the rich for whipping boys, we might be able to concentrate on what's best for the 99 and a half percent of the rest of us. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run...

Sometimes I wish there were a humane way to get rid of the rich. Without the rich for whipping boys, we might be able to concentrate on what's best for the 99 and a half percent of the rest of us. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run...

The G-20’s Secret Debt Solution by Larry Edelson 11-13-08 If you think this weekend’s G-20 meetings in Washington are only about designing short-term fixes to the financial system and regulatory reforms for banks, hedge funds, brokers, mortgage companies and investment banks … think again. Behind the scenes, a far more fundamental fix is being discussed — the possible revaluation of gold and the birth of an entirely new monetary system. I’ve been studying this issue in great depth, all my life. And given the speed at which the financial crisis is unfolding, I would be very surprised if what I’m...

Los Angeles: Barack Obama has promised to increase taxes if he becomes president of the United States. But the really rich want change and many of them have said they are voting for the senator from Illinois. Despite the tradition that says the country's wealthy tend to favour the Republican Party, there has been an unexpected swing ahead of Tuesday's election that favours the black Democratic candidate. For starters, the country's two richest men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have already said they will vote for Obama. According to Forbes magazine, Gates - worth an estimated $55.5 billion - contributed...

Market turmoil gets Barack Obama elected. He knows this and more importantly, so do his supporters. A survey released by Prince and Associates, shows that 75% of voters worth $1 million to $10 million are favoring John McCain, but of those voters worth more than $30 million, two-thirds support Obama. It's no secret that the majority of uber rich individuals despise the current administration and are willing to do whatever they can to get new blood into the White House; even if it comes under conditions of an economic collapse. These Obama billionaires, led by famed market manipulator George Soros,...

Washington, DC -- During the third and final presidential debate last week, Barack Obama mentioned investment guru Warren Buffet as a financial advisor. Obama called Buffet a "my friend and supporter," but failed to mention Buffet has given millions of dollars to pro-abortion groups.

He said he would involve former Vice President Al Gore in efforts to address the issue. "I would tap him, I would tap people who have been involved in these issues for many years." McCain noted that he disagreed with the Nobel Peace Prize winner about nuclear energy but added, "I have great respect for Al Gore."

Who is attacking the U.S.? The big casualty in this 21st century U.S. civil war is the Middle Class George Soros, Maurice Strong and company redefine the Middleclass George Soros, Al Gore, Warren Buffet, Maurice StrongThe Democrat-loving mainstream media is missing the boat on Warren Buffet’s take of America’s economic meltdown as …”a sort of economic Pearl Harbor we’re going through.” That being the case, then surely the first question should be: “Who is attacking the U.S.?” The billionaire’s $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at the same time he’s touting the Treasury’s $700 billion bank rescue plan,...

March 28, 2005 .....investigators on three continents are examining Buffet's Berkshire insurance affiliates .......the company is in the unfamiliar position of having to defend its integrity. Berkshire insurance affiliates are involved in what investigators describe as possible financial manipulation at insurance giants like AIG and Zurich Financial Services Group. Investigators are trying to determine the extent of senior executives who oversaw insurance operations that sold products at the core of international regulatory scrutiny. The broad investigation into the insurance industry has already brought down top executives including Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of AIG.........regulators are looking at a...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States is already in a recession and it will be longer as well as deeper than many people expect, U.S. investor Warren Buffett said in an interview published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. "But the people are already feeling the effects," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "It will be deeper and last longer than many think." But he said that won't stop him from...

In the 1960's I had a lady friend who loved Robert Redford. So, naturally, I got dragged to all of Redford's movies. I saw "The Candidate" several times. In that film, Mr. McKay (Redford), a "community organizer" like Barack Obama, hatches a slogan, "McKay, The Better Way" to run for office. Ironically, Barack "Barry" Obama has now chosen "The Better Way" as his mantra through February 10th. Well. Obama's slogan has about as much substance as the celluloid version popularized by Robert Redford. Obama is entirely a creation of wealthy contributors and powerful, liberal media interests. So what he does...

Thursday, November 15, 2007 What Fred Said [Larry Kudlow] I just sat down with presidential candidate Fred Thompson, for an interview that will air tonight on Kudlow & Company. The former Tennessee senator was in good form. He attacked Warren Buffet’s tax-hike proposal on the rich as totally wrong, and Buffett himself as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party. He agreed with Dick Armey that the GOP will lose if it departs from the first principles of limited government and lower tax rates. He called the farm bill “disgraceful” and would veto it if he were president....

Buffett may be brilliant when it comes to picking stocks but in the field of economics he is a blithering buffoon. I have no way of knowing why Buffett has attached his colours to the Democrats, a party whose policies can be summed up in three slogans: raise taxes, raise government spending, regulate the economy. And keep on doing it until the economy sinks into stagnation, at which point they can blame everyone but themselves. (I know that the Republicans’ spending record has been dismal, but at lease most of them can be made to see the light. This is...

Bear Stearns, its shares and reputation beaten down after the collapse of two hedge funds, is in serious talks to sell as much as 20 percent of the firm, with several individual investors, including Warren E. Buffett, expressing an interest, people briefed on the discussions said today. Other investors who have expressed an interest in buying a minority stake include the Bank of America, Wachovia and two Chinese institutions — the Citic Group and China Construction Bank, these people said. Such expressions of interest will help bolster Bear and its chief executive, James E. Cayne, who has struggled to restore...

OMAHA, Neb. - A man with camouflage paint on his face and a fake gun tried to break into to billionaire Warren Buffett's house but fled after a scuffle with a security guard, police said Thursday. Buffett's wife, Astrid, summoned the guard after the doorbell rang shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday, police said. The security guard found the man, dressed all in black, on the home's front porch and confronted him, police said. The man struck the guard on the head, then fled and remained at large Thursday. Neither Buffett, who was home at the time, nor his wife was...

"The rich are different from you and me," wrote Fitzgerald and I suppose they are, but the differences – they wax and wane with the economic tides. Gilded ages come, go, and are reborn on the monsoon cloudbursts of seemingly intangible forces such as globalization, innovation, and favorable tax policy. For the rich to be truly rich and multiply their numbers, they need help. Adept surfers they may be, but like all riders, the wealthy need a seventh wave that allows them to preen their skills and declare themselves masters of their own universe, if only for a moment in...

On FoxNews a little while ago, they showed a video clip of Warren Buffet speaking at what looked like a Hillary campaign fundraiser. I can't find the video on Fox's site, YouTube, or Google video, so it seems like it isn't up yet. From memory it went like this: Buffet: My idea is that you make a company so good that even an idiot can run it, because you know that one day an idiot will end up running it! (Audience laughter) Buffet: Kind of like this country, where even an idiot can run it, and is... (LOUD cackling from...

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but anti-abortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44-billion fortune, devotes the vast majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1 percent has gone to Planned Parenthood over the years. "The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the...

Buffet: We're here for the long haul "If it gives Israel a shot in the arm, that's great," he tells Post. While strategists continued to project good things for Israel Tuesday in the wake of Warren Buffett's $4 billion investment in Iscar Ltd., the man at the center of the euphoria was thrilled to have found a place in the country. "We're going to be in Israel way beyond my lifetime," the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview late Monday night from the company's Omaha, Nebraska headquarters. "There was enormous enthusiasm...

The world's two richest men have both lost a slice of their fortunes this year betting against the dollar. Microsoft's Bill Gates said with fulminating certainty in Davos last January that it was time to "short" the greenback. "The ol' dollar is going down. It is a bit scary. We're in uncharted territory when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt," he said. His friend Warren Buffet kept pace, switching $22billion (£13billion) of Berkshire Hathaway funds into foreign currencies. He said it pained him as an American, and broke the habits of a life-time. But a country living...

The following is an edited and approximate transcript of their remarks. On real estate Buffett: "A lot of the psychological well being of the American public comes from how well they've done with their house over the years. If indeed there's been a bubble, and it's pricked at some point, the net effect on Berkshire might well be positive [because the company's financial strength would allow it to buy real-estate-related businesses at bargain prices].... "Certainly at the high end of the real estate market in some areas, you've seen extraordinary movement.... People go crazy in economics periodically, in all kinds...

Sen. John Kerry recruited two famous businessmen to what The New York Times described as his "motley team" of economic advisers. Kerry turned to Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway. (When Kerry said he was fighting for Jobs, we didn't realize he meant Steve). Buffett is the second wealthiest man in the world. Steve Jobs just received America's second largest executive pay package. Both are amazingly talented at what they do. But what they do not do is economics. Until now, nobody imagined Steve Jobs had any interest in economics. Buffett, on the other hand,...

By John Berlau © 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc. Though President Bush constantly is criticized and attacked by Democratic partisans for pursuing policies that benefit "the wealthy," why are so many of what would be considered America's superrich his political opponents? In addition to the Hollywood mega-elite, which since the death of Sam Goldwyn have opposed the GOP mainly for cultural reasons, billionaire businessmen have stepped forward calling for the defeat of Bush or his policies. Most prominent has been speculator George Soros, who has pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, given millions to Democratic Bush-bashing groups such...

Oh no, the Parrotheads are coming. The Parrotheads are coming. Lock your doors. Put bars on the windows. Call the cops! Why is it that Boston, which has delusions about being a world-class city, every now and then behaves like East Podunk? Latest case in point: two proposed Jimmy Buffett concerts at Fenway Park. Now it's no great secret that for Buffett fans - Parrothead Nation - the concert itself is only half the fun. The real event simply must include a little tailgating in the Margaritaville spirit. (How else to properly show off those wild and crazy Hawaiian shirts?)...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from meetings at the White House and the Capitol Monday predicting he would get "a lot" more federal money for California, but citing no specific commitments. The governor met in a group with President Bush and one-on-one with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said afterward he expects the money to come. "I expect to get a lot of it simply because, you know, I'm very persuasive and I'm like, you know, a tick that hangs on it and will not let go until I get what I...

By Warren E. Buffett, FORTUNE I'm about to deliver a warning regarding the U.S. trade deficit and also suggest a remedy for the problem. But first I need to mention two reasons you might want to be skeptical about what I say. To begin, my forecasting record with respect to macroeconomics is far from inspiring. For example, over the past two decades I was excessively fearful of inflation. More to the point at hand, I started way back in 1987 to publicly worry about our mounting trade deficits -- and, as you know, we've not only survived but also thrived....

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...

I suppose I took an interest in Warren Buffet when my wife discovered, courtesy of a newspaper account in the mid 1980s, that a college friend of mine was the son of Warren's Vice Chairman, Charlie Munger. Up to that point, he seemed to be essentially what the media portrayed him to be: a fantasticly successful investor with a home-spun wit. His sinister side, of course, came out this week with his proposition 13 comments, and it brought to mind the other public part of his life, unrelated to investing and finance. He apparently gives very little to charity and...

Targeting State's Proposition 13 Is Unlikely Republican Stance Warren Buffett, the billionaire financial adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for California governor, strongly suggested in an interview that the state's property taxes need to be higher. Mr. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., took on California's famous Proposition 13, which has limited property taxes there since 1978. As an example, he pointed out the difference between his own property-tax bills for homes he owns in California and Nebraska. His home in Omaha, he said, is valued at roughly $500,000. His current yearly property tax bill on that home: $14,401. In...

At the risk of being tarred and feathered by Warren Buffet devotees, who live by every word that escapes his mouth, I´m not at all convinced that his pronouncements are good for America. Warren Buffet basically has made his billions by purchasing companies below their true market value and then using conservative business decisions to grow them. There is no doubt this is a workable money-making strategy and making money appears to be Buffet´s primary goal in life. He did not buy computer-based .com businesses during the 1990s that were the major instruments of the incredible rise in stock market...