Free Republic

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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

Finally I recalled the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: Let them eat cake. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1769 According to noted economist David Rosenberg, since the multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street began over a year ago, we have lost 6.2 million jobs, auto sales are down 23%, housing starts are down 30%, bank credit is down $500 billion, household net worth is down $7 trillion, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have failed or are near failure. Yet Wall Street is booming. Bonuses on Wall Street are...

The economy has made a sharp U-turn in the past couple of months, and better days for American businesses and workers are around the corner. But don't take my word for it. Take Warren Buffett's. And Jamie Dimon's. And Jack Welch's. All three tell me that in the past four to eight weeks, they've seen a real change in their businesses, and that indicates better news for the nation's economy. They should know. Warren Buffett has been focusing on the data from BNSF Railway, which he recently acquired. At the start of the recession three years ago, Burlington Northern felt...

Warren Buffet lost $950 million in Goldman Sachs (GSI) options today as the bank's stock tanked as a result of the SEC filing fraud charges against the firm

Warren Buffett may understand the complex derivative at the heart of the fraud suit against Goldman Sachs (GS: 149.11*, -0.42, -0.28%) “better than most,” as he put it this past weekend, but I’m not sure he understands the securities laws or the legal definition of fraud. Buffett mounted a vigorous defense of Goldman, the embattled firm in which he is a major investor, arguing that the identity of the investor betting against the collateralized debt obligation — hedge fund manager John Paulson — would have been irrelevant to the investor betting on the underlying subprime mortgages. “For the life of...

The two billionaires' request that the rich give 50% of their net worth to charity is misguided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In its latest issue, Fortune magazine reports that "Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are asking the nation's billionaires to pledge at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetime or at death." Gates told Fortune that 50% of one's wealth would constitute the "low bar" for giving, while Buffett has pledged to give 99% of his wealth away. At first glance this is something to celebrate, for it rightly confirms that capitalism is, at its core, quite compassionate....

Thirty-four U.S. billionaires pledged Wednesday to give away at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity as part of a campaign by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Among the billionaires joining the campaign are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller and investor Ronald Perelman. Gates and Buffett launched "The Giving Pledge" in June to convince hundreds of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune during their lifetime or after their death

A supporter of Obama's economic plan and a Keynesian disciple, Warren Buffett seems unable to decide if we are still in a recession. On September 13, Bloomberg reported that Buffett announced he was "a huge bull in this market." He seemed self-assured that the economy was in no longer contracting and that "we will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board." Buffett blamed the negative perception of the economy mostly on the media, which did not reflect his view of the business environment. The current economic doldrums apparently are a...

Warren Buffett. We could jot down the nearly endless list of descriptives that would just begin to protray his followers’ feelings towards him. But it’s time consuming, so let’s just put this as a constant: He’s The Man. We know. But let’s just explore this a bit further. Ordinary investors follow every step Warren Buffett makes. But so do the seasoned professional money managers. They even invest their clients’ funds in Berkshire Hathaway stock. Everybody knows that if they had invested $1000 with Warren Buffett back in the day, they would have been a zillionaire today. We can’t go back...

Warren Buffett hired 39-year old Todd Combs, a former Connecticut hedge fund manager with $400 AUM (assets under management), to oversee Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio. From FOXNews: "For three years Charlie Munger and I have been looking for someone of Todd's caliber to handle a significant portion of Berkshire's investment portfolio," Buffett said in a statement. "We are delighted that Todd will be joining us." Combs previously worked at Castle Point Capital, where he managed just $400 million. Under Buffett, Combs will manage a “significant portion” of the investment portfolio, according to the firm. What caught his eye? The Wall Street...

Mega billionaire Warren Buffet once called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction." Apparently, Buffet has failed to heed his own advice to avoid them. Warren Buffett's company posted an 8 per cent drop in third-quarter net income as the value of its derivatives portfolio fell sharply, but BNSF railroad and Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A-N125,560.001,080.000.87%) many other operating companies performed well... The biggest factor in the decline was a $95-million loss on Berkshire's derivatives, some of which are tied to equity markets and credit defaults. A year ago, those derivatives were worth $1.1-billion.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name Warren Buffet as one of fifteen winners of the 2010 Medal of Freedom, a White House official said on Wednesday. Buffet, one of the world's most successful investors who has donated a vast chunk of his multibillion dollar fortune to charity, will receive the medal at a White House ceremony early next year. .. Buffet is one of Obama's closest defenders in the business community..

SNIP Buffett also has some inspirational words for those worried about China surpassing the U.S. He told Vanity Fair: “We had four million people here in 1790." “We’re not more intelligent than people in China, which then had 290 million people, or Europe, which had 50 million. We didn’t work harder, we didn’t have a better climate, and we didn’t have better resources. But we definitely had a system that unleashes potential. "This system works. Since then, we’ve been through at least 15 recessions, a civil war, a Great Depression…. All of these things happen. But this country has optimized...

The Oracle of Omaha had done it again. Here is the latest letter Warren Buffett has written to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. For reasons of typography, we have excluded the tables, as indicated. To read the entire shareholder report, click here. To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: The per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock increased by 13% in 2010. Over the last 46 years (that is, since present management took over), book value has grown from $19 to $95,453, a rate of 20.2% compounded annually.* The highlight of 2010 was our acquisition of...

Let the word go forth: On Friday, March 25, 2011, Warren Buffett predicted the decline of the U.S. dollar. In a speech given in New Delhi (where he's hunting up some cheap Indian stocks), the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ) warned investors to avoid "long-term fixed-dollar investments" such as 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds. Buffett worries that the $2.3 trillion in new money our government has pumped into the economy, when combined with interest rates so low they're practically giving money away, are combining to dilute the value of the dollar. As a result, Buffett warns:...