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Macro fund manager John Burbank of Passport Capital joked that Warren Buffett is "basically a tax evader" at the SALT conference and attendees started clapping and laughing. ... "I just hate when he tells you to pay taxes," Burbank added to more cheers and laughs from the crowd. "That's a different concept. If you're asking me if he's become somewhat hypocritical. I don't want to go there. What I'm saying is his returns after tax are phenomenal. And nobody talks about the fact that he's tax efficient. Political views, etc. I don't want to go there," Cooperman said.

Billionaire Warren Buffett says he remains confident in his company’s prospects even though he recommended in his will that most of his wife’s inheritance be invested in an S&P 500 index fund. […] Buffett says his plan for his wife’s inheritance is designed to provide peace of mind, not generate growth. …

WASHINGTON — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the White House Wednesday to give "immediate attention'' to safety issues involving the increased use of freight trains to transport crude oil. He made his comments just hours before the latest derailment in Lynchburg, Va. Cuomo later said the accident and other recent derailments are "a startling pattern that underscores the need for action." "In addition to steps that states like New York are taking, the federal government must overhaul the safety regulations, starting with taking DOT-111 trains off the rails now," he said in a statement. "These trains travel through populated...

Alaska Dispatch Publishing LLC, the parent company of the online newspaper the Alaska Dispatch, will purchase the Anchorage Daily News from The McClatchy Co. for $34 million. The sale is expected to close in May. ... Billionaire Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 31 small- and medium-sized daily newspapers. It has bought most of those newspapers since 2011 at bargain prices. Including weekly papers and other publications, Berkshire owns 70 newspapers.

"Our confidence is justified both by our past experience and by the knowledge that society will forever need massive investments in both transportation and energy." -- Warren Buffett, 2013 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders According to the company's most recent fact sheet, Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary BNSF Railways ships enough coal every year to power 10% of America's houses, and enough crude oil to fill the gas tanks of nearly 650,000 cars every day. Transporting energy is pretty important to BNSF, and BNSF is pretty important to Berkshire, having generated some $3.8 billion in net income in 2013. At the same...

Charlie Munger, who runs Wesco Financial, is the famed right-hand man of Warren Buffett. He is also a master investor in his own right. At Wesco's annual meeting a week ago, he shared his always-blunt opinions on Berkshire Hathaway, the scandalous ethics in the accounting, law, and investment banking professions, and more. Warren Buffett is generally acknowledged to be the greatest investor ever -- one of the reasons why 13,000 people flocked to the recent annual meeting of his investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A). But closely following Buffett are a handful of other legendary investors, including his long-time partner,...

First stock options, then earnings guidance, and now taxes on dividends. America's most successful investor has taken positions on key issues that could harm businesses and their shareholders. According to our latest Billionaires List, Warren Buffett is the world's second-richest person. He got that way by being a very savvy investor. However, it seems that the severe bear market, the dozen or so corporate scandals that have taken place in recent years, and the "unfair" distribution of wealth have convinced Mr. Buffett that systemic reforms are required, that corporate managements cannot be trusted and that the double taxation of corporate...

Today Berkshire-Hathaway has announced that it will stop its shareholder-designated contributions program. Quote from the Berkshire-Hathaway press release: "Berkshire Hathaway has terminated its shareholder-designated contributions program, which has distributed approximately $197 million since it was begun in 1981. This program has allowed holders of Berkshire’s A shares to designate a per-share sum for the company to contribute to as many as three charities, the only requirement being that the designee have 501(c)(3) status. The program thus allowed a wide diversity of donations, some of them controversial but all outside the control of Berkshire." The entire press release can be viewed...

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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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,...

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...

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...