Warren Buffett withdraws bond re-insurance plan

IHT ^ | 03/03/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Warren Buffett withdraws bond re-insurance plan

Reuters Monday, March 3, 2008 NEW YORK: Warren Buffett said Monday that he was no longer offering to guarantee $800 million of municipal bonds backed by the monoline bond insurers MBIA, Ambac Financial Group and FGIC.

On Feb 12, Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, offered to reinsure the bonds, but only at a steep premium. The offer excluded risky debt, including securities tied to subprime mortgages, which have caused billions of dollars of losses for bond insurers, leading them to seek new sources of capital or possible break-ups.

Speaking on CNBC television, Buffett said Monday this his earlier offer was "not on the table."

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Southack]

Actually, Buffet just now figured out that muni bonds are more risky than the Public has been led to believe.

Watch for city/county bankruptices in the next 8 months...

[2banana]

He wanted to cherry pick the best bonds at deeply discounted prices. It was a good try to make a killing...

[Moonman62]

This is no surprise because it was a terrible deal for the insurers.

[advertising guy]

bs..........he didn’t “withdraw”....he was shoo’d away cause the deal was not as lucritive as he wanted.....assume zero % of the risk ?......high rate of return and acceess to prime defaults wansn’t good enuf ????????

nope, this was just a whore caught putting pants on

[TigerLikesRooster]

financial WMD’s going off all over the country.

[goodnesswins]

Yeah....and he just said he is going to vote DEMOCRAT this fall....how special is that!!!!

[griswold3]

The offer excluded risky debt

‘Vulture’ Warren Buffet at it again.

[roses of sharon]

He has always been a member of the UnAmerican Democrat Party.

[Southack]

The muni bond crisis is the silver-lining to the sub-prime cloud.

Muni bonds, after all, take investor money away from the private sector. With the muni bond market cratering, investment capital will go back to corporate debt instead of munipal debt.

Let cities fire large numbers of worthless bureaucrats. That’s hardly a bad thing.

[DuncanWaring]

Let cities fire large numbers of worthless bureaucrats. That’s hardly a bad thing.

Except that they'll fire the folks that actually do work, and keep the worthless bureaucrats that have the seniority.

[RSmithOpt]

YUP and the biggest WMD is going to be a Dem controlled Congress with a liberal in the White House. We are screwed.....in the meantime many will go bankrupt as stagflation spirals upward.

Looks like gasoline will jump today from $3.18 gal to $3.30 / gal in the morning.

The dollar continues fall and food, energy and basic services are skyrocketing.

We are well on our way to $4.25 / gal gas by Memorial Day.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Gas riot or gas rationing?

[copaliscrossing]

Let cities fire large numbers of worthless bureaucrats. That is hardly a bad thing.

I could not have said it better myself! Perhaps at the muni level is where a lot of fat can start being whacked and hopefully it will trickle up to the State level then the Fed level. I just hope this whole revenue generating red light camera fiasco is not what replaces their lost funding.

Sometimes one can only dream!!!

[RSmithOpt]

Gas Riot....because of inflation, spring refineries maintenance downtimes, and speculators looking for a hole to invest in...that will be oil.

I'm already rationing my gas...no unnecessary driving and combining trips.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I predict that, when gas riot happens and economy is going really bad in U.S., Euros are all out, watching and exchanging snide jokes, until it dawns on them that they have even bigger problem with gas and economy than U.S.. They would be too much into Schadenfreude to notice their own problems.

[RSmithOpt]

BTW, corn, wheat and soybean futures are up today alone 2.5-3.8% with cattle and hog future down in the 1.5% range.

We won't be seeing prices drop anytime soon in energy and food.

[TigerLikesRooster]

People are being squeezed from both directions. Rising commodity prices from below & collapsing asset values from above.

You are right. It will go on for some time.

[pabianice]

Oy...