Funny, I just read your post and changed to another browser window that contains the online edition of the
Wall Street Journal -- the page has a link to a story about James Crowe. How is Crowe affiliated with Worldcom?
From the first paragraph of the story(need a subscription to access): The chief executive officer of Level 3 Communications Inc. denied allegations by a former Salomon Smith Barney broker that he accepted shares of hot IPOs from the big securities firm in return for his firm's investment-banking business
With that, I would not discount Buffett's investment because it is with Crowe. I think exogenous forces (i.e. deflation, regulation etc.) brought down Worldcom. Those risks are the same for Level 3 - Berkshire seems to think the risk has been reduced.
Berkshire is buying a senior secured bond with good intrest rate redemable at any time for stock........
means diddly for the mani street punter who can only buy stock (ie all the risk plus zero security plus if things go very good Berkshire'll call in his warrants and mainstreet gets massivly diluted)