Who Really Cooks The Books - Buffett blames Lieberman in 1994

New York Times | 7/24/02 | Warren Buffett

[aShepard]

Hmmm! 1994! Joey Lie-ber-man!

Whose legacy????

[b4its2late]

Lieberman - the unconscious of the senate.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Words from the acknowledged Master of Markets.

[dd5339]

The Oracle of Omaha speaks.!

Semper Fi!

[timestax]

bump

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

WARREN E. BUFFETT strikes me as a lefty, to boot. Wasn't he the one who was saying that he didn't need a tax cut?

[eureka!]

I'm surprised the Clymers ran this. Lieberman is a fraudulent poseur and I do hope the truth is outed, big time...

[McGavin999]

He's absolutely right, this is just commonsense. If the CEO's are saying the options have no value, then they should have no problem giving them up. If they do have value, they should be expensed.

[jackbill]

Congress has GOT to close this loophole.

I have read both sides of the "expensing options" argument and I do not feel that the proponents of expensing have a good case. Expensing options is only an estimate as to how many will be eventually exercised. For instance, in this down market, there certainly aren't many being exercised. Yet, under "expensing" many of these options would therefore have erroneously stated earnings in previous years.

People whose opinion I respect claim that options are adequately accounted for in corporate reports - for anyone who is interested in seeing them.

[Zack Nguyen]

Lieberman pretends to be a moderate Democrat with conservative social principles. But he's just like the rest. Remember when he suddenly was in favor of partial-birth abortion, and was suddenly against vouchers during the Presidential campaign? He dropped his principles like a live grenade when it suited him.

[1Old Pro]

Funny, the media is unaware of Lieberman's legislation.

[aShepard]

I'm surprised the Clymers ran this. Lieberman is a fraudulent poseur and I do hope the truth is outed, big time...

Yeah, surprising that this is in the NYT. Let's give this a mainstream, get legs, bump!

[justlurking]

I really have to wonder what earnings would actually be if all companies did exactly what Buffett suggested.

The ironic thing is that Buffett's favorite son (Bill Gates) is one of the worst offenders.

Most of Microsoft's earnings that fueled the big run-up of their stock price in the late 90's would have been wiped out if the exercise of employee stock options had been expensed.

[eureka!]

"Yeah, surprising that this is in the NYT. Let's give this a mainstream, get legs, bump!"

Not likely. The presstitutes will view it as an editorial letter and not "news" (*wink, wink*). A pox on their dishonest houses...

[LenS]

I really have to wonder what earnings would actually be if all companies did exactly what Buffett suggested.

Standard & Poor has recently introduced the concept of core earnings where stock options are expensed and other confusing items are removed to see just what the company's core operations are actually doing. Fortunately, not all earnings disappear, but they do drop a chunk.

[Howlin]

FYI.

[Howlin]

FYI.

[dts32041]

So Buffet doesn't talk about his support for the death tax.

He got his and he doesn't want anybody elese to have it, but the slime called the federali's.

[Dog]

Very interesting....