Warren Buffett's a Shyster

[MachineGhost]

I knew there was a reason I never liked the guy.

By failing to vote against something that was clearly wrong, Buffett, who in my mind (until yesterday) used to be a moral compass for corporate America, became another middling American politician — the common type that all of us respect so little, the one that votes not for what he believes in but for what is going to keep him in the good graces of his party or get him reelected.

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/256530/wa ... ican-dream

[AdamA]

I just read a book called "The Circle" by David Eggers.

The best part of the book (to me) is that the villain is a guy very obviously based on Warren Buffet.

He's the CEO of a giant company called The Circle

He had a way of speaking that was both lyrical and grounded, giving his audiences wonderful turns of phrase one moment and grounded common sense the next.  He had come from Omaha... .

He of course goes on to do awful things as the story progresses.

[frommi]

I continue to like WB, even when i didn`t like the KO move. There is plenty to learn from him, you just have to listen.

[AdamA]

What have you learned from Warren Buffet?

[frommi]

What have you learned from Warren Buffet?

Everything that is important about value investing and investing in general.

[AdamA]

What have you learned from Warren Buffet?

Everything that is important about value investing and investing in general.

Has this information helped you make any $?

[frommi]

Has this information helped you make any $?

15% since i left the PP path last year in august with less volatility than the market. But it was a lot of work involved,so the PP is definitly the easier path for that.
But i have the vision to reach a CAGR of 15-20% in the long run and had big psychological problems holding bonds and gold.

[iwealth]

15% since i left the PP path last year in august with less volatility than the market. But it was a lot of work involved,so the PP is definitly the easier path for that.
But i have the vision to reach a CAGR of 15-20% in the long run and had big psychological problems holding bonds and gold.

Not to diminish your accomplishments, but depending on when a person entered the market last year in August, it's up between 17-20%. And it's pretty much been a straight line, not one single 10% correction.

And that's no work, buy and hold.

[frommi]

Yes. I will outperform in down markets, just like the PP does. For example in january the market was down 3%, i was up 1.5%. But who cares, everybody has to find his way of investing, there is no path that works for everybody. When the PP works for you, that is very good!

[MediumTex]

My favorite Warren Buffett move is the way that he ridicules investing in precious metals when his massive late 1990s silver trade made him one of the largest precious metals investors since the Hunt brothers in the 1970s.

I also love the way Buffett has been able to create and mold his public persona.  He is masterful at it in the same way that people like Hunter S. Thompson and John F. Kennedy were able to create and project a larger-than-life persona that was only lightly connected to reality, and yet many people were convinced that these projections were real (in part, no doubt, because they wanted them to be real).

[barrett]

Medium Tex, his investment was only 130,000,000 ounces. 

Just found this chart which is pretty damn impressive:

http://www.businessinsider.com/berkshir ... est-2014-1

Of course if you have all the connections in the world, it becomes easier to get information that can lead to above average returns. I am Warren Buffett neutral but that's a great track record.

[MediumTex]

Medium Tex, his investment was only 130,000,000 ounces. 

Just found this chart which is pretty damn impressive:

http://www.businessinsider.com/berkshir ... est-2014-1

Of course if you have all the connections in the world, it becomes easier to get information that can lead to above average returns. I am Warren Buffett neutral but that's a great track record.

Buffett has had a brilliant career as an investor, but, as with so many such things, around the time he became a household name in the mid-1990s is around the time that his investment returns started to become less impressive.

The thing about Buffett, though, is that there will ALWAYS be a Buffett in the sense that there will always be a number one in any contest where you are measuring returns.  If I gave an IQ test at a hospital for retarded people, there would be a number one. 

The thing that I think is interesting is the way that Buffett has used the notoriety that his investment success has brought him to create this persona that is quintessentially American, and yet probably a little phony as well.

It's probably kind of like the way the Dave Thomas in the Wendy's commercials wasn't like the real-life Dave Thomas, though they were probably sort of similar.

The thing that has always concerned me about Buffett's act is the same thing that would concern me about a persuasive and charismatic person with a strong personality selling BASE jumping excursions on commission--there are just a lot of things that can go wrong.

[Coffee]

There's also a Warren Buffett-esque character in "House of Cards".  (Played by Simon and Simon.)

[murphy_p_t]

isn't he also a crony capitalist extraordinaire?

[Kshartle]

isn't he also a crony capitalist extraordinaire?

Has that term replaced fascist?

I think when you're a republican you're a crony capitalist and when you're a dem you're a fascist right? Please someone correct me, I can't keep up with the lib-con doo-doo head names.

[Libertarian666]

I have read somewhere that if you remove GEICO from his results, he has underperformed the S&P overall.

In other words, he made one fabulous (lucky, brilliant, whatever) trade, and the rest is all hype.

[Jan Van]

brk.a is at $201,000 today...

[dualstow]

I have read somewhere that if you remove GEICO from his results, he has underperformed the S&P overall.

In other words, he made one fabulous (lucky, brilliant, whatever) trade, and the rest is all hype.

I think you read wrong. Berkshire didn't even own Geico until '96, long after W.B. had established his track record.

[Libertarian666]

I have read somewhere that if you remove GEICO from his results, he has underperformed the S&P overall.

In other words, he made one fabulous (lucky, brilliant, whatever) trade, and the rest is all hype.

I think you read wrong. Berkshire didn't even own Geico until '96, long after W.B. had established his track record.

He didn't buy it until 1996, but according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway):
" In the late 1970s, Berkshire acquired an equity stake in the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO), which forms the core of its insurance operations today (and is a major source of capital for Berkshire Hathaway's other investments)."

[dualstow]

Ah I see. I'd missed that.