Comments on: BUFFETT’S ANNUAL LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:16:46 +0000

You fail to understand GS (sarcasm laid on thick and heavy) completely. If GS failed the whole world would have come to a halt. Who else would skim off the top of most transactions? Who would secretly buy government bonds? Who would put people into high ranking positions of power within world governments? Who would get AIG bailed out so they could be saved? Who I ask you, who!?

Too big to fail is a farce. It would have hurt, likely badly. But I prefer my bandaids ripped off instead of slowly peeled off and taking all my hair with it. The government has just stolen from the people to give to the corporations. It’s not their job. The corporations I’m sure would rob us alone just fine

By: Neil in Dallas

Neil in Dallas — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:53:26 +0000

TPC,
That is a very true quote about Goldman. The question I pose is where would all of our Treasury Secretaries, Fed Presidents, policy makers, etc come from? They all seem to come from Goldman Sachs…

By: TPC

TPC — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:35:57 +0000

I love how everyone has fallen for this myth that the world would have collapsed if GS had failed. As if the US economy couldn’t have continued on if this firm didn’t exist.

Remind me again what Goldman does that is so vital to the existence of the US economy? All they do is shuffle money around and charge fees. The few services they actually do provide (asset management & IB) are performed by hundreds of other firms. They provide no essential function in this society.

Would chaos have reigned for a few weeks if GS had failed? Sure, but we would have recovered. It’s not like Americans would have stopped living just because GS failed and took down a few banks with them….

By: ES

ES — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:24:07 +0000

The adoration the society has with Buffet reminds me that of Greenspan. He can do no wrong. It remains to be seen how history will see him in the end.

By: JH

JH — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:20:58 +0000

If Goldman and GE were allowed to go under, WB wouldn’t have been the only one to have their investments blow up in their faces.

By: TPC

TPC — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:06:52 +0000

No one ever denied that Buffett is a great capitalist and seizes every opportunity he has to make money, but let’s be honest here – who is he fooling with this “we didn’t benefit from the bailouts” line?

I wonder if Buffett would be so widely praised if Goldman had failed and many of his investments had blown up in his face. Would investors think differently of this man who can say and do no wrong? I think so. But we’ll never know because he got a huge gift from the government.

The steroids comparison above is not far off.

By: najdorf

najdorf — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:23:10 +0000

I see a lot of people on the internet criticizing Buffett for doing his job, which is to run his businesses successfully, provide goods and services that people demand, and make money for shareholders. It’s not his job to manage the size of the government deficit, punish bankers, or turn down help in making money – the opposite, in fact. If he said “y’know, this GS preferred is too good of a deal for me, and btw the government ought to take more from GS”, he would be violating his duty to do his best for shareholders. He has never pretended that his job at Berkshire isn’t about making money, and it’s not wrong to make money. If you do think it’s wrong, you probably don’t pay much in taxes and aren’t that interested in stocks, yet I still see such people complaining vociferously that he sought government support for companies in which he invested.

Our government is in the business of helping business make money. If you don’t like it, vote for a different government. But it makes no sense to criticize capitalists for being capitalists, especially not ones like Buffett that intelligently and effectively run real businesse, don’t cheat, communicate clearly, and donate heavily to charity. Is there a CEO in America you trust more? If your answer is “I distrust every CEO”, maybe the problem is with you and not with them. Or maybe you just need to go vote for the Communist Party candidate in the next election. I don’t mean that as a slur – different people have different political beliefs. It’s just baffling to me that anyone would expect one of the world’s greatest, most well-known, most government-connected capitalists to enact their chosen non-capitalist political/economic values.

By: FXBot

FXBot — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:29:11 +0000

This is brilliant from ZH:

“We were a supplier of liquidity, and capital to the market, not a supplicant”

Translation: After I called my buddies Lloyd Blankfein, Hank Paulson, Barack Obama, and John McCain, and after I got assurances that they’d be willing to STEAL from taxpayers to bailout many of my investments, and after they’d assured me that they’d do EVERYTHING in their considerable power to backstop any further investments I might be inclined to make, well, I went ahead and made those investments – and we’ve done VERY well with them.

Oh and by the way, I’m a really principled person. I’ve take an aw-shucks, self deprecating attitude toward taking people’s money, I find that having such an attitude is the “spoonful of sugar, that makes the medicine go down”.

Non-steroidial annual homerun king:

Roger Maris – 61* (extended season – 1961)

Lifetime investment king (by average annual return):

Warren Buffet – 20.3%* (lobbied for and received govt. bailout – 2008)