Free Republic

In his annual letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett acknowledged that his bet against U.S. currency had collectively cost them almost $1 billion. Buffet wrote, "My views on America’s long-term problem in respect to trade imbalances, which I have laid out in previous reports, remain unchanged. My conviction, however, cost Berkshire $955 million pre-tax in 2005. ..." In recent years, Buffett has increasingly used his platform as an extraordinarily skillful mutual fund manger to criticize the economic performance of the country under President Bush. In last year's letter he announced that he had been significantly increasing his...

Warren Buffett, the second-richest man in America, is $1.8 billion poorer this year due to bad bets - also losing billions for his loyal following......considered by some as the world's greatest investor, has suffered an embarrassing 2.36 percent loss in returns on his huge Berkshire Hathaway empire in the past year. The pricey shares skidded from their peak last December of $91,200 apiece to $87,490 yesterday.....a drop of nearly $4.7 billion in just three months for his shareholders. Berkshire Hathaway - built largely on insurance businesses and blue chip stocks - got hurt from insurance losses and bad bets on...

New York, Nov. 5 (Reuters): Warren Buffett-run Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Friday posted a 48 per cent decline in quarterly profit — to the lowest level since 2001, hurt by nearly $3 billion of losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The company also reduced its stake in foreign currency contracts to $16.5 billion on September 30 from $21.5 billion three months earlier. Buffett has bet against the dollar since 2002 amid concern that high US trade and budget deficits might cause non-US investors to pull money from the country. Third-quarter net income for Berkshire, whose largest business is insurance, fell...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is expected to testify in the trial of his investment firm's lawsuit accusing the Internal Revenue Service of denying it $16.3 million in tax deductions. The trial began Monday in U.S. District Court after some three years of legal wrangling between Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and the IRS. The lawsuit alleges the IRS made an "erroneous, wrongful and illegal" interpretation of the U.S. Tax Code when it denied the deductions.The IRS disallowed the deductions after tracing $750 million in borrowed money to purchase stocks in several companies, including Coca-Cola Co., Time-Warner and Wells Fargo & Co., according...

Bill Gates Buys 100 Berkshire Hathaway Class A Shrs DOW JONES NEWSWIRES September 16, 2005 6:07 p.m.

Six months ago, the value of the U.S. dollar was on the firing line as it plunged to a record low vs. the euro. Amid fears that a united Europe would surmount the spendthrift United States as a safe haven for financial assets in a tumultuous world, investors worldwide -- led by noted Nebraska sourpuss Warren Buffett -- heaped scorn on our currency and scolded U.S. lawmakers to get the federal deficit under control. But a funny thing happened to all those dollar bears. Their contempt for U.S. economic freedoms hasn’t amounted to a hill of bill of beans, and...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseone.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={064C1C55-5EA9-4481-9D20-8E9F19AB420B}&dist=bnb 11:46am 06/06/05 General Re exec pleads guilty in AIG -transaction - WSJ (BRK.B, BRK.A) By Carolyn Pritchard SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An executive at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s (BRK.B) (BRK.A) General Re unit has pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal conspiracy in relation to the company's transaction with American International Group Inc. (AIG) , the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Monday, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter. John Houldsworth, who headed up General Re's reinsurance unit in Dublin, reportedly faces up to five years in prison for his role in a 2001 transaction between...

OMAHA, Neb. (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-A - News; NYSE:BRK-B - News) lost $310 million in the first quarter from betting against the U.S. dollar, but has nevertheless maintained its roughly $21 billion stake against the greenback, the billionaire said on Saturday. ... Omaha-based Berkshire's stake in foreign currency contracts total "a little more than $21 billion," compared with $21.4 billion spread among 12 currencies at year end, Buffett said. That bet backfired in the first quarter, and even now it costs about 5 percent fewer dollars to buy euros than on Dec. 31. Berkshire's currency bets...

Berkshire reinsurance deals queried Agreements helped Gerling Global Re manipulate resultsBy Alistair Barr, MarketWatch Last Update: 12:22 PM ET April 26, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Berkshire Hathaway, embroiled in widening investigations into so-called finite reinsurance, courted controversy surrounding the products at least a decade ago, according to reports by state regulators. Finite transactions between some of Berkshire's (BRKA: news, chart, profile) (BRKB: news, chart, profile) main insurance units and a top reinsurer helped that company distort its financial statements, according to a New York Insurance Department examination report written in September 1999. The report was about Gerling Global Re,...

11:14am 03/05/05 Warren Buffett confesses he 'struck out' in 2004 (BRKA, BRKB) By Thomas Middleton NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Warren Buffett, renowned investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA) , said he "struck out" in 2004 by failing to make acquisitions that would have increased earnings. In his company's 40th annual report Saturday, the 74-year-old CEO said Berkshire Hathaway increased its net worth by $8.3 billion last year. That increased the company's per-share book value by 10.5%, which fell short of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, which posted a 10.9% return for 2004. Buffett said he found "very...

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was elected Tuesday to serve on the board of directors of prominent investment company Berkshire Hathaway. In doing so, Gates will serve as an advisor to longtime friend and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. In a statement, Gates said he hoped his years of experience at Microsoft would prove to be of value to Berkshire's shareholders. "I am delighted and honored to have been asked to serve on the board of this very successful company," Gates said. Gates also serves on the board of Bothell, Wash.-based biotech company Icos. Despite being close to Gates, Buffett has...

By John Berlau © 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc. Though President Bush constantly is criticized and attacked by Democratic partisans for pursuing policies that benefit "the wealthy," why are so many of what would be considered America's superrich his political opponents? In addition to the Hollywood mega-elite, which since the death of Sam Goldwyn have opposed the GOP mainly for cultural reasons, billionaire businessmen have stepped forward calling for the defeat of Bush or his policies. Most prominent has been speculator George Soros, who has pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, given millions to Democratic Bush-bashing groups such...

Pro-Lifers Ensure Pampered Chef Profits No Longer Support Abortion By Candi Cushman Pro-life moms working for The Pampered Chef — the nation's largest direct-sales kitchenware company — have scored a major victory against the abortion industry by stopping pro-abortion donations from one of the world's largest megacorporations, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Headed by billionaire Warren Buffett, one of the abortion industry's top financiers, Berkshire is a conglomerate of corporations including The Pampered Chef, Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom. For years, the company has funneled millions of its profits into The Buffett Foundation, which in turn bankrolls several "reproductive rights"...

<p>Berkshire Hathaway, the hugely successful, Nebraska-based company led by Warren Buffett, recently announced an end to its program for charitable giving, and in a way that is big news.</p> <p>The program was an object of adoration for years, not least because it allowed Class A shareholders to designate where they wanted their portion of the company's charity to go. It seemed so democratic, so enlightened compared with the usual corporate-charity model: allowing an executive committee to pick a few charities on behalf of all shareholders. And yet we should be glad that Berkshire's program has ended. It was a bad idea in the first place.</p>

Warren Buffett has drawn criticism in the past for supporting pro-choice causes, but it never affected Berkshire Hathaway's charitable giving—that is, until Cindy Coughlon, a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom in Peoria, Ariz., came along. Now, as a result of her campaign against pro-choice donations, the most powerful man in business has terminated Berkshire's entire contribution program, which distributed nearly $200 million over the past two decades to institutions ranging from schools to groups on either side of the abortion debate. The unusual program—call it a charitable dividend—allowed Berkshire shareholders to designate $18 per share annually for up to three charities of...

This is the text of an email sent out today from Pampered Chef's founder, Doris Christopher. Dear Kitchen Consultants: I have shared with you my pride in being a part of the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses. I knew that this was the kind of family where The Pampered Chef would thrive and grow for years to come. I have also shared with you my feelings of respect for Warren Buffett. Today, I am even more proud to call Warren my mentor, leader and friend. This week I went to Warren with a heavy heart. I told him that many...

Today Berkshire-Hathaway has announced that it will stop its shareholder-designated contributions program. Quote from the Berkshire-Hathaway press release: "Berkshire Hathaway has terminated its shareholder-designated contributions program, which has distributed approximately $197 million since it was begun in 1981. This program has allowed holders of Berkshire’s A shares to designate a per-share sum for the company to contribute to as many as three charities, the only requirement being that the designee have 501(c)(3) status. The program thus allowed a wide diversity of donations, some of them controversial but all outside the control of Berkshire." The entire press release can be viewed...

(AgapePress) - A growing number of Christian, pro-life mothers are leaving lucrative careers with a national kitchenware company because of the new owner's support of abortion. "The Pampered Chef" is one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing kitchenware companies. The company, founded in 1980 by professing Christian and stay-at-home mother Doris Christopher, has been driven mostly by stay-at-home moms who sell the products from home. The company boasts more than 67,000 "Kitchen Consultants" and sales of $700 million annually. But now, according to Citizen magazine, many Christian mothers are walking away from the company because Pampered Chef's new owner, billionaire...

Warren Buffett, who's made his billions guessing the future of the market, is offering a much scarier kind of forecast these days. The "Oracle of Omaha" has been using recent public appearances to predict new terrorist attacks on the United States. At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in May, typically a confab of cone-head value investors terrorized by lofty price-to-earnings ratios, Buffett declared that detonation of a nuclear device in an American city—"$1 trillion nuclear event" in Manhattan, for example—was inevitable. "We're going to have something in the way of a major nuclear event in this country. It will happen. Whether...

Charlie Munger, who runs Wesco Financial, is the famed right-hand man of Warren Buffett. He is also a master investor in his own right. At Wesco's annual meeting a week ago, he shared his always-blunt opinions on Berkshire Hathaway, the scandalous ethics in the accounting, law, and investment banking professions, and more. Warren Buffett is generally acknowledged to be the greatest investor ever -- one of the reasons why 13,000 people flocked to the recent annual meeting of his investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A). But closely following Buffett are a handful of other legendary investors, including his long-time partner,...