Free Republic

I had lunch last week with Rolfe Winkler, who is an up and comer in the blog world, a thinking man’s Felix Salmon. He is similarly annoyed with St. Warren — but rather than engage in my sophmoric venom spew, he went to the spreadsheet to discover that Buffet owns major stakes in 8 companies that have received more than $100 billion in government bailouts. Capitalist? Hardly. Sounds more like just another crony to me. Rolfe also posts this fabulous chart:

Arthur Laffer said-- "You can't raise taxes on the rich. These people know how to get around taxes," says Laffer. "Warren Buffett pays no taxes because all of his wealth is in unrealized capital gains. There's no tax on unrealized capital gains, so how do you get it? You have to tax poor people." LINK Warren Buffet sure talks about taxes a lot for someone who essentially doesn't pay any since the vast bulk of his wealth consists of unrealized capital gains. Appreciation of Berkshire Hathaway stock that he just sits on and never sells anyWarren Buffet lives modestly...

Bill Gates took on the Famine Lobby while addressing a forum on the world food supply in Iowa. Speaking at the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Gates took aim at the chorus of environmental leftists and organic food advocates who believe Africans should starve rather than eat genetically modified (GM) foods. “Some voices are instantly hostile to any emphasis on productivity. They act as if there is no emergency, even though in the poorest, hungriest places on earth, population is growing faster than productivity,” he said.The opposition is significant, because Gates is left-of-center himself. The Bill and Melinda...

Oct. 25, 2009— The man who made $7 billion in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, Jeffry Picower, was found dead in his Palm Beach, Fla., swimming pool Sunday. The Palm Beach Fire Department told ABC News that Picower had no pulse when fire rescue workers arrived at his oceanfront mansion after his wife called 911. She and his housekeeper pulled his body from the pool shortly after noon. No one benefited more from the Madoff scheme that Picower, according to bankruptcy lawyers who sued him and alleged he had taken out $7 billion more than he had put in. Click...

NEW YORK – A square, 32.01-carat emerald-cut diamond that billionaire philanthropist Leonore Annenberg bought for her 90th birthday sold for $7.7 million at auction on Wednesday. About the size of a walnut, the flawless, colorless diamond sits on a ring designed by Manhattan jeweler David Webb. It is flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds, one of them 1.61 carats and the other 1.51 carats. The ring was offered for sale by Annenberg's estate. Christie's auction house did not identify the buyer, who bid by phone. Annenberg died in March at the age of 91. She served as U.S. chief of protocol...

OCTOBER 17, 2009 Rajaratnam Surfaced in U.S. Terrorism Probe By EVAN PEREZ and MATTHEW ROSENBERG WASHINGTON—The hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fundraising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said. As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to people familiar with the probe. Raj...

Date of Birth: August 12, 1930 Born: Budapest, Hungary Occupation: Hedge Fund Manager & Currency Trader George Soros, a key funder of the liberal extremist group MoveOn.org, recently told an Australian news organization that the current global economic mess has been “stimulating.” (Daily Mail 3/25/2009). While Americans try to make ends meet and struggle to pick up the pieces after financiers like Soros gamed the system, we thought you should know the truth about George Soros… FACT 1: Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter Fund.1 FACT 2: Soros Called American Troops In Iraq “Perpetrators” And “Oppressors.”2 FACT...

Raj Rajaratnam was ranked by Forbes magazine last year among the 400 richest AmericansThe billionaire founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund and five others were arrested in a $20 million insider trading scandal, federal authorities said Friday. Raj Rajaratnam, 52, ranked by Forbes magazine last year among the 400 richest Americans, was charged with conspiracy and securities fraud along with current and former executives from Bear Stearns, IBM, Intel Capital and McKinsey & Co., according to federal prosecutors. Rajaratnam, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth....

One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that prosecutors say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and should be a wake-up call for Wall Street. Raj Rajaratnam, a partner in Galleon Management and a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to trade based on insider information about several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the...

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell's most prized supporter was by his side Tuesday for an appearance before a women's group in Northern Virginia. Billionaire BET Networks co-founder Sheila Johnson attended a Women for McDonnell event in Tysons Corner, delivering a scripted speech to a crowd of about 100 and a handful of reporters. The longtime Democrat who campaigned for President Obama and Gov. Tim Kaine crossed the aisle earlier this year to support Mr. McDonnell. "Bob's message resonated with me from the moment I met with him," Ms. Johnson said. "For me, it isn't about party. It's about...

GADHAFI CHILDREN $200,000 EACH FROM YOUR MONEY Alan Note: Any wonder why oil BILLIONAIRE Libyan Leader praised Oba-Hussein to the skies and wished him to be in office for the rest of his life? Well, Moslem-Marxist Oba-Hussein gave $400,000 from taxpayer money to his two children! Reason enough? The Libyan Daddy could spend this in a blink of an eye and not notice but in our terrible economy, when money for Americans is in short supply, when support for the freedom demonstrators in Iran could be promoted with this kind of money, OBAMA gives it to the children of an...

America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400 — our annual tally of the nation's richest people — has declined, falling $300 billion in the past 12 months from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion. Faltering capital markets and real estate prices, along with divorce and fraud, pushed the fortunes of 314 members down and drove 32 plutocrats off the rankings. Hurt the most: Warren Buffett, America's second-richest citizen. The Oracle of Omaha dropped $10 billion from his personal balance sheet as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell 20%...

merica's richest people are getting poorer, according to this year's Forbes 400 list. The annual ranking of the 400 wealthiest US citizens shows their net worth has dropped by $300bn, from $1.57 trillion to a paltry $1.27 trillion. That includes a loss of nearly $40bn for the top ten alone. The decline can be attributed to the global economic crisis, which has affected the capital and housing markets, as well as fraud and divorce, causing 314 returning members to record a loss. Warren Buffett, who remains at number two, was the worst affected by the world recession, losing $10bn over...

According to Forbes, the $10 million [£6.2 million] bonus that Woods got for his recent FedEx Cup win pushed him over the $1 billion [£620 million] mark in total career earnings. Phil Mickelson with the Tour Championship trophy beside Tiger Woods, with the FedEx Cup, which earned him a $10 million (£6.3m) bonus Up to the beginning of 2009, the world's number one golfer had earned $895 million from prize money, appearance fees, sponsorship and from designing golf courses. Adding together his winnings from this year together with his annual $100 million earnings, this makes Woods the first dollar billionaire...

And now, here’s your Brooklyn Nyets! As this paper went to press, it was announced that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov will take over as majority owner of the NBA’s Nets team from Forest City Ratner as the franchise readies for their controversial move to the Atlantic/Flatbush avenues intersection in Brooklyn. Prokhorov, an avid sportsman, and his company Onexim Group made their fortune primarily through gold, metals and mining in Russia. Under the agreement, Onexim will invest $200 million and make certain contingent funding commitments to acquire 45 percent of the arena project and 80 percent of the NBA team, and...

Ralph Nader has been many things: lawyer, consumer-rights bulldog, political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate. He has now added a new title to his business card: fiction writer. His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls — led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue — pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot, the group successfully...

Videos of young couple posing as sex workers getting financial advice made possible by a generous handoutIn the world of far-right libertarian economics, altruism is considered a sin. However, that didn't stop billionaire ideologue Peter Thiel, who minted his fortune as a cofounder of PayPal and investor in Facebook, from giving "about $10,000" after being approached by provocateur James O'Keefe. That money, and other funds from the Leadership Institute, a conservative think-tank, was used to film a number of stunts, from surprising taxpayers with bills for the bank bailout to offering Planned Parenthood donations, but with racist intent. O'Keefe is...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Computer giant Dell announced on Monday it has acquired computer services firm Perot Systems, founded by Texas billionaire Ross Perot, for 3.9 billion dollars. "Dell and Perot Systems have entered a definitive agreement for Dell to acquire Perot Systems in a transaction valued at approximately 3.9 billion dollars," Dell said in a statement. Terms of the agreement were approved on Sunday by the boards of directors of both companies, it said. Dell, which is seeking to buy all ordinary shares of Perot Systems at 30 dollars a share, hopes to complete the deal by the end of...

Warren Buffett, the renowned investor and the world’s second richest man, told Senate Democrats that wealthy Americans need to pay higher taxes, giving Democrats something to mull as they address healthcare reform and soaring federal deficits. Senate Democrats met with Buffett for more than an hour over lunch Thursday, peppering him with questions about the economy, said lawmakers in attendance. “He said rich people are not paying enough taxes,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “It was interesting to see someone who is such an aggressive capitalist, who believes so much in our capitalist system, saying we’ve got the scales way...

Warren E. Buffett has two cardinal rules of investing. Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1. Well, a lot of old rules got trashed when the financial crisis struck — even for the Oracle of Omaha. At 79, Mr. Buffett is coming off the worst year of his long, storied career. On paper, he personally lost an estimated $25 billion in the financial panic of 2008, enough to cost him his title as the world’s richest man. (His friend and sometime bridge partner, Bill Gates, now holds that honor, according to Forbes.) And...

Richard Egan, the billionaire co-founder of EMC Corp. and the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, died today of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head, police and other sources confirmed. Egan, 73, a resident of the Four Seasons condominiums on Boylston Street, had been battling terminal cancer, sources said. He had a visiting nurse attending to him while he underwent treatments. Both the nurse and his wife were in the condominium this afternoon when Egan died at home, sources told the Herald.

As the health care debate rages on, President Barack Obama will begin a week-long vacation Sunday in Martha’s Vineyard, an enclave of liberal royalty far from middle America, where his approval numbers are starting to stall. Already, at least one group on the right is taking a jab at Obama over his beach vacation — at a 28-acre farm, said to rent for up to $50,000 a week. Obama has struggled against the perception that he has trouble connecting with average voters, and some are questioning his choice of a getaway spot for the well-to-do. “The danger for President Obama...

To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory. Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will...

And yet Dems block offshore oil production in the U.S. Two pieces of information here. Connect the dots: 1. The Obama Administration is offering billions in loans for oil drilling off the coast of Brazil. 2. George Soros, the Dems top money man has a huge financial stake in the offshore drilling company. Obama Underwrites Offshore DrillingToo bad it's not in U.S. watersWall Street Journal AUGUST 18, 2009 You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil. The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance...

Remember the vast rightwing conspiracy? It’s ba-a-a-ck, turning its considerable resources to ruining health care reform and wrecking legislation aimed at curbing climate change. Despite the insistence of Republican leaders that the tea-party crowd and the town-hall protestors are merely concerned individuals who have spontaneously made the decision to shout and yell threats at public meetings, the protests are, in fact, prodded by networks of conservative activists. Richard Mellon Scaife, a Pittsburg billionaire who is the financial lifeblood of ultra-conservative activism, is a contributor, according to The Washington Post. That’s not to deny the individual anger or anxiety on display...

Billionaire investor's spending on equities fell to its lowest in more than five years Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owned about $11.1bn in foreign government bonds in its insurance units at the end of June, up from $9.6bn three months months earlier, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing, according to a report on Bloomberg. In the second quarter, Mr Buffett spent $2.6bn on bonds compared with $350m on shares. The billionaire investor, whose views on financial markets are closely followed around the world, has benefitted as equity markets rallied over the past three months. “Some of the normal places he’s gotten...

Reuters' Rolfe Winkler is all over Warren Buffett, and justifiably so. “Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard,” writes Winker, “many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out." Winker totaled up the direct benefit to companies Buffett owned stock in., where he owned sizable minority stakes, $95 billion in Troubled Asset Relief funding was doled out. Aside from the nearly $100 billion in taxpayer aid extended to Buffett’s holdings — which include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, American Express and Goldman Sachs — his companies also benefit from $130 billion in FDIC backing...

NEW YORK -- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc has realized a $1.02 billion paper profit on a 10-month-old investment in BYD Co after shares in the Chinese car and battery maker quintupled. Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co unit had agreed last September 26 to buy 225 million BYD shares at HK$8 each, a transaction then worth about $230 million. The China Securities Regulatory Commission on Thursday granted approval for the transaction, which gives Berkshire a 9.89 percent stake. BYD shares closed Friday at HK$42.90, valuing Berkshire's stake at HK$9.65 billion, or about $1.25 billion. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng index...

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education. The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change. Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah...

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was forced to give up on the social networking phenomenon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend. Gates, the billionaire computer geek-turned-philanthropist who was honoured Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends". Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he "knew this person, did I not know this person".

Broad, Geffen make Forbes' list of top billionaire collectors July 24, 2009 When it comes to wealth-porn lists of billionaires and their possessions, no one does it with more enthusiasm -- and regularity -- than Forbes. The publication today released its list of the world's top billionaire art collectors and the ranking contains many of the international art world's usual suspects: Eli Broad, David Geffen, François Pinault and more. Unlike the more comprehensive ARTnews 200 list that was published a few weeks ago, the Forbes list concentrates on billionaires and excludes gallery owners and other art trade notables. Topping the...

Designed to teach a new generation of American children about financial responsibility. Mr Buffett has agreed to lend his voice for a cartoon version of himself in a series called the Secret Millionaire's Club. Each episode will be three to five minutes long. "What better time to help educate our kids about financial responsibility," Mr Buffett said of the series which will be produced by a company called A Squared and is one of four new programmes the company is making. Mr Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, is one of the world's most famous investors and famously auctions off...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has done it again – booking a $4.1bn (£2.5bn) paper profit on the $5bn he invested in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis. Mr Buffett, known as the "Sage of Omaha" for his money-making ability, has made the return in one of the bleakest periods for investing in decades, benefiting from the recent uptick in Goldman's share price. If that weren't enough, the 78-year-old is to star in a cartoon series – The Secret Millionaires' Club – to be shown on AOL's website, the aim of which is to teach children the basics...

RICHMOND, Va. — A billionaire co-founder of the Black Entertainment Television network who is also a key Democratic donor has endorsed Republican Bob McDonnell for Virginia governor. Sheila Johnson joined McDonnell at a Monday appearance in Richmond. She says she thinks the Republican can turn around the state's sluggish economy and prefers him over his Democratic opponent, R. Creigh Deeds. Deeds' campaign did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Johnson and her former husband, Robert Johnson, sold BET in 2000 to Viacom for $3 billion. She backed Barack Obama for president, but has given some money to GOP candidates...

George Soros is a superhero along the lines of Batman and Superman? That's the comparison correspondent John Berman made on Thursday's "Good Morning America." The ABC journalist was reporting on a closed door meeting of billionaires that included liberals such as Soros, Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss charitable giving, leading ABC to feature a graphic with Turner as Superman and Winfrey as Wonder Woman.

One man's fetish for stuffed, dead animals and snake skinned clothes is U.S. Customs agents' worst nightmareLions and tigers and bears and just about any other exotic animal you can think of were found on a mega yacht in Miami and caused quite an expensive problem for one of the wealthiest men in America. A yacht stuff with dead exotic animals and merchandise made from their skins was confiscated in Miami. The owner of the vessel is Tamir Saphir, one of... The decorative animal hides, stuffed heads and ivory carvings are illegal to have in the U.S., an endangered species...

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Near the magnificent new church on the Ave Maria University campus, sculptor Marton Varo chips away at 80 tons of the best white marble money can buy, direct from the same Italian quarry where Michelangelo used to get his.

The New York Times must be getting increasingly desperate. The publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger, writes a paean in Time Magazine to Carlos Slim, the billionaire Mexican monopolist who threw the flailing Times a lifeline via a 250 million dollar loan earlier in the year. This is a man who has set back development in Mexico by his monopoly (or near monopoly) of the telecommunications system in that nation. He has been milking his profits for decades, blocking technological development of competitors by using his influence with politicians. The Times has historically derided this type of crony capitalism, especially...

April 26, 2009 Sunday Times Rich List: Bonfire of the billionaires wipes out £155bn fortune JK Rowling, Elton John, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Branson and Alan Sugar have all been hit by the downturn Alastair McCall and David Smith THE recession has wiped £155 billion from the fortunes of Britain’s richest 1,000 people, equivalent to more than a third of their wealth. The unprecedented collapse, revealed in the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List, published today, is the biggest annual fall since it was first compiled 21 years ago. In a bonfire of the billionaires, the number in this year’s Rich List...

April 16, 2009 Raffles Hotel put on market as Prince Alwaleed attempts to stop wealth draining away Dominic Walsh A byword for colonial grandeur, and a favourite watering hole of such literary luminaries as Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, Raffles Hotel, home to the Singapore Sling cocktail, has been put up for sale for up to $450 million (£300 million). Apparently, the hotel's owner, Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia, is feeling the pinch. The Times understands that Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, in which the Prince's Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) has a controlling stake, is seeking buyers for its...

Billionaires Reluctant to Give Up Their Toys 10 April 2009 By Ira Iosebashvili / The Moscow Times For most of the decade, the country's billionaires spent hundreds of millions of dollars on boats, jets, expensive art and the occasional football team. But, despite strained bank accounts and public outrage, the tycoons have been loath to part with their expensive trinkets, choosing instead to hunker down and wait for better days. To be sure, these are not happy days for the country's superrich. In Forbes magazine's latest ranking of the world's wealthiest people, Russia's billionaires had an estimated collective loss of...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been lauded for his plainspoken denunciation of the greed and foolishness behind the economic crisis. He’s pushed the massive federal bailout of imploding banks as the essential response to an “economic Pearl Harbor.” When Buffett speaks, people in high places listen. He’s so highly regarded that in a fall debate, both presidential candidates said they’d consider him for Treasury secretary. A Sacramento Bee examination of regulatory records has found that his extensive holdings in financial firms have made Buffett, the world’s second-wealthiest person behind Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, one of the top beneficiaries of the...

No one can accuse News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch of being an economic cheerleader, despite his net worth of $4 billion according to Forbes magazine. In an interview with Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network anchor Neil Cavuto on April 2, Murdoch was not hopeful the financial markets would recover their value within the next 12 months. "Look, I'm not a market expert," Murdoch said. "I would say this is a bear market rally still. We're not going back to the old levels in any hurry at all. That's two or three years away." ..more (w/video)..

'I'm having a very good crisis,' says Soros as hedge fund managers make billions off recession By Mail Foreign Service 25th March 2009 George Soros said the current economic crisis has been the culmination of his life's work A hedge fund manager who predicted the global credit crunch has said the financial crisis has been 'stimulating' and the culmination of his life's work. George Soros, who predicted the global financial crisis twice before, was one of the few people to anticipate and prepare for the current economic collapse. Mr Soros said his prediction meant he was better able to brace...

Shari Arison, the controlling shareholder in Bank HaPoalim and whose net worth declined by more than $1 billion last year, has put her “My Shanti” yacht up for sale. The asking price is $100 million. It includes a movie theatre and a banquet hall, a glass-enclosed sky lounge and a gym.

IN TODAY’S gut-wrenching markets, winners are as rare as a house that sells for the asking price. Even Warren Buffett is looking less than sagacious after his holding company posted its worst year ever. But one investor who continues to win plaudits is John Paulson. His hedge funds have had a superb crisis. They clocked up triple-digit returns in 2007 betting against subprime mortgages, netting him $3.7 billion personally—a sum that made George Soros’s winnings from currency bets in the early 1990s look modest. ... He targeted BBB-rated tranches, the lowest in subprime securities. With credit spreads so low because...

Leonore Annenberg, U.S. chief of protocol under President Reagan, widow of former publisher and U.S. Ambassador to Britain Walter H. Annenberg, and steward of the couple's massive philanthropy, died today at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates is the richest man again, overtaking investor Warren Buffett, as the global financial meltdown wiped out $2 trillion from the net worth of the world's billionaires, Forbes Magazine said on Wednesday. The number of billionaires in the world fell by nearly a third to 793 in the past year, with large numbers dropping off the list in Russia, India and Turkey. Gates regained his title as the richest man in the world, with $40 billion after slipping to third last year when he was worth $58 billion. Buffett, last year's richest...

IN LETTER, ORACLE ADMITS TO ERRORS IN WORST-EVER '08 Warren Buffett admitted to doing some "dumb things" in 2008 - the worst year for Berkshire Hathaway in the 44 years he has run it. A brutal stock market decline amid a teeth-gnashing recession pushed Omaha-based Berkshire to a 96% drop in profits, its fifth straight quarterly earnings decline. Buffett, known as the Oracle of Omaha for his decades-long record of picking value investments, said buying ConocoPhillips shares when gas and oil prices were at their peak was perhaps the dumbest move in 2008. Berkshire bought 84.9 million shares at $82...

Warren E. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway investment fund and holding company and possibly still the world's richest person, released his annual shareholders letter moments ago, in which he says, "during 2008 I did some dumb things in investments." "I made at least one major mistake of commission and several lesser ones that also hurt," he said. "Furthermore, I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action." That "major mistake," Buffett writes, was the purchase of millions of shares of ConocoPhillips oil...