Free Republic

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States is already in a recession and it will be longer as well as deeper than many people expect, U.S. investor Warren Buffett said in an interview published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. "But the people are already feeling the effects," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "It will be deeper and last longer than many think." But he said that won't stop him from...

In the 1960's I had a lady friend who loved Robert Redford. So, naturally, I got dragged to all of Redford's movies. I saw "The Candidate" several times. In that film, Mr. McKay (Redford), a "community organizer" like Barack Obama, hatches a slogan, "McKay, The Better Way" to run for office. Ironically, Barack "Barry" Obama has now chosen "The Better Way" as his mantra through February 10th. Well. Obama's slogan has about as much substance as the celluloid version popularized by Robert Redford. Obama is entirely a creation of wealthy contributors and powerful, liberal media interests. So what he does...

Thursday, November 15, 2007 What Fred Said [Larry Kudlow] I just sat down with presidential candidate Fred Thompson, for an interview that will air tonight on Kudlow & Company. The former Tennessee senator was in good form. He attacked Warren Buffet’s tax-hike proposal on the rich as totally wrong, and Buffett himself as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party. He agreed with Dick Armey that the GOP will lose if it departs from the first principles of limited government and lower tax rates. He called the farm bill “disgraceful” and would veto it if he were president....

Buffett may be brilliant when it comes to picking stocks but in the field of economics he is a blithering buffoon. I have no way of knowing why Buffett has attached his colours to the Democrats, a party whose policies can be summed up in three slogans: raise taxes, raise government spending, regulate the economy. And keep on doing it until the economy sinks into stagnation, at which point they can blame everyone but themselves. (I know that the Republicans’ spending record has been dismal, but at lease most of them can be made to see the light. This is...

Bear Stearns, its shares and reputation beaten down after the collapse of two hedge funds, is in serious talks to sell as much as 20 percent of the firm, with several individual investors, including Warren E. Buffett, expressing an interest, people briefed on the discussions said today. Other investors who have expressed an interest in buying a minority stake include the Bank of America, Wachovia and two Chinese institutions — the Citic Group and China Construction Bank, these people said. Such expressions of interest will help bolster Bear and its chief executive, James E. Cayne, who has struggled to restore...

OMAHA, Neb. - A man with camouflage paint on his face and a fake gun tried to break into to billionaire Warren Buffett's house but fled after a scuffle with a security guard, police said Thursday. Buffett's wife, Astrid, summoned the guard after the doorbell rang shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday, police said. The security guard found the man, dressed all in black, on the home's front porch and confronted him, police said. The man struck the guard on the head, then fled and remained at large Thursday. Neither Buffett, who was home at the time, nor his wife was...

"The rich are different from you and me," wrote Fitzgerald and I suppose they are, but the differences – they wax and wane with the economic tides. Gilded ages come, go, and are reborn on the monsoon cloudbursts of seemingly intangible forces such as globalization, innovation, and favorable tax policy. For the rich to be truly rich and multiply their numbers, they need help. Adept surfers they may be, but like all riders, the wealthy need a seventh wave that allows them to preen their skills and declare themselves masters of their own universe, if only for a moment in...

On FoxNews a little while ago, they showed a video clip of Warren Buffet speaking at what looked like a Hillary campaign fundraiser. I can't find the video on Fox's site, YouTube, or Google video, so it seems like it isn't up yet. From memory it went like this: Buffet: My idea is that you make a company so good that even an idiot can run it, because you know that one day an idiot will end up running it! (Audience laughter) Buffet: Kind of like this country, where even an idiot can run it, and is... (LOUD cackling from...

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but anti-abortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44-billion fortune, devotes the vast majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1 percent has gone to Planned Parenthood over the years. "The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the...

Buffet: We're here for the long haul "If it gives Israel a shot in the arm, that's great," he tells Post. While strategists continued to project good things for Israel Tuesday in the wake of Warren Buffett's $4 billion investment in Iscar Ltd., the man at the center of the euphoria was thrilled to have found a place in the country. "We're going to be in Israel way beyond my lifetime," the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview late Monday night from the company's Omaha, Nebraska headquarters. "There was enormous enthusiasm...

The world's two richest men have both lost a slice of their fortunes this year betting against the dollar. Microsoft's Bill Gates said with fulminating certainty in Davos last January that it was time to "short" the greenback. "The ol' dollar is going down. It is a bit scary. We're in uncharted territory when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt," he said. His friend Warren Buffet kept pace, switching $22billion (£13billion) of Berkshire Hathaway funds into foreign currencies. He said it pained him as an American, and broke the habits of a life-time. But a country living...

The following is an edited and approximate transcript of their remarks. On real estate Buffett: "A lot of the psychological well being of the American public comes from how well they've done with their house over the years. If indeed there's been a bubble, and it's pricked at some point, the net effect on Berkshire might well be positive [because the company's financial strength would allow it to buy real-estate-related businesses at bargain prices].... "Certainly at the high end of the real estate market in some areas, you've seen extraordinary movement.... People go crazy in economics periodically, in all kinds...

Sen. John Kerry recruited two famous businessmen to what The New York Times described as his "motley team" of economic advisers. Kerry turned to Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway. (When Kerry said he was fighting for Jobs, we didn't realize he meant Steve). Buffett is the second wealthiest man in the world. Steve Jobs just received America's second largest executive pay package. Both are amazingly talented at what they do. But what they do not do is economics. Until now, nobody imagined Steve Jobs had any interest in economics. Buffett, on the other hand,...

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...

Oh no, the Parrotheads are coming. The Parrotheads are coming. Lock your doors. Put bars on the windows. Call the cops! Why is it that Boston, which has delusions about being a world-class city, every now and then behaves like East Podunk? Latest case in point: two proposed Jimmy Buffett concerts at Fenway Park. Now it's no great secret that for Buffett fans - Parrothead Nation - the concert itself is only half the fun. The real event simply must include a little tailgating in the Margaritaville spirit. (How else to properly show off those wild and crazy Hawaiian shirts?)...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from meetings at the White House and the Capitol Monday predicting he would get "a lot" more federal money for California, but citing no specific commitments. The governor met in a group with President Bush and one-on-one with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said afterward he expects the money to come. "I expect to get a lot of it simply because, you know, I'm very persuasive and I'm like, you know, a tick that hangs on it and will not let go until I get what I...

By Warren E. Buffett, FORTUNE I'm about to deliver a warning regarding the U.S. trade deficit and also suggest a remedy for the problem. But first I need to mention two reasons you might want to be skeptical about what I say. To begin, my forecasting record with respect to macroeconomics is far from inspiring. For example, over the past two decades I was excessively fearful of inflation. More to the point at hand, I started way back in 1987 to publicly worry about our mounting trade deficits -- and, as you know, we've not only survived but also thrived....

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...

I suppose I took an interest in Warren Buffet when my wife discovered, courtesy of a newspaper account in the mid 1980s, that a college friend of mine was the son of Warren's Vice Chairman, Charlie Munger. Up to that point, he seemed to be essentially what the media portrayed him to be: a fantasticly successful investor with a home-spun wit. His sinister side, of course, came out this week with his proposition 13 comments, and it brought to mind the other public part of his life, unrelated to investing and finance. He apparently gives very little to charity and...

Targeting State's Proposition 13 Is Unlikely Republican Stance Warren Buffett, the billionaire financial adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for California governor, strongly suggested in an interview that the state's property taxes need to be higher. Mr. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., took on California's famous Proposition 13, which has limited property taxes there since 1978. As an example, he pointed out the difference between his own property-tax bills for homes he owns in California and Nebraska. His home in Omaha, he said, is valued at roughly $500,000. His current yearly property tax bill on that home: $14,401. In...

At the risk of being tarred and feathered by Warren Buffet devotees, who live by every word that escapes his mouth, I´m not at all convinced that his pronouncements are good for America. Warren Buffet basically has made his billions by purchasing companies below their true market value and then using conservative business decisions to grow them. There is no doubt this is a workable money-making strategy and making money appears to be Buffet´s primary goal in life. He did not buy computer-based .com businesses during the 1990s that were the major instruments of the incredible rise in stock market...

Developing...

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...

First stock options, then earnings guidance, and now taxes on dividends. America's most successful investor has taken positions on key issues that could harm businesses and their shareholders. According to our latest Billionaires List, Warren Buffett is the world's second-richest person. He got that way by being a very savvy investor. However, it seems that the severe bear market, the dozen or so corporate scandals that have taken place in recent years, and the "unfair" distribution of wealth have convinced Mr. Buffett that systemic reforms are required, that corporate managements cannot be trusted and that the double taxation of corporate...

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,...

BUFFETT: NUKE TERRORIST ATTACK 'WILL HAPPEN... VIRTUALLY A CERTAINTY'...