Parsad

When there is impairment of the actual underlying business' competitive advantages...for example Kodak. A case could be made that we are in the primary stages of impairment of MSFT's moats. That same thing can not be said about JNJ or XOM. Cheers!

I'm guessing Sorkin is just asking questions that all long-time shareholders of Berkshire would ask. Sokol was a heartbeat away from taking over the company. In many shareholder's eyes, this was material information and would be considered unethical to trade on. Cheers!

Shai Dardashti has a couple of rooms that will be available for this year's Berkshire AGM. The hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn and the daily rate is $299/night. If you are interested, please contact Shai directly at shaidardashti@gmail.com. Cheers!

That's kind of like Vito Maida as well. His fund has owned very few companies as well. Cheers!

There's no right and wrong. If you want to get a better feel of the company and how it developed, then start at the beginning. I actually do that over and over with Berkshire and Fairfax. If you want more recent information so as to come to a current estimate of intrinsic value, then start with the newer ones. I think this is a bit of what I was trying to lay out for Harry. This aspect of what you do is like painting a canvas...do you paint from the borders in, or do you start in the middle and work out to the borders. There is no correct answer...no system. Kind of looking at the financial statements...where do you start? There's varying answers. I personally always start with the balance sheet. It's the very first thing I go to. Cheers!

Creating wealth, though, is not a zero sum game and as someone gets wealthy they are also benefiting others in tandem. You don't get to take what you don't give. Yes, of course. You're totally correct there in regards to the individual building the wealth and creating employment. That being said, getting rich through inheritance is actually a zero sum game, unless that wealth continues to trickle down. And of course I'm not saying that no one should try and amass a fortune, or that they shouldn't pass a portion of that fortune down to their children. We all work hard to build something for our children, and even their offspring, so that they have opportunities that we may not have had. But sometimes, that desire can create inefficient anomalies in the system...the symptoms of which may include inequitable distributions of wealth. Cheers!

I disagree with you Parsad. If you earn money in this world you should be able to determine how you spend your money. Taxes leads to people uninterested in creating enduring wealth for themselves and others. So how do you explain Walmart, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway all being created when taxes were higher? Were Sam Walton, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett any less incentivized to create what they built? Yes, if you have massive tax increases, at some point you will disincentivize a proportion of people, but in general, people are not going to stop working, building, consuming or acquiring if they see a 10% pop in their tax bill. The system provides the entrepreneurial minded certain advantages that aren't available anywhere else. Taxes are a fee to use that system. Recently in British Columbia, they removed the goods and sales tax and replaced it with the harmonized sales tax. The initial reaction was a huge outcry and attempts to recall elected officials, as well as a drop in consumption, but by removing the GST, they reduced the cost to manufacturers. After a period, the system will reach equilibrium and people will continue to consume. In the meantime, the HST is reducing the cost to manufacturers, which in turn means greater employment. After all the wailing and lobbying, the truth is the system always continues to work because people want to create a better life for themselves, regardless of whether their tax bill goes up or down. They know they have a system that creates an advantage for them, and ultimately they are willing to pay to make it even better. Regardless, I am always shocked at peoples willingness to tell other people what they should do with their money, which is essentially what an estate tax is; the mindless masses telling the rich how their capital should be distributed after their demise... That's partly true College, but the fact remains that no one becomes a success without some opportunities being provided to them already...both by the mindless masses and the rich. Your subsidized schooling, healthcare, etc, along with your work ethic, talents and some good fortune, have provided you with the opportunities that you have now. Everyone does it with some help...including the rich who would not be where they are without some of that mindless mass. Cheers!

The facts remain that if you are a diciplined individual who is studious, hard working, frugal, and with a modicum of ambition you can be successful. This country affords everyone access to opportunity. That is all you can expect from a free society, if you want it to remain free. Class warfare and the bashing of successful people sends a horrible message to our youth. Instead of laboring over ways to confiscate the wealth of the top 1%, we should teach our young to admire and imitate success, not expect government's re-distribution largesse in the form of unemplyment insurance, food stamps, welfare checks, etc., etc., etc., and so on, and on, and on,.......................Where it stops no one knows. I agree with you for the most part Hawk, but at the same time, the inherited wealth that passes amongst the top 10% is also contrary to the workings of a free-market system. That capital becomes stifled in inter-generational wealth, and does not go to where it could be used most efficiently. I'm definitely one that believes that inter-generational wealth makes the economy less efficient, and in a sense is welfare...but for the offspring of the rich. I think a very high estate tax on estates of $100M, or a tax forcing the wealthy to either donate or spend the majority of capital passed to each generation would be good for the system. The problem is how do you implement something like that! Cheers!

With the guilty plea and five-year sentence of Barry Minkow, Patrick Byrne has been revved up and driven to write a couple of funny articles about a certain subset of unique characters, that had considerable interaction together...for whatever reason! Cheers! http://www.deepcapture.com/todays-if-only-there-were-a-pattern-moment-sam-antar-crony-barry-minkow-still-a-crook-who-knew/ http://www.deepcapture.com/rut-roh-the-stock-manipulator-meme-finally-escapes-the-box-somebody-call-somebody/

I think there is a possibility for hell to break loose over the next year or so...and not as slim as some may think. I'm getting gravely concerned with Europe and I have a very hard time seeing the Euro survive the next five years. I'm also a little concerned about China, but nothing like Europe. Contrary to most, I think the U.S. will viewed as the world's safe haven! Cheers!

All of the BH 14% debentures carried over from the acquisition of Western Sizzlin were redeemed yesterday. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000092189511000657/form8k07428_03302011.htm

Here is the transcript: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/why-it-may-be-time-to-hold-more-cash-in-this-rising-market/article1961057/ Believes commodities are overvalued, as is the general market. Bonds looks suspect. Sees opportunity in Japan, healthcare stocks, some consumer-related and natural gas. Cheers!

Looks like some investors are assuming that Sokol is going to make MBRG his vehicle...up nearly 17% today! Cheers!

I think alot of the day to day stuff is handled by Stormy Simon, Jonathan Johnson and other staff. Simon in particular is emerging as a real star in retail. She revamped their entire product inventory, and then turned their customer service department into one of the best in the entire online industry. Now she looks poised to join the board of directors at the AGM. She was recently in one of Overstock.com's television ads. I would not be surprised to see her running the entire company at some point in the future. Cheers!

I think this does speak to how hard it is going to be to replace Warren & Charlie. Top tier investment managers would be better off managing their own money or building smaller versions of BRK on their own. The easiest way would be to just buy Fairfax or Markel. Done deal...you have successors that not only live and breathe Berkshire's culture and understand it's insurance business, but are damn good at it and would never screw over Berkshire shareholders. Plus, they all also follow the rule about not doing anything that you wouldn't want seen in the papers the next day! Then again, I doubt if any of them would ever take the job. Cheers!

This interview isn't actually making things better, but worse! He doesn't see any impropriety, and I'm pretty sure he never meant to do anything irregular...the problem is that sometimes treading anywhere near the line, just isn't good enough, and this certainly has something to do with Warren's comments in the press release. I'm quite surprised by how intense the questioning was by Becky Quick and dumb-dumb Joe Kiernan. This is definitely going to change the way executives at Berkshire go about investing their own private portfolios. I suspect you either own Berkshire shares and T-bills, or you work elsewhere...no in between...or alternatively you don't buy stock in anything Berkshire may be interested or you divest immediately after taking the idea to Buffett. He ended the interview with the wrong answer by saying if he had to do it again, he just wouldn't have mentioned it to Berkshire, since no company has the ability to properly police it's employees family investments. Sokol also mentioned that Munger owned 3% of BYD before Berkshire acquired it, but I suspect Munger had his shares much longer. The problem wasn't so much that Sokol owned shares in Lubrizol, but the fact he acquired the substantial stake so close to the acquisition announcement. Cheers!

What I actually found funny was Whitney Tilson's interview on CNBC. He had a good interview, but in the middle of it, he said that if Berkshire's stock was down 1% tomorrow, he'd be a buyer...then the interviewer said that the stock was down 2% in after hours trading. ;D Not sure if he mis-heard what the interviewer said. I'm guessing he just meant that if there was any over-reaction, he'd be a buyer. Funny soundbite though! Cheers!

Vito Maida of Patient Capital will be on the Globe & Mail's live chat tomorrow morning 11am ET. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/why-the-tsx-is-vulnerable-to-a-major-pullback/article1961057/

Yeah Bluedevil, I think you may be correct. After re-reading the press release, Buffett also says that he received the resignation letter from Sokol's assistant! I don't think any of us would do that, let alone the guy many thought would take over the company. Why would Sokol not deliver the letter himself? Perhaps, this was a Joe Brandon type nudge into resigning. Don't know, and I guess we'll find out in tomorrow's interview and at the AGM this year. No wonder the loud talk about Ajit as CEO in the last week. Cheers!

From the tone of the letter, it sounded like he's trying to build a legacy for his family. What would be better than building a family bank, and having Buffett's left-hand man be involved. Cheers!

He owns 14.6% of MBRG. Cheers!

He owns a good chunk of Middleburg Financial. From the letter he sent to Buffett, and the fact that he's going to be on television tomorrow, I'm guessing some fantastic opportunity came his way and now he's going to accept. There was no guarantee he would be taking over for Buffett with Ajit there, the CEO of BNSF, Tony Nicely, etc. And if he was, it may not be for another decade. Plus, following in Buffett's footsteps are very big shoes to fill...the expectation, exposure, criticisms...it would be nuts! Cheers!

It's now on Berkshire's own site...so unfortunatey no April Fool's joke! Cheers! http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/MAR3011.pdf

Yeah, I'd have to say Buffett put out the press release to get it out early. Doesn't sound illegal, but not entirely ethical. Cheers!

You know people are going to assume this had something to do with all the Ajit as CEO talk recently. Even if it doesn't. Cheers!