farnamstreet

http://bit.ly/7AIAsM

http://bit.ly/7vvnOT

Tracey wrote an excellent article on Geico and received the following from Mr. Buffett himself (see below for original) Dear Tracey, I've just read your July 27th (2004) commentary about GEICO on TMCnet. Naturally, I love both your conclusions and your writing style. In fact, I'm Tempted to have you write the Berkshire Hathaway annual report -- but the improvement would be so noticeable that our shareholders would all catch on. Thanks for all the kind words. You are definitely our policyholder of the year. Sincerely, Warren Buffet See original letter here: http://bit.ly/5Ab26R

I'm publishing all of the old Munger Letters. Here is the 1984 Letter. Were Wesco running a national accounting partnership it would want a system where a high-ranked partner, free of business-retaining pressure, could reverse accounting decisions urged by field partners, so Wesco can hardly complain about the inconsistent messages from an audit-management system which forced Wesco in 1984 to change at year end quarterly income figures earlier reported. However, in thesis murky case, where we happen to know that one of the country's most eminent accountants agrees with the Wesco view, we must admit to minor irritation with the fates. Wesco makes special effort aimed at high-quality reporting to shareholders. (For instance, only with respect to competitively proprietary information, such as transactions in marketable securities, does Wesco consciously keep communication with shareholders to the legal minimum.) Thus when the audit quality-control system of its outside C.P.A. firm selects Wesco for forced restatement of numbers previously given shareholders, we feel much as if we were a duty-obsessed engineering system at Brigham Young University accidentally tear-gassed by the national guard in a necessary program to control campus unrest. Full Letter -- >http://bit.ly/523Nim

Shamless self promotion Farnam Street http://1440-68131.blogspot.com/ (Mental Models and Worldly Wisdom) My Investing Notebook http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/ (Collection of general articles, several people contribute to this) Mungerisms http://mungerisms.blogspot.com/ (A blog dedicated to collecting the writings and wisdom of Charlie Munger) I'll also add http://www.simoleonsense.com/ to the list!

I'll be posting them all as i get time to type them up at http://mungerisms.blogspot.com/

Hard to find, thought you might enjoy. And if serious credit-quality troubles come to the savings and loan industry, they will merely add to troubles from the borrowed-short, lent-long-at-fixed-rates problem, which is far from completely removed, and which destroys shareholder wealth at startling speed whenever interest rates are rising rapidly, even when the credit quality of mortgagors or other borrowers is excellent. http://bit.ly/GAeTC

From Alice Schroeder's new chapter: THE CRISIS: The decline of Berkshire Hathaway's stock from Triple-A status Throughout, Buffett became an even more frequent presence on CNBC and other networks. He filled the role of America's statesman and father figure during the financial crisis, but he had also fallen into the trap of competing for attention instead of trusting that his sterling record would bring it to him. "Dignity, Warren, dignity," counseled one of his friends—but Buffett had never wanted to be dignified; he had never minded looking silly if it would get people to pay attention to him. He was a performer and a showman, and now he feared the show might end. He would keep on giving as many performances as possible while there was time. And indeed, his profile grew and grew in proportion to how often he appeared on the magic medium of television. Read more http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/11/crisis-decline-of-berkshire-hathaways.html

I know of the following... Fund Manager Ori Eyal from Emerging Value Capital, will be there. He mentioned it in his Aug letter (http://bit.ly/16EYnP). Noise Free Investing, posted a recent interview with Ori http://www.noisefreeinvesting.com/blog/2009/08/interview-with-ori-eyal-from-emerging-value-capital-part-2-of-2/, is also going http://bit.ly/1TnVWq. Jeff Annello will also be there http://www.circleofcompetenceblog.com/2009/09/join-me-in-las-vegas/

Looks like Sanjeev owns some ITEX! http://bit.ly/a0nok

Eugene Shahan sat down with Warren Buffett's article "the superinvestors of Graham and Doddsville" and did some figuring. He found out some interesting things about super-investing, short-term performance, and how investment management firms should be structured. http://bit.ly/VxD7W

Well worth reading. http://bit.ly/bI6O5

you can find Chanticleer Investors (a division of Chanticleer) letters to investors here http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/08/chanticleer-investors-ii-2009-q2-letter.html and http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/08/chanticleer-investors-ii-2009-q1-letter.html

Where Were Drama Pundits [Whitney, Taleb and Gasparino] When It Mattered? http://bit.ly/4oCBr I really enjoyed this.

Preview of the new Buffett cartoon http://bit.ly/9hcqS