Liberty

Here you go, 1985 to 2001. Hopefully nothing's missing: http://www.mediafire.com/?w1dgwbpek6iww1e Expect racemize to consolidate it all within one file any minute now ;)

I'm not sure what you are implying and what most of this quote meant, but apart from not being an American and from not having any partisan tendencies (I don't think I've voted for the same party twice in a row in the past), I posted this because it had to do with Buffett and might interest people here, because, y'know, they are interested in Buffett. As for the rest: Demagogy (/ˈdɛməɡɒdʒi/[1]) or demagoguery (/ˈdɛməɡɒɡəri/[2]) (Ancient Greek: δημαγωγία, from δῆμος dēmos "people" and ἄγειν agein "to lead") is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes. In my book telling a public intellectual like Warren Buffett to "write a check and shut up" qualifies. If I had known this would turn into a political thread, I wouldn't have posted it for sure. Political threads kill brain cells.

*sigh* As opposed to what? Unfairness? Yes, government should try to be as fair as possible. If you ask everybody to pay taxes, you should be fair about it and not give huge preference to a certain sub-group (and it's especially unfair if that group is the richest one to begin with). If you want to lower taxes, that's fine, but there's a fair way to do that too. Of course fairness is an ideal that can never be attained, but we should attempt our best, no? This applies regardless of whether you think government should be 1/100th the size of what it is now or bigger. Straw man. I would love to live off my investments too. That in itself isn't fair or unfair. But having a government that asks 15% of me while I make millions every year and asks 30%+ of people who make thousands of times less is unfair by almost any standard. Buffett's proposal is so damn un-radical that it's funny to see how much resistance there is to it. You could have 50 million bucks in the bank and earn 900k a year in income from investments and not even be targeted by Buffett's proposal, yet people feel these super-rich-investors need all the help they can get to defend themselves. Meanwhile, extremely regressive and plain crazy taxes and loopholes are currently on the books and not challenged by these same people. Anyway, this is boring and enough has been said on this topic.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/george-athanassakos/canadas-housing-bubble-this-time-is-not-different/article2347630/singlepage/#articlecontent A few interesting comments on that article too.

Do you think it is fair that someone who makes 80k/year in income pays 30% in taxes while someone making 80 million/year in income from capital gains pays 15%? Buffett doesn't think it's fair. That's his point.

I also fail to see what they contribute to the "discussion" that is the market.

I guess I should have pointed out that I didn't post this because I agreed with it! I just find it interesting to see how outsiders see Berkshire and our investing culture..

I guess that the fact that nobody who says they oppose Buffett here is actually addressing his points, but rather they try to turn it into something else completely, is kind of equivalent to conceding the issue...

The good news is that he could be registered under any name, but we'll all know it's him as soon as he posts :)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204778604577241224279057882.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/christie-says-obama-using-buffett.html

If this was a practical problem and Warren was saying "I have too much money, I want to give more of it to the government." the answer would be "write a check!" But from a practical point of view, I'm pretty sure Warren would love to keep all the money for himself. His argument has ethical foundations. He believes in meritocracy and fairness, and regardless of how much waste there is in government (and there is plenty! and Warren doesn't like it!), he doesn't believe it's right that people making millions each year are paying a much smaller % in taxes than secretaries and mechanics. This position isn't incompatible with lowering taxes (or even raising them). It's not even about raising taxes, it's about preferential treatment of some of the very very rich in a society. He's arguing for what he thinks is fairer, and doesn't like to have the guy or girl making peanuts paying a larger fraction of his income than the guy making billions. If Christie or anyone else wants to address that argument, fine. But to distort it into something else completely and then attack that straw man is just dishonest and wrong (well, it's what politicians do).

You are doing the same thing that Christie is doing.

Total straw man and distortion of what Buffett is arguing for. Buffett has already explained countless times why he's not arguing for voluntary taxes and why it wouldn't work, and he's not arguing that it's just him who's not paying enough taxes, so sending a check wouldn't fix anything. So Christie is not only arguing about something that Buffett isn't even talking about, he's doing it like petulant child.

Here they are: http://www.mediafire.com/?gh3693u6az57nop All credit goes to Poor Charlie.

Hi Poor Charlie, I just got your email, thank you very much. I don't want to do something with the file that you sent that you disagree with, so I'm asking: Would it be okay if I uploaded the file on a hosting site and posted the link here so that anyone who wants to download it can? As far as I know these are public shareholder letters - just hard to find - and I don't think there's any reason not to, but I still want your "ok".

Buffett is expressing his point of view as is his right and Christie, a government official, is telling him to "shut up". Whether you agree or disagree with Buffett, I don't see how Christie's behaviour can be defended as being anything other than childish.

I guess remembering the obvious is hard, then, because so many people seem to forget it...

Message sent. Thank you very much!

Someone doing something right doesn't mean that when he does something wrong it doesn't count.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/buffett-should-just-write-a-check-and-shut-up-governor-christie-says.html More demagogery ::) Doubt he's telling people talking about issues he agrees with to shut up..

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/china-pmi-may-shrink-for-4th-month-survey.html

Hi, Does anyone know where to find all Leucadia shareholder letters (or as many of them as possible) compiled in one place (ideally a single PDF or similar format, but many PDFs would be fine too)? I can only find a few on the official website. Thanks!

I think the attached is what you're looking for. Thanks!

Thank you. Does anyone have the interview with Monish that is mentioned at the beginning? I'd like to also read that one.