The subtitle is Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. Is it massive? Yes. Does it contain numerous revelations about his childhood, his "slight obsession" with trains, his love of collecting, and his sex life? Yes. Is it well written and well researched? Yes. Does it cover many financial episodes (most of all Salomon Brothers) and famous characters? Yes. Is it number one on Amazon? Yes. Does it contain analytic depth? No. Did I like it? Yes, but for a return which is mostly biographical in nature, it’s a lot of detail to wade through.
Does it give you a sense of esprit de corps between you and another who seems to be a reader by vocation?
As an aside, I just got The Science of Success audiobook and one great line: “The key is to recognize when you are experimenting, and limit the bet accordingly.”
This is basically a different phrasing of Buffett’s greatest lesson, and inexplicably one that many highly educated people still ignore. So far in my listening, Koch has referenced Mises, Harper, and Schumpeter in describing his quest to understand human progress. I sometimes wonder what other people could possibly be reading.
This post should have been entitled: Tyler Cowen Interviews Himself
does he talk about how he pretends to be a altruistic agent of goodwill when selfishly promoting complicated estate taxes that enrich his slimy insurance companies?
picture used car salesman:”have you thought about the tax benefits of buying this crapaola annuity”
does he talk about how he decided that mortgage securities are crudy investment right now so instead of using his 5 billion to buy them he would just buy goldman stock and then do infomercials promoting the use of goverment agents stealign the money from taxpayers?
I do think Buffett has some blind spots. For example, if he believes it is wrong that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary I don’t understand why he concludes his rate should go up.
On the estate tax, I don’t understand why he believes the solution is to funnel capital to an entity that is inefficient. I do think it is possible that his privileged position affords him the luxury of cognitive dissonance on some things. It’s not about integrity. He runs a special business that will barely blink when some of the capital goes into tax sheltered foundations. Other businesses are not so fungible.
I liked Lowensteins book, I’m not saying this book won’t be fun to read either.
I just don’t know how you can admire the deceptive nature of a guy making a 5 billion dollar bet on Goldman*(who he admitted on CNBC last tuesday morning) was going to be a big beneficiary of the bailout….who then tells americans it could be a good investment to buy 700 billion dolalrs worth of toxic securities that various firms are trying to dump.
He then uses this lie to try and convince people to vote to steal my kids future income! If the guy really though their was a good investment their wouldn’t he buy it for himself? or this jsut more of the altruism you so admire in him giving to the gates foundation. Afterall, the UN and World bank programs the Gates foundation is supporting have done such a bang up job of helping Africa make economic progress the last few decades. Maybe he will help uncover the next Mugabe for the UN to prop up.
I wish Bill Gates would work on his products. I consider buying MSFT stock until I think about Vista. I’m not sure if he has enough money to give to the poor to absolve his soul of that one. The truly amazing thing is that the Zune is worse.
I just realized that in addition to having a more tax efficient structure than his upstart rivals, one of his major business lines (or possible business lines) is selling annuities which are only a good investment because of the risk of high taxes.
I’ve never understood why the media considers him a fount of economic and business policy wisdom. He is though, an exceedingly shrewd operator.
Ah, Buffett. He pontificates about the social value of estate taxes in breaking up and leveling great fortunes, and then he leaves his vast wealth to the personal control of the richest man in the world. If he’s preaching that the bailout is a public duty while enriching himself from it with both hands, it would be entirely in character.
So, I haven’t read the Snowball, but I’ve read a good bit of Buffett and Munger.
I just got done listening to Charles Koch’s The Science of Success. I think that his lessons are very similar to Buffet and Munger’s. It seems to me that Buffett and Munger started out with the goal of business and ended up with principles whereas Koch started out with principles and ended up with business success. But, they both ended up at pretty much the same place. For example, they have similar compensation philosophies for managers.
I think this explains Buffett’s philosophical lapses and the media’s love affair with him. Anything that sounds wishy-washy and unideological sounds truthy to media types. It’s fine for Buffett to believe that the government should enforce a meritocracy on him and his estate. It’s not fine for him to say it should go for all businesses and then himself dodge it through foundations. In fact, I often wonder why these guys think non-profits are more beneficial to society than their successful value-added propositions. Buffett is a 7 sigma event, and it is quite unlikely that his progeny would have anything like his ability. It, however is equally unlikely that money taken from family businesses in estate taxes will be funneled more efficiently by the government than it could be effectively used by heirs that may have spent decades learning the operations. We should listen to folks like Buffett, then politely ask them to close the door behind them while we make the right decision.
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It is an interesting topic
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