I guess my stance on Warren Buffett is of record, so I will merely post my latest find regarding The Oracle of Omaha. This guy, Buffett, in my book, is definitely a guy worth studying. And the following quote is just one comment that Warren made in his interview on Friday morning's SQUAWK BOX on CNBC regarding Fannie and Freddie. I consider this guy to be a jewel, hands down. I realize there are always two ways of looking at the same thing, but the way I see things, now, is that I stop, look and listen to what this guy has to say. And because of it, I think that my financial precepts are now a lot closer to where they maybe should have been a long time ago. But, as some of you may say or think, "...to each his own."
Apparently, the interview went for three full hours and the following link is to the transcript of that interview. Me, I'm going to read every word of it; maybe even two times or more.
(Highlighted text in the following passage is not mine, but the author of the post.)
"Mr. BUFFETT: And they also had an added problem in that they had a dual mission. The government expected them to promote housing and the stockholders expected them to raise the earnings substantially every year. And as the years went by, they emphasized the latter more and more. They started talking about "steady Freddie," and Fannie Mae said, `We're going to increase the earnings at 15 percent a year.' Any large financial institution that tells you that sort of thing is giving you a line of baloney. I mean, they may do it for a while, but when they can't do it with operations, they do it with accounting and they cheat. And that's what happened at both those places on a huge, huge scale."
http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/8/that-awesome-warren-buffett-cnbc-interview
Comments(2)