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原来只知道巴老在Ebay上出售每年一次的午餐券，却不知道其传记作者早在98年就开始了每年一度以‘圣人（巴老）忠告’为主题的晚餐聚会，真所谓‘近朱者赤’，到底谁影响了谁？只可惜一切事物都有终结的时候。
Published Sunday January 25, 2009
Warren Watch: No 'sage advice' dinner this year
BY STEVE JORDON
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER 
Warren Buffett chats with Alice Schroeder on his way to an Omaha press conference in 2004. She plans to attend this year's annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting.
The author of the latest and most extensive biography of Warren Buffett has hosted yearly "sage advice" dinners since 1998 on the evenings before Berkshire Hathaway's annual meetings in Omaha, with Buffett as the main attraction. But the tradition is now over. Alice Schroeder began the events when she was an insurance analyst with PaineWebber, inviting investors, friends and others to dine while she asked questions of Buffett in an informal setting. As many as 400 people have attended the 1½-hour off-the-record sessions. In 2003 Schroeder switched from analyzing Berkshire to researching and writing a biography, "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." Last spring's meeting at the Ironwood Country Club included Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and Berkshire board member. Last week she sent a message to those who attended recent dinners, saying 2008 was the finale. She added: "I'm very grateful to Warren for his five years of cooperation on the book. . . . Warren has been generous with his time for more than a decade, but now has decided to bring the era of sage advice dinners to an end. Although I know that you will be as disappointed as I am, we can all have fond memories of these years." From her home in Connecticut, Schroeder said she plans to attend this year's annual meeting, scheduled for May 2, and see Buffett sometime that weekend. "All good things come to an end," she said. "It wasn't going to go on forever. It was great." A Berkshire spokeswoman said, "Mr. Buffett likes Alice, likes her book and has received a number of glowing letters from friends about it. But at some point, like the charity golf outing he once hosted, an event runs its course." The Wall Street Journal reported in early December that the book has had "strong reviews but may not earn back its hefty $7.2 million advance." BookScan estimated sales at 328,000 copies in the United States and 29,000 in the United Kingdom. The listed price is $39.95, although some stores offer discounts. Views on Obama
Two Nebraskans, or at least one Nebraskan and a guy who used to live in Nebraska, had a recent conversation about President Barack Obama's future.
Tom Brokaw, who worked in Omaha before his NBC network career, asked Buffett why he thinks Obama is the right president for the current economy. "Obama can talk to the American public about that," Buffett said. "I mean, they'll want to listen to him, and he's very easy to listen to. And you can learn a lot by listening to him. So I think this can be an educational experience for the country. "He's a great editor of people's ideas, and then he's not afraid to act. I mean, he's got a confidence about him, which is warranted. It's not an arrogance, but it's a confidence." Buffett also said Obama believes in free enterprise, "where there's more and more goods and services to go around. But he does believe in having everybody get a better shot at it than it's existed in the last 20 years." Buffett said he expects more regulation in the financial industry, but it's more important to "create the right incentives for the people also that are running those institutions." Where will the economy find help? "It will be from the American people, big-time," Buffett said. "The American genius is that it frees up millions and millions of people with all kinds of potential, sometimes potential they didn't even know, to come up with things that I can't dream of myself. "I will guarantee you that 30 or 40 years from now, you will see all kinds of things being turned out in the United States that people hunger for but that they couldn't conceive of themselves." Buffett said Obama has an unusual amount of good will behind him, including people who didn't vote for him but who want him to succeed. "I mean, people realize this is something very big and something important." He also said on PBS's "Nightly Business Report" last week that he isn't really advising Obama, doesn't talk with him often and will probably talk with him even less often now that he's president. "He doesn't need my advice on anything," Buffett said. While Obama understands economics and will work with good people, Buffett said, he can't produce fast, dramatic results even though the government will do everything it can to fix the economy. "People's buying habits have changed. Fear has taken over," Buffett said. "And fear is a tough thing to fight." Airport purchase
Bloomberg News reported that Berkshire's NetJets Inc. division is close to buying the Egelsbach airport near Frankfurt, Germany, although the City of Egelsbach, a shareholder in the airport, hasn't decided whether to sell.
City governments in Offenbach and Langen and municipal utilities have agreed to sell their shares of the airport, which is Germany's largest for private and business flights. Bloomberg said the facility needs $38.6 million in improvements, including a runway extension. The airport said NetJets would take into consideration neighboring communities and would reduce noise and limit traffic to 100,000 planes a year, about 270 a day. How to fail
Donald Keough, a longtime Buffett friend, Berkshire director and retired president of Coca-Cola, recently discussed the ideas behind his book, "The Ten Commandments for Business Failure," with USA Today.
"People, companies and countries can get into trouble when they start to think they're successful," he said. "They get arrogant." Keough said business leaders should continue to take risks whether things are going well or not. "There's always something to be afraid of," he said. "It was overpopulation. Then the killer bees were coming to get you. There's always some bad news out there. "There is great concern that China and India are emerging as economic powers. Over the long term, that will help all industrialized countries. It's very easy to be afraid of the future. Don't do it. I'm no economist, but two years from now, the financial crisis will be just a piece of history." Honesty is essential for CEOs, he said, who have to hear the truth. When Coca-Cola brought out its new formula, consumers rebelled and demanded that the old formula return. "I went on television and said, 'You were right and we were wrong, and we're bringing back the original Coke.' All the anger turned to gratitude, and it worked out perfectly." Keough said the flood of information today can make it difficult for people to think clearly. "I'd like a holiday when everyone would have to turn off the data-producing toys so that we could all have a day to think." He said he remains curious about the future. "Kids in school right now have some of the most exciting days in the history of the world in front of them," he said. "You don't learn to swim until you get into the water. People need to plunge into life." Still part of deal
Berkshire may end up "owning" part of Constellation Energy after all, but only indirectly.
The Daily Deal online service reported that Constellation agreed to sell most of its London-based coal and freight operations and European energy trading units to an affiliate of Goldman Sach Group Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Berkshire invested in Goldman last fall, but its purchase offer for Constellation, a leading Baltimore utility, was called off after a French company made a higher offer. | 
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发表于 2009-2-6 09:02:13
发表于 2009-3-2 19:33:06
