1 Outstanding Investor Digest (OID) (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
2 OID (2000) vol. XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
3 Janet Lowe (1996) Benjamin Graham on Value Investing: Lessons from the Dean of Wall Street, Penguin USA, p30.
4 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
6 Andrew Kilpatrick (2001) Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett, updated and expanded edn, McGraw-Hill, p1087.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
9 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
10 The term “rocket fuel” is used by Roger Lowenstein (1997) Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Orion, p135.
11 Email response to material sent to Mr. Buffett for his perusal.
12 Lowe, p86.
13 Lowe, p209.
14 Lowenstein, p46.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
16 Inference made by Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, May 1999.
17 Jack Welch with John A. Byrne (2001) Jack: What I’ve Learned Leading a Great Company and Great People, Headline, p54.
18 Ibid., p393.
19 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
20 Welch with Byrne, p84.
21 Ibid., p204.
22 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
23 Kilpatrick, p1061.
24 Welch with Byrne, p4.
25 Ibid., p225.
26 Janet Lowe (1997) Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor, Wiley, p106.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
30 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
31 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
32 Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board’s Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, July 16, 2002.
33 Warren E. Buffett (2002) “Who really cooks the books?”, New York Times, July 25.
1 Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Modern Library; quoted in Benjamin W. Hermalin and Michael S. Weisbach (forthcoming) “Boards of directors as an endogenously determined institution: A survey of the economic literature,” FRBNY Economic Policy Review.
2 Brent Schlender (1998) “Gates and Buffett: The Bill and Warren Show,” Fortune, July 20.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
6 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
7 Welch with Byrne, p45.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
9 Lowe, Benjamin Graham on Value Investing, p134.
10 Ibid.
11 Lowenstein, pp3 and 24.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p58.
14 Ibid., p49.
15 Ibid., p5.
16 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
17 Kilpatrick, p1074.
18 Ibid., p198.
19 Lowenstein, p128.
20 Ibid., p129.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1978.
22 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
23 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
24 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
25 Scott Plous (1993) The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, McGraw-Hill, pp249–50.
26 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
30 Letter to the shareholders: Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
31 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
32 Lowenstein, p118.
33 Ibid., p106.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Robert Lenzner and David S. Fondiller (1996) “The not-so-silent partner,” Forbes, Jan 22.
37 Jim Rasmussen (1999) Sunday World-Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, May 2.
38 Ibid.
39 Lowenstein, p74.
40 William H. Calvin (1998) “The emergence of intelligence,” Scientific American Presents, vol. 9, no. 4 (Nov.), pp44–51.
41 Rasmussen.
42 Ibid.
43 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
44 Calvin.
45 Extracts from Munger’s lecture at the University of Southern California on “Investment expertise as a subdivision of elementary, worldly wisdom,” OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
46 Taken from Lowe, p62.
47 Brent Schlender (1998) “Gates and Buffett: The Bill and Warren Show,” Fortune, July 20.
48 For a version of rewiring see Robert Hagstrom (2000) Latticework: The New Investing, Texere.
49 OID (1997) vol. XII, no. 3, December 29.
50 Lowe, p81.
51 Lowe, p135.
1 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
2 Taken from Kevin Kelly (1995) Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Fourth Estate, p163.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
5 Stephen Schneider (2001) “Boardroom rejects command and control,” Financial Times, June 26.
6 Stephen Pinker (1998) How the Mind Works, Allen Lane, p377.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
9 Robert P. Miles (2002) The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets from the Berkshire Hathaway Managers, Wiley, p262.
10 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
11 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p80.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
13 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
14 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
16 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
19 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
20 Welch with Byrne, p377.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
22 Miles, p192.
23 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
24 Lowenstein, p395.
25 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
26 Miles, p278.
27 Donald C. Langevoort (2001) “Monitoring: The Behavior Economics of Inducing Agents’ Compliance with Legal Rules,” USC Center for Law, Economics & Organization, Research Paper No. C01-7, Georgetown University Law Center Business, Economics, and Regulatory Policy, Law and Economics Research Paper No. 276121, June 26.
28 Ibid.
29 Robert B. Cialdini (1993) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Quill William Morrow, p92–9.
30 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
31 OID (1999) vol. XIV, nos 2 & 3, December 10.
32 Miles, p260.
33 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
34 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
35 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
36 Memo from Warren Buffett to the Berkshire Hathaway Managers (“The All-Stars”), August 2, 2000, quoted in Miles, p358.
37 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
38 Mitchell Resnick (1994) “Changing the centralised mind,” Technology Review, July.
39 Edgepace.com.
40 Welch with Byrne, pp201–2.
41 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
42 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
43 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
44 Welch with Byrne, p190.
45 Ibid., p190.
46 Ibid., p190.
47 Ibid., p387.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
49 Miles, p303.
50 Kilpatrick, p1064.
51 News release, “Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and General Re Corporation to Merge,” June 19, 1998, www.berkshirehathaway.com.
52 Alice Schroeder, CIBC Oppenheimer, June 22, 1998.
53 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
54 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
55 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
56 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
57 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
58 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
59 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
60 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
61 Berkshire Hathaway Owner’s Manual, 1996.
62 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
63 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
64 Hersh Shefrin (2000) Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing, Harvard Business School Press, pp24–5.
65 Ibid.
66 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
67 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
68 Richard T. Pascale, Mark Millemann, and Linda Gioje (2000) Surfing the Edge of Chaos: The New Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business, Texere.
69 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
70 The principle involved here is articulated in Brune S. Frey and Reto Jegery (2000) “Motivation crowding theory: A survey of empirical evidence,” CESifo Working Paper Series no. 245, January.
71 Miles, p111.
72 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
73 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
74 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
75 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
76 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
1 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
2 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1981.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
5 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p85.
6 Kilpatrick, p1071; U.S. News & World Report, June 20, 1994.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
8 Kilpatrick, p1069.
9 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
10 Memo to Berkshire Hathaway managers (“The All-Stars”), September 26, 2001.
11 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
13 Kilpatrick, p1083.
14 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
16 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
19 Kilpatrick, p287.
20 Ibid., p287.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
22 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
23 Ibid.
24 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
25 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
26 Welch with Byrne, p54.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
30 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
31 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
32 Kilpatrick, p1074.
33 Reported in Ernst Fehr and Klaus M. Schmidt (2000) “Theories of fairness and reciprocity: Evidence and economic applications,” CESifo Working Paper Series No. 403; University of Zurich Institute for Empirical Research Working Paper no. 75, December.
34 Ibid.
35 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
36 Barry Tatelman, Jordan’s Furniture, quoted in Miles, p221.
37 Welch with Byrne, p247.
38 Kilpatrick, p499.
39 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
40 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
41 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
42 Richard Brodie (1995) Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme, Integral Press, pp88–9.
43 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
44 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
45 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
46 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
47 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
49 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
50 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
51 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
52 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
53 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
54 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
55 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
56 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
57 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
58 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
59 Cialdini, p140.
60 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, pp102–3.
61 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
62 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
63 Cialdini, pp85–92.
64 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
65 Miles, p329.
66 Ibid., p191.
67 Berkshire Hathaway news release, July 2, 2002.
68 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
69 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1978.
70 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
71 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
72 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
73 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
74 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
75 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
76 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
77 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
78 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
79 Stuart Oskamp (1998) “Overconfidence in case-study judgments,” in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, pp287–93.
80 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
81 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
82 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
83 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
84 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
85 Cialdini, p244.
86 Miles, p303.
87 Kilpatrick, p1079.
88 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
89 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
90 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
91 Kilpatrick, p1069.
92 Elisabeth Marx (2001) “Shock of the alien can sink a merger,” Financial Times, April 5.
1 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
2 Nigel Nicholson (1998) “How hardwired is human behavior?” Harvard Business Review, July–August.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
4 1987.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
6 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
8 Welch with Byrne, p71.
9 Extract from Munger’s lecture at the University of Southern California on “Investment expertise as a subdivision of elementary, worldly wisdom,” OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
10 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
11 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
13 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
14 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
15 1981.
16 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
17 Ibid.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
19 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
20 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
22 OID (1998) vol XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
23 Cialdini, p251.
24 Ibid., p262.
25 Principle taken from Pinker, pp393–6.
26 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
30 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
31 Kilpatrick, p1058.
32 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
33 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
34 Lowenstein, p72.
35 The Coca-Cola observation is from Lowenstein, p199.
36 Lowenstein, p26, Norma Jean Thrust was the friend; the comment with regard to Mr. Buffett’s stocks, p78.
37 Ibid., pp228–9.
38 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
39 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
40 Lowenstein, p87, reports that when Buffett’s wife Susie spent $15,000 on home furnishings he griped to Bill Billig, a golfing friend: “Do you know how much that is if you compound it over twenty years?”
41 Pinker, pp393–6.
42 Lowenstein, p88.
43 Plous, pp248–9.
44 Ibid.
45 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
46 Kilpatrick, p1064.
47 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
49 Michael Jensen and William Meckling (1994) “The nature of man,” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, vol. 7, no. 2, Summer, pp4–19 (revd July 1997).
50 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
51 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
52 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
53 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1978.
54 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
55 Speech at Miramar Sheraton Hotel, Santa Monica, CA, October 14, 1998, to a meeting of the Foundation of Financial Officers Group, reprinted in OID (1998) vol. XIII, no. 7, Patient Subscriber’s Edition.
56 Memo to the managers of Berkshire Hathaway, September 26, 2001, www.berskhirehathaway.com.
57 Letter to Berkshire shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
58 Cialdini, p257.
59 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
60 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
61 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
62 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
63 Lowenstein, pp295–6 (Lowenstein reports $100 million in premium income from this ploy, not the $50 million Buffett reported).
64 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
65 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
1 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
2 W. James (1890) The Principles of Psychology (Vol. 1), Henry Holt, quoted in Carolin Showers, “Self-organization in emotional contexts,” in Joseph P. Forgas (ed.) Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition, Cambridge University Press, p283.
3 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
4 Ibid.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
6 Weston M. Hicks and Christine W. Lai (1998) “General Re and Berkshire Hathaway: In the big leagues,” Sanford Bernstein Research, June 26.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
9 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
10 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. & General Re Corp. Joint Proxy Statement/Prospectus, August 12, 1998.
11 Ibid.
12 Gary K. Ransom, Conning & Company, November 22, 1999.
13 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. & General Re Corp. Joint Proxy Statement/Prospectus August 12, 1998.
14 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
16 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
19 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
20 Ibid.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
22 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
23 Lowenstein, pp375–9.
24 Welch with Byrne, p225.
25 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
26 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
28 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
30 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. & General Re Corp. Joint Proxy Statement/Prospectus August 12, 1998.
31 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
32 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
33 Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, vol. 16, no. 15, July 31, 1998, quoting Daniel S. Pecaut, president of Pecaut & Co.
34 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
35 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
36 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
37 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
38 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
39 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
40 Welch with Byrne, p126.
41 Lowenstein, p76.
42 Ibid., p216.
43 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
44 Carol J. Loomis (2001) “The value machine: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is on a buying binge. You were expecting stocks?” Fortune, February 19.
45 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
46 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1978.
47 Miles, pp31–2.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
49 OID (2000) vol. XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
50 Adam Levy (2001) “Where’s the fizz?” Bloomberg Markets, December, p37.
51 Andrew Hill (2002) “Companies warm to Warren’s view,” Financial Times, July 16.
52 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p29.
53 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
1 Norman Johnson (2000) What a Developmental View Can Do for You (or The Fall of the House of Experts), CSFB Thought Leader Forum.
2 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
3 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
5 Ed Lamont (1999) “Cherry Coke with the FT: Honcho with a wealth of good fortune,” Financial Times, May 15.
6 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
7 Per Bak (1996) How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality, Copernicus, p61.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
9 Hagstrom, The Warren Buffett Portfolio, pp184–5, makes the same point.
10 Kilpatrick, p1079.
11 Ibid., p1074.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
13 Ibid., p1070.
14 Edgar E. Peters (1999) Patterns in the Dark: Understanding Risk and Financial Crisis with Complexity Theory, Wiley; concept, not inference, p45.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
16 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p96.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
19 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
20 Speech at Miramar Sheraton Hotel, Santa Monica, CA, October 14, 1998, to a meeting of the Foundation of Financial Officers Group.
21 This school of thought belongs to Baruch Spinoza and is taken from Daniel T. Gilbert, Douglas S. Krull and Patrick S. Malone (1990) “Unbelieving the unbelievable: Some problems in the rejection of false information,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 59, no. 4, October, pp601–13.
22 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
23 OID (1997) vol. XII, no. 3, December 29.
24 Ibid.
25 Lowenstein, pp162–3. Lowenstein goes on to say that Munger’s “approach to life was to ask what can go wrong. At a high school commencement, Munger gave a sermon not on the qualities that would lead to happiness, but on those that would guarantee a miserable life.”
26 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
27 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
29 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
30 Dennis Dittrich, Werner Guth, and Boris Maciejovsky (2001) “Overconfidence in Investment Decision: An Experimental Approach,” CESifo Working Papers No. 626, December, www.ssrn.com.
31 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, pp116, 119.
32 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
33 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
34 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
35 2000. In this quote Buffett is extemporizing on his observation that the equation for value is, in fact, over 2,600 years old and can be attributed to Aesop and “his enduring, though somewhat incomplete, investment insight was ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’”
36 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
37 Peters, p166.
38 Hagstrom, The Warren Buffett Portfolio, p124, makes a similar point: “With over a hundred years of investment performance data available, Coca-Cola had something very close to a frequency distribution to analyze.”
39 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
40 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
41 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
42 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 2&3, December 24.
43 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
44 See Hagstrom, The Warren Buffett Portfolio, for an insight into Buffett’s facility with numbers.
45 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
46 Kilpatrick, pp1066, 1070.
47 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
49 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
50 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
51 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
52 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
53 Ibid.
54 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
55 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1997.
56 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
57 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
58 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
59 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
60 George Lowenstein, Elke Weber, Christopher H. See, and Edward Welch (2001) “Risk as feelings,” Psychological Bulletin, no. 127, pp267–86.
61 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
62 Reported in Joseph LeDoux (1998) The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, Touchstone, pp232–3.
63 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p116.
64 Lowenstein et al.
65 Forgas, p4.
66 Lowenstein et al.
67 Ibid.
68 Kilpatrick, p1064.
69 Lowenstein et al.
70 Lowenstein, p230 and Kilpatrick, p1081.
71 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p30.
72 Denis J. Hilton (2001) “The psychology of financial decision-making: Applications to trading, dealing, and investment analysis,” Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets, vol. 2, no. 1, pp37–53.
73 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
74 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
75 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
76 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
77 Letter to Berkshire shareholders discussing 2001 third quarter earnings results, November 9, 2001.
78 Hagstrom, The Warren Buffett Portfolio, p89.
79 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
80 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
81 Kilpatrick, p1060.
82 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
83 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
84 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
85 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
86 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
87 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
88 Bernstein, p5.
89 Miles, p247.
1 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
2 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
3 Kilpatrick, p1068.
4 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
5 Quoted in John Mayo, deputy chief executive of Marconi (2002) “Exploding some Marconi myths,” Financial Times, January 18.
6 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
7 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
8 David Schkade, Cass Sunstein, and Daniel Kahneman, “Deliberating about dollars: The severity shift,” John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 95 (2nd Series).
9 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
10 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
11 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p119.
12 Re the following discourse, Fuller and Jensen make essentially the same point; see Joseph Fuller and Michael C. Jensen, “Just say no to Wall Street,” Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Working Paper no. 02-01; and Negotiation, Organization and Markets Unit, Harvard Business School, Working Paper no. 02-01, www.ssrn.com.
13 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
14 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
15 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
16 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
19 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
20 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
21 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
22 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
23 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
24 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
25 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
26 Buffett also illustrates the mistake of anchoring using the following from Fortune: “Several times every year a weighty and serious investor looks long and with profound respect at Coca-Cola’s record, but comes regretfully to the conclusion that he is looking too late. The specters of saturation and competition rise before him.” But Buffett delights in pointing out that this article was written in 1938. “It’s worth noting,” he continues, “that in 1938 The Coca-Cola Co. sold 207 million cases of soft drinks… and in 1993 it sold about 10.7 billion cases, a 50-fold increase in physical volume from a company that in 1938 was already dominant in its very major industry. Nor was the party over in 1938 for an investor: Though the $40 invested in 1919 in one share had (with dividends reinvested) turned into $3,277 by the end of 1938, a fresh $40 then invested in Coca-Cola stock would have grown to $25,000 by yearend 1993.”
27 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 2 & 3, December 24.
28 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
30 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
31 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
32 OID (2000) vol. XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
33 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
34 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
35 OID (2000) vol. XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
36 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
37 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
38 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
39 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
40 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
41 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
42 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
43 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
44 Ibid.
45 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
46 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
47 OID (2000) vol XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
49 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
50 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1980.
51 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
52 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
53 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2001.
54 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
55 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
56 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
57 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
58 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
59 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
60 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
61 Lowe, p111.
62 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
63 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
64 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. news release, “Berkshire Hathaway issues first ever negative coupon security,” May 22, 2002, www.berkshirehathaway.com.
65 Ibid.
66 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
67 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
68 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
69 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1979.
70 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
71 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
72 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
73 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
74 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
75 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
76 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
77 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1988.
78 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
79 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
80 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
81 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1977.
82 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
83 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1982.
84 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
85 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
86 Berkshire’s price fall measured from intraday high to intraday low.
87 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
88 Andrew Hill (2000) “Buffett deserves D grade,” Financial Times, March 13.
89 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
90 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
91 OID (1997) vol. XII, no. 3, December 29.
1 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
2 Lowe, p22.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
6 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
7 Lowenstein, p132.
8 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
9 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
10 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
11 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
13 Kilpatrick, p1062.
14 Bryan Jones (2001) Politics and the Architecture of Choice: Bounded Rationality and Governance, University of Chicago Press.
15 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
16 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
17 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1991.
19 Baruch Fischoff (1998) “For those condemned to study the past: Heuristics and biases in hindsight,” in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, pp335–54.
20 Plous, pp32–3.
21 Richard A. Crowell, Vice Chairman (1994) “Cognitive bias and quantitative investment management,” PanAgora Asset Management, Inc., December.
22 Fischoff.
23 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
24 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
25 Carol Loomis (2001) “Warren Buffett,” Fortune, December 10.
26 OID (1997) vol. XII, no. 3, December 29.
27 Extracts from Munger’s lecture at the University of Southern California on “Investment expertise as a subdivision of elementary, worldly wisdom,” OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
28 Loomis.
29 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
30 Hillel J. Einhorn (1998) “Learning from experience and suboptimal rules in decision making,” in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, pp268–86.
31 OID (1990) vol. V, no. 3, April 18.
32 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
33 Plous, pp25–30.
34 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p119.
35 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
36 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
37 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
38 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
39 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 1 & 2, March 13.
40 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
41 OID (1998) vol. XIII, nos 3 & 4, September 24.
42 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
43 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
44 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
45 Robert Wright (1997) The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life, Vintage.
46 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1986.
47 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
48 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
49 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
50 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
51 OID (1995) vol. X, nos 1 & 2, May 5.
52 Ian Hacking (1984) The Emergence of Probability, Cambridge University Press, p1.
53 Ibid.
54 Robert Hagstrom (1999) The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy, Wiley, pp115–19.
55 Pinker, pp345–6.
56 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1990.
57 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1992.
58 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
59 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1999.
60 Miles, p76.
61 Ibid., p76.
62 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
63 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
64 Grant’s Interest Rate Observer (2001) vol. 19, no. 15, August 3, p2.
65 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
66 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
67 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
68 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p119.
69 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
70 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
71 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p97.
72 Cialdini, p213.
73 Hilton.
74 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
75 Lowenstein et al.
76 Lowe, Wit and Wisdom, p106.
77 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
78 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
79 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
80 Warren E. Buffett (2002) “Who really cooks the books?”, New York Times, July 25.
81 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
82 See Patricia Dechow and Douglas Skinner (2000) “Earnings management: Reconciling the view of accounting academics, practitioners, and regulators,” February, www.ssrn.com, for a discussion of this issue.
83 Jeffrey Abarbanell and Reuven LeHavey (1999) “Can stock recommendations predict earnings management and analysts’ earning forecast errors?,” May, www.ssrn.com.
84 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2000.
85 This observation was inspired by John Kay, Financial Times columnist and a guest speaker at Merrill Lynch’s “Corporate Finance versus Corporate Strategy: What Creates Shareholder Value?,” Merrill Lynch Global, 20 May, 2002.
86 This is not to suggest that this is what happened at Gillette.
87 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1998.
88 OID (2000) vol. XV, nos 3 & 4, December 18.
89 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1996.
90 Lowe, p107.
91 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1985.
92 Shivaram Rajgopal and Terry J. Sherlin (2001) “Empirical evidence on the relation between stock option compensation and risk taking,” October, www.ssrn.com.
93 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1981.
94 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1983.
95 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
96 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1987.
97 OID (2001) vol. XVI, nos 4 & 5, year end edn.
98 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
99 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
100 Stephen M. Bainbridge (2001) “Why a Board? Group Decisionmaking in Corporate Governance,” UCLA School of Law Research Paper no. 01-3, April; (2002) Vanderbilt Law Review, vol. 55, pp1–55.
101 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1994.
1 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002.
2 Kilpatrick, p1060; annual meeting 1988.
3 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002.
4 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1995.
5 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002.
6 Warren E. Buffett (2003) “America’s growing deficit is selling the nation out from under us. Here’s a way to fix the problem—And we need to do it now,” Fortune, October 26.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002.
11 Letter to the partners of The Buffett Partnership, first half, 1966.
12 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1993.
13 Devon Spurgeon (2000) “Irreplaceable CEO plans to replace himself with a trio,” Wall Street Journal, October 17.
14 Ibid.
15 Miles, p358.
16 Cialdini, pp82–3 and 85.
17 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1984.
18 Letter to the shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 1989.
19 Kilpatrick, p1073.
20 Bernstein.
21 Hacking, p3.
22 Kilpatrick, p1084.