Brk-A Companies in the News: See's Candies

Some Sorted Links:

The economy is bad for chocolate eaters too! Dan Savage's writing might suffer.

A happy tour. I didn't know See's Candies was based out of San Francisco.

On the topic of San Francisco, this could be a real problem for big WB if California's laws become more like San Francisco's laws, which seems likely if Gavin Newsom becomes governor. I don't know anything about leases or union contracts, but it sounds like it's gonna be a big headache for big WB to ultimately deal with any turmoil associated with California's economic problems.

Did big WB get played?

That's what it seems like from reading this story. Something tells me next's year's charity lunch, assuming there is one after Zhao Danyang's "stock tip" made him so much money that the price will go up. Good news for Glide.

Anyway, did big WB get played, if only in his mind? Or maybe in yours? If he did get played and he thinks so too, would he do it again anyway, since it is for charity? Somehow I bet big WB doesn't care to much what speculators think about what someone who has lunch with him says, but who knows?

As an aside, why does this article look so wrong? It says Zhao Danyang won the lunch in 2008. Hmm, what a peculiar error.

Robert McNamara Died

McNamara and Buffett were on the board of WPO at the same time and according to this (the first full paragraph on page 206 is the most relevant for lazy readers) had the same girlfriend at the same time, at least according to C. David Heymann's The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club. Golly being rich and powerful sounds like fun. Read this too on Robert McNamara.

Brk-A Companies: WaPo in the news!

Uh-oh, one of big WB's companies within the Brk-a family is in a sticky situation. Don't worry though, because in a letter to the Post's readers Publisher and CEO Katharine Weymouth said sorry! Apparently though, sorry isn't good enough for The Daily Kos ! Either way all this silliness is bad for business (but great for exclamation marks!)!

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotations from big WB: "When you get out of bed in the morning and think about what you want to do that day, ask yourself whether you'd like others to read about it on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. You'll probably do things a little differently if you keep that in mind."

Maybe Weymouth isn't as big a fan of big WB's genius advice as everyone else around here is.

Quick Berkshire Hathaway Links

Here are the shareholder letters.

Here are the annual reports.

What an awesome homepage!

Question though: Why aren't they selling ads for See's Candy, Washington Post, etc., or anything else on their website? They have an ad for Geico and and one for Brosheims. Why is the website more sacred than the shareholder meeting for the other companies? What's up with that big WB?

Brk-A Companies: Kaplan in the news!

* Kaplan has leased some new offices; With this economy, I hope they got a good deal on the real estate!

* Kaplan needs a director of nursing! It pays over 100K, but I think they can swing it with big WB in their corner!

Big WB has a Big giving Heart

Wowzers big WB is generous.

Isn't it cool that big WB and big Billy get along so well they can be friends, run a charitable organization together, and be on the the board of Brk-A together?

Neat Buffett Quote About Newspapers

This article regarding the Brk-A 2009 shareholder meeting is pretty neat. Big Wb says newspapers continue to see unending losses, but that he won't sell the Buffalo Evening News or the Washington Post. Wowzers this doesn't make sense to me! Big WB says that they will make a little bit of money off of the Buffalo Evening news, but what about the Washington post? Is Kaplan really that profitable? Are people going to continue to buy high rpiced education these days? This says Kaplan is worth half of the Post's revenue. Wow big WB sure is smart not to sell wpo! Or is he? What do you think?

Felix Salmon Reviews Snowball

Felix Salmon wrote a really neat article about Snowball by Alice Schroeder. He is basically saying the book isn't worth reading unless you are a super duper fan of big WB, but I'm not sure - I read the book once, and since I'm a fast reader I think I'll go through it again and try and be as critical as Salmon was. I enjoyed the book, but hey, who doesn't love 900 pages of authorized big WB? Here's a great quotation from Salmon:

In other words, this is a book which doesn't just make it hard to make out the forest for the trees; it makes it hard to make out the trees for the texture of their bark and the exact shape and number of their branches.


He also suggests that reading Brk-A's annual reports written by big WB are more interesting to read, so I guess I'm going to have to find out for myself. I'll let you know what I find.

The First Brk-A Blog Poll - What should this have been titled?

Read this about the charity auction lunch with big WB and then please respond in the comments. I'd very much like to know what you think this post should have been titled. I'll say what I think in another post when someone comments.

Bummer, lunch with big WB ain't worth what it used to be.

or

Hooray! The big WB is on sale!

What do you think?

Welcome to The BrkA blog!

I like to read, learn, and write about big WB and his company. I think this is an exciting time for blogs, business and economics, so I'm going to look at one of the most exciting and interesting companies and its chairman everyday! Important things need lots of eyeballs, so here's to taking a closer, better look at big WB and BrkA!

This is definitely not a fan blog; it is going to be highly critical of everything concerning big WB and BrkA, but it's also going to be fun!

But, why not start out on a positive note? I read this article and immediately thought wow, owning Fruit of the Loom let's this guy make money in a recession and get inside data on the whole macro picture. Good thinking big WB!