I have an 800 freephone number now that I call if I get the urge to buy an airline stock. I call at two in the morning and I say: "My name is Warren and I'm an aeroholic." And then they talk me down.
Over the years, a number of very smart people have learned the hard way that a long string of impressive numbers multiplied by a single zero always equals zero.
The true investor welcomes volatility ... a wildly fluctuating market means that irrationally low prices will periodically be attached to solid businesses.
I'm just lucky to have been in the right place at the right time. Another place, another time, I wouldn't have been as successful. Society enabled me to make my money and my money should go to society.
I've already written a section in the annual report for next year explaining why I think in one case that the figures on our balance sheet as calculated are wrong. But it's the standard way of doing it. It's holy writ. The SEC wants us to do it that way, and we'll do it that way, and I'll explain why I think it's wrong and shareholders can read it and see whether they agree with my logic or don't.
We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.
I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can't be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they're not getting some other matter.
I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that.
The latter qualification brings to mind a fellow who applied for a job and stated he had twenty years of experience-which was corrected by a former employer to read "one year's experience-twenty times.