Yesterday Ben Stein appeared on Fox Business Network and filed a summary on the dinner conversation. Click here to read and watch.
Today, his own writing appeared on Fortune (CNNMoney) website:
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NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Sunday, December 13, my pal Phil DeMuth and I flew into an unbelievably cold Omaha to meet and eat the next day with the maestro, Warren E. Buffett. The next day was even colder, but Warren greeted us in his trademark folksy manner at the door to Berkshire Hathaway's old fashioned, but solid, offices in downtown Omaha. I know that space is limited so I will get right to what went on.
First, his office had changed a little bit since I was there a couple of years ago. He now has model trains everywhere, emblematic of his recent buy of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI, Financial) -- apt gifts, because Warren has been a model train collector since his childhood. Phil had brought him a 1930s Lionel catalog, which Warren read eagerly, Citizen Buffett with his Lionel trains Rosebud.
I asked him why he thought Burlington Northern was such a great buy and he answered in characteristic fashion...with numbers. He explained that Berkshire (BRK-A) had gotten so big that even a very successful small purchase would hardly affect earnings at all.
But a medium successful large purchase would be more helpful. (He explained this with numbers in such a rapid fashion that it was as if a computer were spitting out the analysis, which, in a way, it was. He is so astonishingly facile with numbers that it is almost eerie.)
Complete reading the article on CNNMoney (Fortune) website.
Today, his own writing appeared on Fortune (CNNMoney) website:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Sunday, December 13, my pal Phil DeMuth and I flew into an unbelievably cold Omaha to meet and eat the next day with the maestro, Warren E. Buffett. The next day was even colder, but Warren greeted us in his trademark folksy manner at the door to Berkshire Hathaway's old fashioned, but solid, offices in downtown Omaha. I know that space is limited so I will get right to what went on.
First, his office had changed a little bit since I was there a couple of years ago. He now has model trains everywhere, emblematic of his recent buy of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI, Financial) -- apt gifts, because Warren has been a model train collector since his childhood. Phil had brought him a 1930s Lionel catalog, which Warren read eagerly, Citizen Buffett with his Lionel trains Rosebud.
I asked him why he thought Burlington Northern was such a great buy and he answered in characteristic fashion...with numbers. He explained that Berkshire (BRK-A) had gotten so big that even a very successful small purchase would hardly affect earnings at all.
But a medium successful large purchase would be more helpful. (He explained this with numbers in such a rapid fashion that it was as if a computer were spitting out the analysis, which, in a way, it was. He is so astonishingly facile with numbers that it is almost eerie.)
Complete reading the article on CNNMoney (Fortune) website.
