BUFFET's Betrayal (Buffett firms got $95 billion of bailout cash)

[kpete]

Source: Reuters

August 4th, 2009
Buffett’s Betrayal
Post a comment (73)
Posted by: Rolfe Winkler
Tags: Uncategorized, Wall Street, bailout, bank of america, ge, goldman sachs, Warren Buffett, wells fargo

When I was 14, Warren Buffett wrote me a letter.
........................

Buffett was kind enough to respond to my letter, thanking me for it and inviting me to his company’s annual meeting. I was hooked. Today, Buffett remains famous for investing The Right Way. He even has a television cartoon in the works, which will groom the next generation of acolytes.

But it turns out much of the story is fiction. A good chunk of his fortune is dependent on taxpayer largess. Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out.

Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27 percent, according to a recent proxy filing, has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. The TARP at one point had nearly $100 billion invested in these companies and, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters, FDIC backs more than $130 billion of their debt.

To put that in perspective, 75 percent of the debt these companies have issued since late November has come with a federal guarantee.





Read more: http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-betrayal/

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Buffett firms got $95 billion of bailout cash
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/05/bailed-out-buffett-95-billion/

[pinniped]

1. I'm shocked that he would want to protect his BRK A and BRK B shareholders.

.

[Statistical]

8. Yeah insane that he would protect those he has a fudiciary responsibility to protect.

Utter insanity.

Also as someone else posted I own shares in WFC so I guess I got "bailed out" too.
The FDIC got bailed out because less banks failed which would have resulted in FDIC making payments.
Pensioners got bailed out because pension funds own Berkshire shares.

To call it the Buffet bailout is just sad.

[Downwinder]

2. America's socialism for the rich

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/12/america-corporate-banking-welfare

[billyoc]

3. lol @betrayal.

Buffet is fiercely loyal to his class.

[Skink]

4. He called derivatives weapons of financial destruction years ago.

If an investor such as buffet had pulled out of these companies it also could have repurcussions in the market. Also since a majrity of his holding are in Tbills he more than most has invested in America.

[Algorem]

5. He's too big to fail.

[rhett o rick]

6. Ah, I love the smell of capitalism in the morning. nm

[high density]

7. what a dope this guy is

I have mutual funds that own those stocks, so I guess I've been bailed out too.

[williesgirl]

9. Remember, he's on the board at Washington Post. Could explain some of

their editorial support for the bailouts. rec'd

[HamdenRice]

10. Completely false, misleading headline. Buffett DID NOT get $95 billion of bailout cash.

Dag, I hate it when journalists who seem to know nothing about numbers try to report on the bailout.

They are saying that all the money that any firm that Birkshire Hathaway has any stocks or bonds in (no matter how little) was bailout out "cash" that was given to Birkshire Hathaway.

By his logic, if I had one share of Bank of America stock (which I don't), you could say, Hamden Rice got $45 billion in bailout money.

Yet the story itself says flatly:

To be fair, his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has received no government aid. In fact, Berkshire became a major lender in the wake of frozen US credit markets, injecting $5 billion into General Electric, Goldman Sachs and even motorcycle-maker Harley Davidson at hefty interest rates.

So the actual story is that when the financial system was on the verge of collapse, the government guaranteed the debt of several financial firms, inducing investors like BKR to begin lending again to them. But that would apply to every bank and fund (including pension funds) that went back into the debt markets because of the guarantees.

How is that a "betrayal"?
By that calculation, you could say that the California state pension fund received all $2 trillion of bailout money because they are invested in just about every sector that got bailout money.

[Kaleko]

12. Here you go again,

making perfect sense! Don't you know you're depriving an army of outrage-o-holics of their daily fix??

[Vickers]

11. What a bullshit headline.

Let's see, because he runs B-H, which has holdings in some companies that received TARP funds, he has now miraculously directly been the beneficiary of bailout funds?

:eyes:

Looks like some in the MSM are gunning for him since he complimented Obama the other day...

[No Elephants]

13. Translation. "Buffet's a Democrat. So, let's attack him."

[Ocracoker16]

14. This post is quite deceptive

Please take a look for yourselves before deciding to become outraged at Mr. Buffet.