Madoff...Stanford...so is there any chance the next name on the list is...

...Berkshire Hathaway?

Just throwing this out there...read a profile of "Sir" Allen Stanford in a recent New Yorker and it seems in 20/20 hindsight pretty obvious that the guy's numbers never added up. Neither, of course did Madoff's...so when you then look around at the other "man-I-can't-believe-how-much-that-company's-succeeded-over-the-years" stories, then it appears that Warren Buffett's name could be on the list, if for no other reason than if there's anything we've learned in the world of finance (or sports, for that matter, see Bonds: Barry, etc) over the past half-decade, it's that numbers that appear to be too good to be true almost certainly always are.

 

Nah. Berkshire Hathaway is publicly traded, so there's lots of information about its finances and holdings. Stanford and Madoff's outfits were both privately held and didn't have to share as much information.

BRK.A trades at $73,195 a share and closed up $3,100 a share. Its Class B stock took a major hit today, dropping $16.95 to close at $2,301.05.

 

Don't see it. Since Berkshire is a publicly traded company there is a lot more transparency than there is with organizations like Madoff's and Stanford's.

 

But if Warren Buffett turned out to be a con artist, I think people would just say "f*ck it" and start printing their own money.

 

Umm, so is this one:

C.

 

Nobody's accusing Citigroup of running a ponzi scheme, but rather of being insanely bad businessmen and -women. And nobody in their right mind would look at Berkshire Hathaway and see a ponzi scheme.

 

There are lots and lots of billionaires in this country (probably not as many as there were last year, of course). Not sure why Buffet's would necessarily be more likely to be crooked just because of Madoff and Stanford.

 

Yeah, and Buffett's been doing his thing for, what, 40 years? I'd think anything shady with his holdings or financial strategy would have come out by now.

 

I'm 500 pages or so into his biography, "Snowball".

Granted, the writer is taking a kid-gloves approach for the most part, but if Warren Buffett's name is ever mentioned in the same context as Bernie Madoff's or Allen Stanford's, we're all fucked and it's hunter-and-gatherer time.

Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway dropped 44% last year, which shouldn't surprise anyone, especially with the way he concentrates his positions. But if you delve into the man and how he built Berkshire -- and I've done this -- there is no financial chicanery.

It's there for all to see; he searches out companies trading for 40 cents that are worth $1 and backs up the truck. Plus, his reputation means as much to him as his ability to make $$$$$. Buffett's anal to the nth degree about that.

 

The transparency that exists between the Berkshire investment and the other two jokers is wider than the ocean.

 

Perfect way to put it. Value of of Berkshire is available 24 hours a day on a publicly traded exchange.
The value of a Madoff or Stanford investment is starting to look like they were just made up on a day to day basis.

 

That said, there's nothing that would surprise me any more. If you told me that BYH stars in the Big Sausage Pizza movie series, I could probably believe it.