This video is actually about 6 months old - but it gave me another reason to like Warren. He is (or has been) fighting to increase the tax rate on the rich and lower it for the middle class.
(added 05/07 - oops, it turns out the video isn’t showing up in some browsers… so here is the link if you can’t see it…)
His tax rate is lower than mine - how about everyone else?
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I found a text file that I had saved with a few quotes that have impacted me over the last few years. I get inspired by them, so I thought I would share them with the readers… I hope you enjoy them.
“If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.” -Abraham Lincoln
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” -William James
“Success is more of a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.” -An Wang
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” -Warren Buffett
“Consider what can be done in ten minutes. If you need a little mental relaxation, you can sit down with a friend and play a game of cards. If you need physical recreation, you can engage in a few exercises that will help tone up your body. Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay you huge dividends.” -William A. Irwin
“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” -Frank Lloyd Wright
And here are a few articles I found interesting over the past few days:
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Forbes Magazine just recently put out their list of the richest people again and it looks like Bill Gates has been dethroned from the position of richest man in the world by Warren Buffett. Currently Warren is worth about $62 billion and Gates is down to a measly $58 billion. 
If you are interested in learning about how Warren did it, you can watch some videos from Warren, read some quotes, or see some of the tips that I learned from him.
And here are a few other interesting posts I read this week…
More on Warren Buffett and Forbes
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Video Lessons from Warren Buffett
If you have been a regular here for any length of time, you will know that I have a strong appreciation for Warren Buffett and his wisdom on business, investing, and life. I have written about a few things I learned from Warren and some famous Warren quotes as well.
I found a series of videos from a talk Warren gave to MBA students at the University of Florida. It never ceases to amaze me how large of a goldmine of wonderful information is available for FREE. He still hasn’t written a book, so you have to soak up his wisdom via other methods (like this). If you are even remotely interested in investing or business these would be a good use of your time. (each one is a little under 10 minutes)
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 1
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 2
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 3
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 4
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 5
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 6
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 7
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 8
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 9
YouTube - Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 10
Technorati Tags: Warren Buffett Video, Warren Buffett
del.icio.us Tags: Warren Buffett Video
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I was just reading the comments from Forbes 400 Richest Americans and Jason Dean brought up a good point about giving:
Warren Buffett gave very little (relatively speaking, of course) to charity until his recent huge gift to the Gates Foundation. His rationale was that he could grow his money more effectively if he held on to it, thus making for a larger (eventual) gift. He was right. So in a way, it could be argued that Bill Gates is making a mistake by giving so much to charity at this stage in his life. Perhaps his wealth could be better served creating more jobs and more wealth through investment, compounding his massive wealth, for an eventual mammoth gift at an older age, like Buffett.
Mathematically, I agree completely - If you have $10,000 now, you could give it or you could invest it for 30 years (at 11%) and have over $250,000 to give.
I read that Benjamin Franklin did something similar by creating trusts that kept his money invested for decades after he died to keep growing. So rather than giving away the million he had when he died, he let it grow for another 50 or so years. Then at a specified point, Ben had instructed in his trust that libraries be built with the money. You can assume that his million would have grown to tens of millions, thus being far more effective.
Scripturally, I think I find a contradiction in Proverbs 3:27-28…
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,” when you have it with you.
and Deuteronomy 18:4 (and many other similar verses) points out:
“You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep.
I think I can say with confidence that the Bible does NOT endorse the “save it all up then give” method. This is a little bit of a struggle for me, because the mathematical portion of my brain can see the enormous benefit.
I really enjoy and have a whole lot of fun giving. It is such a liberating experience and I would miss out on most of it if I waited until I was rich and old. Maybe that is why the Bible encourages us to do it now. Or could it be that God is just bad at math?
What do you think - give now, or give later?
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Bill Gates is still America’s richest man
Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans was just recently released, and was topped by Bill Gates. Second was none other than my favorite billionaire Warren Buffett.
This is the first year that you need over a billion to get on the list. In fact, the lowest on the “400 totem pole” had a net worth of $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year.
I was pleased to hear a few months back that Warren Buffett had announced that he would be giving away the vast majority of his wealth to Bill Gates charity. From what I have read Bill Gates is very generous as well.
It is so good to see that the two richest Americans are actively trying to make the world a better place by giving. This just goes to show that money is NOT the root of all evil. It is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) and people who are motivated by a calling or by a cause often aren’t concerned with money.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-Winston Churchill
del.icio.us Tags: Forbes 400, richest americans
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The best quotes from Warren
If there is any investor who you could look up to and use as a “role model,” [tag]Warren Buffett[/tag] would be your man. He takes a simplified and [tag]long-term[/tag] approach to [tag]investing[/tag]; and he puts all of the Wall St. day-traders to shame. He is without a doubt one of the greatest investors of all time, and has been in the top 5 richest people for decades. When you hear him speak, he is likely to resemble your grandfather with his sincerity, down-to-earth nature, and wisdom from years of living. If you cannot tell, I am a FAN of Warren.
I gathered a list of [tag]quotes[/tag] from Warren Buffett over the years about life, money, investing, and anything else. If I have any of your own favorite Warren Buffet quotes that I may have missed, please add them to the comments.
Also check out these 9 tips from Warren and these Warren Buffett videos
- A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
- If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
- Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
- Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
- Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from the folly rather than participate in it.
- Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
- I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
- I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.
- If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
- In the business world, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
- It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
- It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
- It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
- Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
- Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
- Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
- Our favorite holding period is forever.
- Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
- Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.
- Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
- The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
- The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.
- The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.
- The only time to buy these is on a day with no “y” in it.
- The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.
- There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
- Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.
- We believe that according the name ‘investors’ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‘romantic.’
- We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.
- We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
- When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
- Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
- You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.
(Warren Buffett quotes added 05/07/08…)
- It’s better to have a part interest in the Hope Diamond than to own all of a rhinestone.
- I should emphasize that we do not measure the progress of our investments by what their market prices do during any given year. Rather, we evaluate their performance by the two methods we apply to the businesses we own. The first test is improvement in earnings, with our making due allowance for industry conditions. The second test, more subjective, is whether their “moats” – a metaphor for the superiorities they possess that make life difficult for their competitors – have widened during the year.
- She’s smart, she loves the business, and she loves her associates. That beats having an MBA degree any time.
What are your favorite Warren Buffett quotes?
Please share in the comments below…
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Things I learned from Warren Buffett
I just went back to my notes from a video of [tag]Warren Buffett[/tag] speaking his mind. Here are a few of his tips on [tag]investing[/tag], business, and life. The bolded text is Warren’s followed by my comments.
- There are no called strikes in the ballgame of investing. You do not lose a single penny by passing on any given investment. Even if someone else hits a homerun with it, doesn’t mean that you are missing out. That said, you will have to swing the bat if you ever want to get anywhere. Just make sure it is a good pitch.
- Do business with people you like and who share your objectives. [tag]Money[/tag] should not be only consideration when making business decisions. We have all worked with some people who we would have paid any amount NOT to work with. If we could quantify joy and happiness, it would be easy to see that working with people you like would far outweigh the joy received by getting more money with bad business partners.
- Invest in companies selling products that consumers are not concerned with price. Good point.
- It’s not about the biggest motor, but the most efficient motor. A smaller company that is run efficiently is going to do better for their shareholders than a mammoth company with wasteful spending.
- Don’t worry about what the stock market will do, focus on what the company will do. Good companies can and will go up even in the middle of falling market.
- With [tag]Stocks[/tag] it is hard to know WHEN something will happen, but it is easy to know WHAT will happen. Everyone seems to be concerned with the WHEN, but focusing on the WHAT seems to yield a nice fruit as Warren has proved.
- Find companies with endless demand for their products. Funeral homes will always be needed, because people are still dying.
- Leave your children enough money so they can do anything, but not enough that they don’t have to do anything. I like that.
- Decision making abilities fade as cash flow increases. If you only have $5 in your pocket until the end of the week, it is likely that you will make a good decision with it, because it is all you have. On the other hand, if you have $100 for the week, your decisions regarding a $5 purchase are far less critical since you have another $95. Therefore, people tend not to treat those decisions with the same respect they would if it was their last $5.
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