I saw this article by David Olive of the Toronto Star today that highlights Warren Buffett’s inconsistencies between his investment approach in principle, and in practice.
Some highlights are:
- He said not to buy banks, because of their ability to doctor their numbers so much, as we saw with the financial meltdown of 2007-2009 and beyond, yet is a major investor in several banks.
- He said not to make acquisitions with undervalued company stock, yet did exactly that with his company’s largest ever acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, for $26.4 billion.
- He called financial derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction,” yet invested in them heavily and subjected shareholders to $4.6 billion in associated losses in 2008.
