Warren Buffett News: Buffett seeks $1bn damages from Swiss Re

Buffett seeks $1bn damages from Swiss Re (FT)
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is claiming as much as $1bn in damages from Swiss Re, the reinsurer it propped up during the financial crisis with an emergency capital injection. Swiss Re quietly disclosed in its 104-page earnings report last month that Berkshire was making various allegations that the reinsurer said were “without merit”. The dispute relates to losses Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) has endured in its deal to provide what Swiss Re described as retrocession –– in effect, reinsurance for reinsurance – to the Zurich-based company’s US life and health arm.

Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaires Club Second Annual “Grow Your Own Business Challenge” (Sys-Con)
Beginning December 5, 2012, kids from all over the country are invited to put their thinking caps on and enter their ideas for new businesses in the 2nd annual Secret Millionaires Club “Grow Your Own Business Challenge”. The Secret Millionaires Club is an animated series created by A2 Entertainment featuring the voice of Warren Buffett as a mentor to a group of kids as they learn important financial and entrepreneurial lessons. The Grow Your Own Business Challenge is sponsored by Fairholme Foundation to further their mission of improving education.

Buffett is wrong about past, present and future (TheProvince)
The U.S. is holding a debate that is critical to its future: whether to tax, redistribute and consume income that would otherwise be invested. Warren Buffett has weighed in, supporting higher taxes on wealthy taxpayers. Unfortunately, the evidence he uses to make his case is superficial and flawed. The claim by Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., that taxing upper-income taxpayers doesn’t reduce investment runs counter to standard economic logic.

The seductive Warren Buffett (TheIndependent)
Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jim Surowiecki both had lunch with Warren Buffett recently: with this book, unlike the last one, Buffett is taking an active role in the book tour. And he’s staying on-message. …The investing world is dominated by a manic-depressive style, in which the average mutual fund turns over nearly its entire portfolio every year. Yet Buffett has prospered by ignoring all this. As an investor, he’s known for his patience—he says that he likes holding stocks “forever”—and he prefers a few big bets to an endless number of small ones. “If you go from flower to flower, you have to find a lot of flowers to make a lot of money,” he told me. “There aren’t that many great ideas out there.”