With so many investors nervous about the fiscal cliff, the last thing the market needed was for billionaire Warren Buffett to express his doubts about whether lawmakers could get a deal done by the end of 2012. Despite Buffett’s saying that Congress would eventually reach a compromise, stocks opened lower and then plunged after poor new-home sales data cast the recovery into doubt. After sinking more than 100 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) managed to claw back to just a three-point decline by 10:45 a.m. EST. As often happens on days with poor economic data, financial stocks took the biggest hit, with Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) off about 1% each.
Buffett Makes Eyebrow-Raising Pick for Treasury Secretary (InvestorPlace)
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett thinks that President Obama should tap the head of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) to lead the Treasury Department. The chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A, BRK.B) said that Jamie Dimon would be an excellent choice to direct fiscal policy in times of market turbulence during The Charlie Rose Show interview on Monday, CNN noted. In fact, Buffett lauded Dimon as “the best person” for Secretary of the Treasury. Current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected so step down in the near term, having previously signaled that he would not remain on the job long after the election.
On taxes and investment, ask a guy worth $46 billion (MenaFN)
Warren Buffett is at it again. In yet another traitor-to-his-class op-ed article in The New York Times, America’s second-richest man Monday threw cold water on the notion that higher tax rates would keep wealthy Americans from investing their money. “So let’s forget about the rich and ultrarich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if — gasp — capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased,” wrote the 82-year-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. “The ultrarich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities.”
Buffett Expects Delayed Resolution to Fiscal Cliff (247WallSt)
Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) was on CNBC via remote teleconference this morning. While the aim was for a new biography, the real turn went to the coming fiscal cliff, with its instant tax hikes and spending cuts. Buffett said that he believes the $250,000 threshold of success is too low and he told President Obama about it a head of time. Buffett thinks that $500,000 is a better threshold that really targets more of the wealthy. Another issue on the fiscal cliff is that Buffett is looking for a resolution to come, but he does not really think that it will occur right before the deadline of December 31. Buffett is looking for a resolution to come shortly after the first of the year.
Buffett Says U.S. Businesses Haven’t Been Hurt by Taxes (BusinessWeek)
Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), said U.S. businesses haven’t been hurt by taxes and have benefited from declining rates in the past few decades. “Corporate taxes have not been a problem for corporate America,” Buffett, 82, said today in an interview on CNBC. “The biggest beneficiary of reductions in tax rates in the last 30 or 40 years has been corporations, and the biggest increase has been in the payroll tax.”
Obama Tax Hike on Small Business Would Chill Hiring (Heritage)
“Would raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans have a chilling effect on hiring in this country?” When asked this question by Today’s Matt Lauer, Warren Buffett confidently answered, “No.” How could this be, when the tax hikes desired by President Obama would fall directly on some of America’s most successful job creators? Professor George Haynes of Montana State University analyzed small business employment based on the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances and found that those small businesses run by families earning more than $250,000 per year employ 93 percent of the people working in small businesses. Raising these businesses’ taxes means that they have fewer resources available to invest and create jobs.
Bombardier wins biggest business-jet deal in its history (TheNewsTribune)
Bombardier won the biggest business-jet deal in its history with luxury air-charter company VistaJet Holding, exceeding a transaction five months ago with Warren Buffett’s plane-leasing unit. VistaJet ordered 56 Global-series aircraft and took options for 86 more as it taps Asian demand. The deal has a value of $3.1 billion, which would rise to $7.8 billion should all the planes be taken, Bombardier said Tuesday in a statement. Bombardier shares gained the most since June. The agreement marks a second significant win for Bombardier, which in June reached a $7.3 billion agreement for as many as 275 of its Challenger aircraft with the NetJets unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Interior Department close to revised rules for leased tribal lands The Interior Department says it is close to finalizing land lease regulations that will speed up economic development on tribal lands.
Berkshire Hathaway’s Website Basically Hasn’t Changed Since the Year 2000 (TheAtlantic)
You expect some weird things out of Berkshire Hathaway. Helmed by that quirky billionaire Warren Buffett, he of the ‘Sausage McBuffett’ and a deep commitment to value investing, the company has not been afraid to zig when others zagged. They are big on freight rail, for instance, and their sexiest holding is an industrial lubricant maker. All that to say, perhaps we should not be surprised that the company’s website was built in the 1990s, and hasn’t really entertained a redesign since. The biggest change to its interface came in 1999, when the design switched from a single bulleted list of 11 links to a two-column bulleted list with a teensy bit more white space around its 14 hotlinks.
