Billion-Dollar Whoops: Buffett Apologizes

[barb162]

Billion-Dollar Whoops: Buffett Apologizes
Buffett Tells Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders He Made Investing Mistakes in '08.

By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ABC News Business Unit
Feb. 28, 2009
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In his letter, Buffett recalled how 2008 was a brutal year for everybody in the market.

"By year end, investors of all stripes were bloodied and confused, much as if they were small birds that had strayed into a badminton game," Buffett said.

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"I think when somebody as astute as Warren Buffett has problems, I think we all have to recognize that this was a real difficult year and hopefully next year won't be nearly as bad," Naroff said. "His performance was not nearly as bad as the indices did, so he outperformed them."

Buffett's predictions for 2009 aren't much rosier. He said he expects many of Berkshire's companies to be impacted by the recession and earn below their potential in 2009.
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http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6980506&page=1

[Turbineguy]

1. There will be a new future in investing

and most of the Wall street firms still left will not be a part of it unless they adapt.

The emergence of private equity capital funds was the beginning of this.

The system cannot afford the $1 trillion or so per year to keep people in Bentleys and Superyachts for essentially doing nothing more than lowering the barriers between investors and investments.

Up to a point, Gordon Gekko was right. Greed is good. It's what gets lots of people up in the morning for work. But it cannot be left to run amok as it has. The system cannot reward destruction, as it had to under Bush.