The idiots ripping into Buffet, Cohen, Pabrai or Soros forget one thing: Buffet etc. never blew up. Maybe they have a bad year, maybe they underperform the SP500 over a couple years. But they never blew up while compounding more or less consistent returns over 10, 20, 30 or 40 years - talk about incredible discipline and patience! This is something the critics will never ever understand simply because they're in the market for a year or two and simply don't have enough experience.
Hefner? You gotta be kidding me. He owns 8 Million PLA shares - that's $88 million in value. Then he gets $1 million a year in salary for his Playboy "officer" position which is more like a marketing/representation paycheck. I couldn't find any better information but I'd be surprised if his personal net worth is > $250 million dollars. After all, the entire Playboy corporation has a market cap of "only" $350 million. Contrary to popular belief the Playboy Mansion (which is valued @ around $50 million) is not owned by Hef personally but is property of Playboy Inc. Hef is a nice guy and a true self-made man. But he is nowhere close to any legendary investor in terms of net worth. You see him on TV with his "girlfriends" and spending sick amounts of money on entertainment but after all it's just clever marketing. This guy is nowhere close in net worth to what people on the street think he is.
I don't expect it's unusual for the ultra-wealthy to remain frugal. That isn't necessarily a character flaw, and probably had a lot to do with how they became wealthy in the first place. Alot of those guys who lived through the depression were like that. When I was a kid in my early 20's, I worked at a hotel in south Florida from 1974-1976 where John D. McArthur lived. He owned the hotel (and a lot of South Florida). The hotel was a dump, and shortly after he and Catherine died it eventually was condemned and torn down. He was in his late 70's, drove his own 1969 Caddy, to the horror of the local residents, and wore such cheap clothing that he was often mistaken for a bum. He sat in the coffee shop every day at a simple table with just a telephone, and no security. I saw him almost every day. He was probably worth about $4 billion at that time. But his attorney drove a Ferrari Dino. ;-)
I think it's quite amusing that some people are ripping on Buffett for being frugal. Buffett is a man who lives his life doing what he loves to do and made an insurmountable fortune in the process. Now he's putting his fortune to work in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for which I'm sure he will be remembered for decades to come. I'd be perfectly happy if I'd end up accomplishing only one percent of what Warren Buffett did.
Yeah they accumulated this fortune for sure. Why it took 45 years for WARREN BUFFET to donate for the first time something to Charity? Is there any record of him donating money prior to Bill Gates foundation? I would like those Buffet fans to answer this one. Have a clue why your money "god" is so tight?
You are right. Making money to feed yourself well enough is good for me. I have a cell phone, computer and a part time chauffeur. Warren Buffet with his immense wealth doesn't have any. Why? Why these guys don't like cell phones? They are still working with land lines? Do they also keep hand written ledgers for stock purchases? Latin America has beaten the market by leaps and bound. When that finishes move to China which is hot, you just keep rotating and getting 80- 100% returns every year. You are making money?What is so special about that? Why stay in one track and compare that to BRK.A? That stock is fine, but its not giving what some of these mutual funds are giving on one year or two year basis. Its all rotation and moving your money around and staying on top it, earning handsome returns, doubling your capital every year.
Buffet never blew up? His stock BRK.A has underperformed S&P for the last 2 years. This year 2007 has been flat. Give me a break! Look at the charts of BRK.A and BRK.B and come back and post here.