Comment by ralph84
9 hours ago
Yeah he’s not quite Jack Welch level of dissonance between reality and his fanboys, but he’s hardly some superhero for profiting from the great financialization of the US economy. He made sure his book got bailed out during the GFC. He cheered on Wells Fargo while they opened up a bunch of fraudulent accounts. And so on.
Well yeah, if he wouldn't have profited from the great financialization of the US economy, he couldn't have amassed nearly the wealth that he has amassed, and we wouldn't be talking about him now, so the point is kind of moot. Let's say that, in the cut-throat world of big money, he is (or, at this point, was), one of the nicer guys...
And when he found out about Wells Fargo's behavior, he liquidated the position and has remained out of it. I fail to see the problem with what he did in that case. As a ~5% holder he (Berkshire) had no special control over the company in terms of micro-audits to surface such fraudulent behavior promptly as it was happening.
That’s simply not true. The WSJ started reporting on it in 2011 [0]. Berkshire didn’t fully exit their position until 11 years later in 2022 [1].
[0]https://archive.ph/Gc88k
[1]https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/investing/berkshire-hathaway-...
> As a ~5% holder he (Berkshire) had no special control over the company in terms of micro-audits to surface such fraudulent behavior promptly as it was happening.
Apropos of this particular scenario, acting like an individual shareholder with your 5% of a company's stock is helpless to exert influence on the board is not at all accurate. Realistically, at that scale, anyone who holds even 1% is someone you better listen to (not necessarily follow, to be clear) when they pick up the phone.
And that's when its someone who is also not someone who opens their mouth and has millions of followers who also hold stock, like Buffett.