Buffett Buffet: Interview notes, Muni Bonds, Calling CNBC
- Underground Value: Notes From Buffett Meeting 2/15/2008
There were various times I would have gone up to 75%, even in the past few years. If it’s your game and you really know your business, you can load up.
What we are seeing is a huge repricing and evaluation of risk, correcting for problems of the past. I don’t know of good credit propositions that are going unfulfilled. There’s lots of cheap credit for sensible deals, which I don’t define as anything that happened over the last 12, 18 months. A lot of things that didn’t make sense are being washed out of the system.
I have simple pleasures. I play bridge online for 12 hours a week. Bill and I play, he’s “chalengr” and I’m “tbone”.
Life’s good!
- Condenast Portfolio: Would You Buy a Bridge From Warren Buffett?
Who wouldn’t want Buffett as their insurer? It’s a great break for a brilliant investor who managed to be in a strong position when others were weak and now may reap the rewards. Other savvy investors, such as Wilbur Ross, have contemplated joining Buffett in jumping in. The reason the business can be so rewarding is that government bonds are intrinsically safe: Municipalities almost never default.
The billionaire says this is an offer designed to make Berkshire Hathaway money, not to just do a good deed. He is not offering to take on liability for other, riskier investments insured by MBIA, Ambac and FGIC, such as CDOs. That makes the deal potentially unattractive to the insurers, because they would be left with the ‘bad’ risks.
Why go public? It seems to me that Buffett is trying to put some pressure on those insurers to take the deal by talking about how the financial world would be reassured should all those bonds get Buffett’s AAA backing.
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