Warren Buffett, American Dumbledore

Persiflage, Thank you. Supremely well said!

Hey, don't pick on us geeks! You guys did that enough during high school. We got complexes, and wound up running the world. That geek that you picked on in school now runs your cellular phone network. Have a nice day.

I suspect that what rightwingers find particularly offensive about Buffett (currently #1 in world wealth ranking) is that he not only supports Obama, but also supports the idea of higher taxes for the rich - including himself.

No matter how many republicans have gotten rich off of his investing genius, he's clearly no 'oracle' in their tiny minds when it comes to sharing political (or global) views!

On the other hand, between Buffett, George Soros and current Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman we'd have our financial crisis solved in a jiff - and had people of this caliber been in charge in the first place, it never would have happened....

Brother, and to think the neocons are still equivicating on global warming! Two steps forward and one step back - sure sounds like the McPalin foxtrot if you ask me.

Yes indeed, the time for wizardry in government has never been more timely.

Time to send the sorcerer's apprentice back to Alaska.

It's too bad you consider such things beyond your ken, because they're not. And Buffet isn't a wizard, he's just a clever man and salesman who counts on others not knowing as much as he does. The essential info is all available on the internet for anyone to cull through. But, if he truly is a AGW (anthropogenic global-warming) believer, that's one strike against his intelligence. I'd suspect, instead, he's promulgating his supposed belief in AGW to promote social buy-in to the self-enriching "plans" he promotes.

I think you slightly missed the point ... Buffet's reference to "geeks" is not merely about automated computer trading of stocks. It is largely about the increasing prevalence of maths and physics "geeks" aka "quants" and "quant traders" in investment banks and hedge funds across the world. 99% of these people have no common sense whatsoever, and have never EVER grasped the cold hard fact that any financial instrument is worth only what someone else is prepared to pay for it. Their mathematical modelling is completely pointless, they are all wrong. Try telling them that options were traded before Black-Scholes and they stare at you disbelievingly. Combine these dangerously clever muppets and their criminally ignorant and greedy managers with a glut of cheap borrowed money that allowed them to leverage themselves to the moon and back and you get the mess we're in now.

Oh, and BTW, in my 15 years of working for an IB Buffet has always been known the SAGE of Omaha. I'm sure you can find it on Bloomberg if you have access to the real thing.

It's the ORACLE of Omaha.

Ms. Thistlehwaite makes an interesting analogy, as repeatedly, this weird machine which is Wall Street trots out its "experts" with their often rosy prognostications, while the Oracle sticks to his knitting, paying no heed to their often foolish thoughts, and takes the correct course.

>The most important lesson Buffet has to teach >Americans is that only human smarts can make good >judgments about what to do and what not to do in a >crisis.

A misguided piece, and wrong conclusion. "Human smarts" are just as fallible in resolving the crisis as in creating it in the first place. Fortunately for all of us, the basic remedy for the liquidity crunch is well-known since the Great Depression. There is no mystique or wizardry in finding it.

Does this make Alan Greenspan Gollum?

What an inane, pointless piece. Why would anyone bother to write it, let alone 'think' it. Why did I read it? Why am I wasting my time responding to it? I suppose because I can't resist interjecting a bit of common sense to a generation that totally lacks that quality. Dumbledore, indeed. Stuff and nonsense, rather.

She's better when she's not trying to talk about religion... which is kinda sad.