The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [536]
3. Interview with Susie Buffett Jr., who wondered what good the police whistle was going to do.
4. Interview with Peter Buffett.
5. Interview with Doris Buffett. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962.
6. Interview with Sue James Stewart.
7. Alton Eltiste, “Miss Khafagy Gives Views on Homeland,” Gateway, October 5, 1962.
8. This image of the crossing guard may surprise modern readers, but in the United States until the latter part of the twentieth century, children were traditionally given significant freedom and responsibility.
9. Interview with Howie Buffett.
10. Howie and Susie Jr. describe themselves and their relationship this way in interviews.
11. This composite picture of the Buffett household is based on interviews with Susie Buffett Jr., Howie Buffett, and Peter Buffett.
12. Interview with Meg Mueller. “My mom has commented on that several times over the years,” she says.
13. Interview with Bill Ruane.
14. Interview with Dick Espenshade. One of the founding lawyers, Jamie Wood, joined from another firm.
15. Interview with Ed Anderson.
16. The example has been simplified for ease of understanding the concept of leverage. Obviously the exact return on capital depends on how long it took to make the profit, and on the funding rate.
17. Interview with Rick Guerin in Janet Lowe, Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
18. This description is from Ed Anderson.
19. Interview with Ed Anderson.
20. Interview with Charlie Munger. Guerin’s seamstress mother died when he was a teenager.
21. Interviews with Rick Guerin, Ed Anderson.
22. Janet Lowe, Damn Right!
23. Interview with Ed Anderson. Guerin doesn’t remember this specific incident but says it sounds likely.
24. Anderson takes the blame for being too obtuse to read Munger’s mind, rather than blaming Munger for not explaining things to him.
25. Interview with Ed Anderson.
26. Along with Munger, Ed Anderson recalls this extraordinary trade. Munger says the story is true in substance. Buffett also recalled the reasoning.
27. Interview with Ed Anderson, who suggested the word “pretender” because, as he put it, “Charlie would never feel like he was an ‘apprentice.’”
28. Ira Marshall relates Munger’s confusion with names in Damn Right!
29. Interview with Ed Anderson. This term was commonly used among Buffett’s friends. He referred to “coattail riding” in his partnership letter of January 18, 1963.
30. Buffett also recalls Munger hyperventilating at his own jokes.
31. Charles T. Munger letter to Katharine Graham, December 9, 1974.
32. Ibid.
33. In 1953, Buffett sold copies of this report for $5.
34. Buffett had also let Brandt in on one lucrative private investment, the Mid-Continental Tab Card Company. While Buffett gave up his override on Brandt’s money, the deal was a win/win.
35. “There’s got to be a warehouse full of these somewhere,” said Bill Ruane in an interview, but the author never saw it.
36. Bill Ruane introduced Buffett to Fisher’s ideas. Philip A. Fisher, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, 1958. (“Scuttlebutt” is a nautical term for a barrel with a hole in it used to hold the sailors’ drinking water.)
37. The market for soybean oil was not large, a key element in the scheme. It would be impossible for a single individual to amass enough capital to corner the market for, say, oil or treasury bills.
38. Most accounts published about the scandal incorrectly refer to oil floating on top of water in the tanks.
39. Mark I. Weinstein, “Don’t Leave Home Without It: Limited Liability and American Express,” Working paper, American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings, Paper 17, Berkeley Electronic Press, 2005, p.