The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [559]
14. Said to the author in an interview in 2003—an indicator of the direction of his thoughts at the time.
15. While most mergers are done for stock (if only for tax reasons), this subtle underlying psychology gives the seller a slight advantage. The willingness to issue stock implies, by its nature, that the buyer prefers the seller’s business to his own. The exception is using an overpriced stock to buy an underpriced company from a naive seller, which aggressive buyers sometimes do, although not nearly as often as they think.
16. Graham’s term, from her autobiography. Liz Smith called Graham Buffett’s “frequent hostess” and Diana McLellan said, “All the way up in New York, they’re talking about Kay Graham and Warren Buffet [sic]…but oh, so discreetly.” Diana McLellan, “The Ear,” Washington Star, March 12, 1977; Liz Smith, “Mystery Entwined in Cassidy Tragedy,” Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1977.
17. Heymann, The Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club.
18. See, for example, her relationships with Jean Monnet, Adlai Stevenson.
19. The letter was described this way in Lowenstein, Buffett.
20. Graham showed Dan Grossman a copy of this letter. Susan Buffett also showed Doris Buffett a copy of this letter. Graham’s papers currently are under seal.
21. Roger Lowenstein, Buffett.
22. “Interview with Susan Buffett,” Gateway, March 5, 1976.
23. Peter Citron, “Seasoning Susie,” Omaha World-Herald, April 7, 1976.
24. “Buffett Serious,” Omaha World-Herald, September 14, 1976.
25. Buffett considered buying Alfred Knopf’s apartment at 24 West 55th Street, later one of two landmarked Rockefeller apartments.
26. Interview with Susie Buffett Jr.
27. Interview with Al “Bud” Pagel.
28. Denenberg declined to be interviewed.
29. Al Pagel, “What Makes Susie Sing?” Omaha World-Herald, April 17, 1977.
30. Ibid.
31. Interview with Al “Bud” Pagel.
32. Ibid.
33. Peter Citron, “Seasoning Susie.”
34. Interview with Stan Lipsey. See Leo Litwak, “Joy Is the Prize: A Trip to Esalen Institute,” New York Times Magazine, December 31, 1967.
35. Steve Millburg, “Williams’ Songs Outshine Voice,” Omaha World-Herald, September 5, 1977.
36. Interview with Astrid Menks Buffett. The sleeping Warren famously did not notice whether Susie was there. In one story related by Racquel Newman, she decided to drive to Dottie’s to play music at around ten or eleven at night, ran out of gas in a snowstorm at midnight on her way home, and instead of waking Warren, called a friend and went on an all-night obstacle-filled expedition to a gas station on the interstate, delayed by a tractor-trailer jackknifed on the freeway. She finally got home shortly before dawn. Warren never knew she was gone.
37. Said to a friend of the couple’s who believes that Susie was probably sincere, both because she believed Warren really was that dependent on her and because of his preoccupation with suicide, linked to the many suicides among the Stahl family and the Buffetts’ friends.
38. Warren Buffett, “How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor,” Fortune, May 1977. In a letter to the Graham Group, September 27, 1977, Bill Ruane describes how “This article can well serve as a basis for a discussion of so many things which are central to our economic concerns today. The article not only deals with the central theme of inflation but also with the effects of taxes, rate of return, dividend paying capacity and other elements which are crucial to the appraisal of aggregate values in our economic system.”
39. The Buffett Group would take this problem up again and again. Its members were pessimistic about whether the problem could be solved, for they doubted, with good reason, that Congress had the necessary resolve to control the federal budget over the long term.
40. Interview with Marshall Weinberg.
41. The $72 million includes his holdings in BRK, DRC, and Blue Chip Stamps at year-end 1977. Susie added another $6.5 million to this total. This does not include his indirect holdings through the three companies’ cross-holdings of each other.