Best One Liners from Buffett’s 2010 Shareholder Letter

5
Mar/101

I always enjoy getting up the first Saturday in March to read Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire hathaway shareholders. Here are my favorite one liners from this year’s letter:

“I subtly indicated that I was older and wiser…I was just older.”

“If Charlie, I and Ajit are ever in a sinking boat – and you can only save one of us – swim to Ajit.”

“We shouldn’t expect our regulators to live up to their end of the bargain unless we live up to ours.”

“It’s clear that I failed you in letting NetJets descend into this condition. But, luckily, I have been bailed out.”

“There were three ways to cure this overhang: (1) blow up a lot of houses, a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the “cash-for-clunkers” program; (2) speed up household formations by, say, encouraging teenagers to cohabitate, a program not likely to suffer from a lack of volunteers or; (3) reduce new housing starts to a number far below the rate of household formations.”

“Our first venture was also christened Berkadia. So let’s call this one Son of Berkadia. Someday I’ll be writing you about Grandson of Berkadia.”

“It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend.”

“In the end, what counts in investing is what you pay for a business – through the purchase of a small piece of it in the stock market – and what that business earns in the succeeding decade or two.”

“It has not been shareholders who have botched the operations of some of our country’s largest financial institutions.”

“In my view a board of directors of a huge financial institution is derelict if it does not insist that its CEO bear full responsibility for risk control.”

“Charlie and I enjoy issuing Berkshire stock about as much as we relish prepping for a colonoscopy.”

“our recommendation in respect to the use of advisors remains: ‘Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.’”

“P.S. Come by rail.”

If you didn’t see your favorite Buffett one liner from this year’s letter, please tell me yours and why in the comment section below.

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