This thread topic is about SVB.
Lustylad and Bambino want to play their little game of “I gotcha” while ignoring the thread topic. There will be plenty of additional news on this topic and other banks Monday. I’ll try this one more time, and hopefully this thread can move on.
I posted this: “Plus there is private deposit insurance. How do you think Warren Buffett stores his billions of cash ? “
Lustylad posted this in reply: “In other words, you don't know the answer to your own question, do you VM?”
The original post is asking Bambino how he thinks Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) stores its cash.
There are many types of questions, they usually fall into 1 of 3 categories:
1) - a question to be answered, such as “How many miles it is from downtown Pittsburgh to Schenley Park ?” The person asking is asking someone to provide the answer for them.
2) - a rhetorical question that is not meant to be answered, but as basis for thought
3) - a question for which the person asking the question already knows the answer, often to intimidate a debate
Somehow Lustylad and Bambino think I should know the answer to the original question. Why is that ?
Are they playing their little game of “I gotcha” ? Or can’t they understand what type of question it is ?
Then they continue on:
Lustylad “I'm asking you to elaborate on what you said below”
Lustylad “forcing others to spend unnecessary time googling”
Lustylad “Care to tell us where/how/through whom Warren Buffett insures Berkshire Hathaway's mountain of cash against losses caused by bank/financial institution failure? We'll wait..”
Bambino “I’m still waiting”
The original question is in the category of # 1 or # 2. But not # 3.
Either they don't understand that, or just want to play their little game.
If they are really interested about private insurance for bank depositors, there are several fine educational institutions in Pittsburgh that may be able to help them, such as the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
If they are interested in seeing if Berkshire Hathaway carries private deposit insurance on cash they have at various banks, likely that would not be a disclosure made in an annual report, not even in a footnote. You many have to attend one of their annual meetings and ask that question, or send in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway. Originally Posted by VitaMan
is this another VM post "because no one agrees with my thread i'll make it about Buffett post"?
sounds about right. but what does Buffett himself have to say about this?
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK. A, BRK.B) reported a a net loss of $22.8 billion in 2022, due to market volatility.
Warren Buffett Says Berkshire Hathaway’s $23 Billion Loss Is an Accounting Fiction
https://observer.com/2023/02/warren-...-2022-earning/
The accounting principles behind Berkshire Hathaway's bruising 2022 earnings are "100% misleading," Warren Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders.
Turns out Warren Buffett had a terrible year just like everyone else. His investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway on Feb. 25 reported a net loss of $22.8 billion in 2022, driven by a nearly $54 billion decline in the value of its stock portfolio. But the 92-year-old investment guru said that figure is highly misleading and doesn’t reflect the true state of Berkshire’s financial performance.
When excluding losses on stock investments, which were unrealized, Berkshire Hathaway actually recorded $30.8 billion in operating earnings in 2022, a record high and 12 percent more than the previous year’s $27.5 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway generates revenue from two pillars of business: subsidiaries it directly owns and control and publicly traded companies it partially owns through equity investment but have no managerial control.
Operating earnings are drawn from businesses directly owned by Berkshire Hathaway, which are concentrated in insurance, railroads and energy sectors, and exclude capital gains or losses from its stock portfolio. However, in the U.S., the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, require that a company include unrealized capital gains or loses on its equity investments in its total earnings calculation.
In his annual letter to shareholders published on Feb. 25, Buffett said he and Charlie Munger, his longtime business partner, prefer using operating earnings as a measure of financial performance. They urge Berkshire’s shareholders to do the same, Buffett said, because GAAP earnings can fluctuate wildly from one financial period to the next and can mislead investors who have no knowledge of accounting rules.
“The GAAP earnings are 100 percent misleading when viewed quarterly or even annually,” Buffett wrote in the shareholder letter. “Capital gains, to be sure, have been hugely important to Berkshire over past decades, and we expect them to be meaningfully positive in future decades. But their quarter-by-quarter gyrations, regularly and mindlessly headlined by media, totally misinform investors.”
Under GAAP accounting, in 2022 Berkshire earned $112 billion less than the previous year, though Buffett thought it was good year for business, he said in the shareholder letter.
