Annual Meeting

Besides Mr. Buffett's "Ancient Chinese Secret" that became Build Your Dream (BYD) Automobile Company in Shenzhen, China, has anyone followed how the Marmon Group's employee base has been affected with respect to transferring jobs overseas since his investment partnership with The Pritzker Family? Better to look towards a man's actions versus headline catch phrases and public relation statements.

The tone of the Buffett/Berkshire press release seemed guarded at the least -- or as some critics said, evasive and lawyered up.

In Buffett speak, this sort of ethical/legal issue is right in the center of Buffett's circle of competence. He has a track record of getting out of difficult positions going back 30 years, from the Blue Chip Stamp days.

I have a hard time taking anything at its face value.

Going back to your book as reference, on page 666, Warren told Howie in reference to the ADM fiasco that he had 24 hours to quit or else "he was one of them" and nothing else would matter.

If nothing else, Buffett also knows that there is nothing to gain and everything to lose by not getting the bad news out fast. On the financial side, take the big bath, throw it all in, and move on. Especially if you are not only CEO but also own the company and can afford it in every sense of the term.

There were only a few acquisitions of public companies since Sokol came aboard, and it should take an hour to check on Sokol's personal trades if he were fully cooperating.

If Buffett believed that Sokol was guilty of something 'unlawful' then I think he would have gone to the SEC/DOJ immediately. And for all I know, perhaps he has already been in contact with them.

But, its all just conjecture. I don't know anything.

But if EVERYTHING that comes out in the future supports the press release, then this goes away. Conversely, Buffett seems to have gone all in on Sokol's version of events and if it implodes, the downside is ugly.

The press release was a PR fiasco largely because Buffett tried to both disclose the facts and wrap it up neatly by declaring Sokol innocent of anything 'unlawful'.

If Buffett supporters seem eerily quiet, its because he gave them nothing to go on. It sounds naive at best for anyone outside of the inner circle to say that Sokol did nothing illegal -- so why bother commenting.

The entire 'populist/billionaire' thing no longer works. When Buffett states he is "all in on America" -- he gets accused of talking his book. His world is simply too removed from that of ordinary people to make sense. There is a backlash against the rich, and Buffett is one of them. But he is also despised for his constant hectoring of the monied class. He needs to align his public persona to something closer to reality -- and just be a rich old guy.

BRKB, BUFFETT- Sokol- lessons learned,
first a little history. In the 80s my hero was Kirk Kerkorian. i made the biggest investment of my life into MGM, gaming, not film, when Kirk brought it public in the 80s. Kirk bought the MGM footprint in Vegas and set out to build a 5000 room hotel casino in Vegas, ALL the experts said he was nuts, he would never be able to fill 5000 rooms year round he was NUTS !! AS you know MGM Hotel became a huge winner, come to find out kirk bought the land across the street where the NEW YORK NEW YORK now sits, in TRacinda his own company. The land had tripled in value but Mr K sold that land to MGM the public entity at his cost NOT current value. A few years later MGM made a 5 fight deal with iron Mike Tyson, mike got in trouble and he wasnt able to fight, mgm had like a 25 million dollar loss on the agreement to tyson and the promotors, aka, Don King, Mr K backed the agreement out of MGM, put it into Tracinda, his wholly owned entity and took the ENTIRE loss himself; it didnt cost the public shareholders a dime, a class act, a man of HONOR and integrity. Kerkorian is 90ish now and his team at MGM cost him 30 billion give or take with huge management mistakes the past 5 years but the man is a truly great American, i love the guy.

Buffett had a few weeks to think about what Sokol did and to how to respond to his LZ purchase and the timeline. Sokol is a lowlife sbag, that's a given whether or not he broke any laws,he violated the brkb code of conduct, but at this point only BUFFETT matters to me as a long time brkb partner. After all that time to consider the facts surrounding LZgate, BUFFETT came up with that PATHETIC press release defending a lowlife sbag who put brkb and brkb's entire board at risk, both reputationally and maybe financially. FOR 3 million dollars, a company with 100 BILLION dollars of net worth on its board or directors came up with THAT response? Buffett could have said look sokol, you lowlife sbag, you broke every rule of conduct at brkb, it remains to be seen whether or not you broke any laws, you are going to DISCLOSE your 10 million dollar LZ purchase, and sell your shares to brkb at 104 OR sell your shares and every dime of profit goes to a charity. I , warren buffett will give you a 3 million dollar finders fee for finding LZ for brkb, pack your f--k bags, tell the press you want to spend more time with your family, and don't ever call me or any sub of brkb again. But that's not how buffett responded under the pressure, he tried to bullsheet his way out of trouble, again. At this point buffett no longer deserves our TRUST or RESPECT. he blew it big time, over 3 million dollars, a rounding error for brkb and its board members, all this heat and damage over 3 million dollars, maybe 1.7 mil net after taxes to sokol. Shameful, at a real public company with an independent BOD Buffett would go on leave until the FACTS can be discovered. THATS the story cnbc wont tell you.