Secrets in Plain Sight: Business & Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett, 2011 Edition (eBooks on Investing Series) by Matthews Jeff

Author:Matthews, Jeff [Matthews, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Investing
Publisher: eBooks on Investing
Published: 2011-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

Secret #20: Being too thrifty isn’t always a good thing.

21. Things That Have Never Happened

“This is a very rational place.”

—Charlie Munger

It’s time to get out of the Mart and get some food. It has been a long day.

Outside, the air is cooling down, thanks to some threatening dark clouds looming on the horizon. We drive back downtown on Dodge Street, hoping that whatever those clouds are going to bring, it won’t happen early tomorrow morning when our flights are due to take off.

The hotel seems deserted. There are some people waiting near the main door, dressed for dinner, and a few more in the bar. Chris and I split up for some downtime before dinner.

The giant sign for “Sol’s Pawn Shop” is still there outside my window, vaguely calling to mind the giant eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, the billboard advertisement that overlooked the ash heaps in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and symbolized whatever the hell it was supposed to symbolize.

Here, the sign is a reminder of just how unique Buffett’s “wiring” is. And a few streets northwest of Sol’s, it turns out, is one more reminder: the birthplace of another famous Omaha native son, named Malcolm Little at birth.

Born five years before Buffett, and just a few miles from Buffett’s house, Malcolm’s particular individual “wiring” and circumstances took him on a very different route from that of his wealthy counterpart.

Little was one of eight children and an excellent student who dropped out of school after being told by a white eighth-grade teacher that his plan to attend law school was “no realistic goal for a nigger.” Over the years, he changed his name and became a leader in the Nation of Islam.

His name was Malcolm X. He was assassinated in New York City just three months before Warren Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965.

Chris and I meet up for dinner, intending to walk the few blocks from the Doubletree to Old Market, but those clouds look ready to break, so we decide to drive, even if it means going through the convoluted rental-car-door-opening routine.

Three blocks into the drive, the clouds open up and it pours buckets—a Midwest kind of pounding. We reach the restaurant, dry and feeling vindicated, having sized up the situation and, à la Buffett, “tried to see things that haven’t happened” even if in our case it applied merely to a sudden rainstorm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.