The Pragmatic Capitalist brings us a must read letter that Warren Buffett sent to then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson back in October, 2008. In the letter, Buffett lays out his framework for the PPPF: "Public Private Partnership Fund," which would allow the Treasury to partner with private investment to get more bang for its buck in purchasing troubled assets. It appears certain that this letter was a framework for the development of the eventual PPIP program.
Buffett even mentions how he had already talked to PIMCO's Bill Gross and Mohammed El-Arian about managing the program, and GS's Lloyd Blankfein about providing equity investment for it.
The letter is embedded at the bottom of TPC's post, and is a must read. Although I knew Buffett was always talking his book when he wrote the bullish on America Op-Ed during the midst of the crisis, I had no idea he was pulling the strings behind the scenes to create new policies that would bail out and profit his investments.
One of the commenters on TPC's piece also points to an old Barry Ritholtz post that shows just how much Buffett's holdings have been involved in the bailout proceedings. Another must-read post.
-KD
3 comments:
More Buffett hypocrisy--but thanks for pointing it out. Maybe someday the MSM will pick up on it, lol.
On the bright side, I have learned how to spell "hypocrisy" because of WB. . .
Your criticism is silly. After Warren Buffett wrote his "Buy American" article and the letter to Paulson, the market continued to tank for several months. His investments lost significant value during that time. He had none of the control over the market you seem to think he did. So much for "pulling the strings" and "bailing out and profiting his investments." As an aside, to the first commenter: Buffett was willing to risk losing his own personal capital to do what he laid out in his letter. You call that hypocrisy? Sounds more like eating your own cooking to me.
criticism, anon? there's no criticism in this post, only facts. the post is so brief, that I don't even need to recout the facts here... you can just go back and read the three paragraphs again...
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