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Are we still pretending Warren Buffett isn’t a politically connected financial baron?

October 25, 2012 | 10:07 am
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He has an address in Omaha. He plays the ukelele. He takes a few lucky reporters out to Dairy Queen.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Warren Buffett is a billionaire Obama fundraiser who makes his wealth on Wall Street and in private equity.

The odd headline on this piece by Joshua Rogers at Forbes reflects the persistence of Buffett’s folksy schtick:

Sick Of Wall Street Scandals? Then Invest Like Warren Buffett–In Local Entrepreneurs

The article, illustrated with a picture of a girl who can’t afford enough pants, is a good one. Rogers makes the worthwhile point that Buffett, decades ago, was investing in small local businesses that he knew and understood.

But the headline caught my eye because in the past four years, Buffett has made made multi-billion-dollar investments in Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, General Electric, and Wells Fargo. Buffett’s Goldman bet was explicitly a bet on a bailout for the politically connected investment bank. His Bank of America buy smelled like bailout bet to me.  And GE — well, you can’t think of GE without thinking of political economy.

This doesn’t sound like a man who is sick of Wall Street.

 

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