Heat
The punishing heat of 1934 is emblematic of worsening environmental conditions. Alice Schroeder writes, “Along with the dust came years of extraordinary heat. In summertime 1934 the thermometer in Omaha hit 118 degrees... Warren tried in vain to sleep covered in bedsheets soaked with water, but nothing could cool the baked air that steamed up to his second-story room. With the record drought and heat of 1934,millions of grasshoppers arrived to devour the parched corn and wheat down to stubble. Leila’s father, John Stahl, suffered a stroke that year, and while visiting his grandfather in West Point, Warren could hear the background drone of the ravenous hoppers. At their worst, they consumed fence posts, the laundry on the clothesline, and finally one another, gumming up tractor engines and clouding the air, thick enough to obscure a car. In truth, the early 1930s brought many other things to fear than fear itself.” The heat undesirably upsets the economy and the Buffetts are not discharged from its scorching destruction. Devastation is the eventual upshot of the heat considering the advent of grasshoppers which absolutely ruin vegetation. Definitely, the economy is emphatically distraught based on the extremity of the heat which is characteristic of whole Economic Depression.
‘Watergate Scandal’
Alice Schroeder writes, “Nearly two years later, the Post was deep into reporting the Watergate story, while in Omaha, the Sun’s reporters were basking in the glow of the Boys Town exposé. Reporting on Watergate, which began in June 1972 when the break-in occurred, had gradually picked up steam as Woodward and Bernstein linked a check made out to one of the burglars to the Nixon re-election campaign. The scandal unfolded over many months as a secret FBI informant, Mark Felt—code-named “Deep Throat” and known to no one but Bob Woodward until thirty-three years later—funneled information to them about CREEP, the Campaign to Re-elect the President, and about various CIA and FBI officials involved in funding and aiding the burglars.” The scandal is a consolidation of historical and political allusion which impacts Warren Buffett’s investment verdict relating to the securing of Post’s stocks. Warren Buffett’s resolution to capitalize on the Post Stock after the scandal illustrates his interest in Newspaper ventures. The implication of the scandal accentuates the muscle of the media which Buffett was intent on controlling. Had Schoeder overlooked the specifics reading the scandal, it would have been tough for a reader to distinguish the incentive for Buffett’s investment in Post.
Stocks
Stocks are characteristic of computable investment undertakings: “By the time he dined with Katharine Graham in 1973, Buffett was no longer just an investor who was buying newspaper stocks. He was becoming a business mogul on a small scale. Berkshire Hathaway and Diversified were his bailiwick. Charlie Munger was the czar of Blue Chip Stamps. The interlocking ownership of these three companies had tightened the business relationship between Buffett and Munger, and resembled the embryo of an empire built by another investor whom Buffett in particular admired, Gurdon W. Wattles. His company, American Manufacturing, was like a Russian doll; open it and inside was another company and another and another: Mergenthaler Linotype, Crane Co., Electric Auto-Lite. These stocks were all publicly traded, because though Wattles controlled them, he did not own one hundred percent of any of them. From early in his investing career, Buffett admired the Wattles model. He considered how best to profit from the same stocks Wattles was buying.” Buffett differentiates the stocks in his expansive portfolio to upsurge probabilities of extraordinary earnings. The quantity of stocks attributed to him in each of the companies commands the percentage of proceeds that he receives. The public trading of the stock deduces that his proprietorship of the investments is partial because there are other investors who command stakes of the companies. The variation specifies that he has resolved on constructing an empire of ventures.
Death
Death impacts the resolutions which Buffett executes concerning family money: “With both his parents gone, Warren was the senior member of his family, the watchkeeper at that thin boundary between life and death. It was his sisters, however, whose lives were most affected by Leila’s death. They were surprised to find themselves inheriting a sizable amount of Berkshire stock from their mother, more than they had originally owned themselves, along with the first distribution from their father’s trust set up by their brother years before. Bertie had kept all her Berkshire stock from the beginning, and had her own philanthropic interests. She had always tended to contribute her energy and effort quietly, behind the scenes and did not want to play a leading role. And Doris now had real money again, for the first time since the “naked puts” debacle had wiped her out in 1987. For Doris, her mother’s death was a new beginning. She set up her own foundation, the Sunshine Lady Foundation, and started her giving with the Edith Stahl Kraft Outstanding Teacher Award, named after their aunt Edie—and modeled on the Omaha teacher awards named after their aunt Alice that her brother’s foundation gave out. Warren’s sisters were now rich.” The departure of the parents occasions inheritance and bequest-related verdicts whereby money left is bequeathed to the survivors. Although death results in substantial emotional deficiencies, if advances the financial standing of the survivors. Similarly, death contributes to the diffusion of money. To illustrate, Doris’ charity would sponsors the spread of money to other entities who are not overtly related to Leila
“Million-Dollar Birthday Gifts”
Alice Schroeder elucidates, “Two of his (Warren Buffett's) children also had a little money, thanks to Susie’s persuasiveness about the million-dollar birthday gifts. Buffett had never demanded an accounting of the huge amounts it took to fund Susie’s largesse, although he scratched his head and wondered what on earth she did with all the money.” Suzie’s taste for costly presents is emblematic of her conspicuous consumption. Suzie embraces consumerism because she draws more utility from it than investing. Heartening her husband to bequeath the children with the staggeringly lavish rewards corroborates that she considers the monetary worth of souvenirs is a pointer of the enormity of Buffett’s affection for the children.
