XTRA

Additionally, I will keep well over 99% of my net worth in Berkshire. My wife and I have never sold a share nor do we intend to. Charlie and I are disgusted by the situation, so common in the last few years, in which shareholders have suffered billions in losses while the CEOs, promoters, and other higher-ups who fathered these disasters have walked away with extraordinary wealth. Indeed, many of these people were urging investors to buy shares while concurrently dumping their own, sometimes using methods that hid their actions. To their shame, these business leaders view shareholders as patsies, not partners. On the positive side, we have as fine an array of operating managers as exists at any company. (You can read about many of them in a new book by Robert P. Miles: The Warren Buffett CEO.) In large part, moreover, they are running businesses with economic characteristics ranging from good to superb. The ability, energy and loyalty of these managers is simply extraordinary. We now have completed 37 Berkshire years without having a CEO of an operating business elect to leave us to work elsewhere.