Five for Friday

Some things you might wish to read over the course of Friday night, Saturday and Sunday:

• You know Warren Buffett is firmly planted in our Popular Culture when stories appear based on Berkshire Hathaway's latest SEC filings. I caught "Worldwide Exchange" on CNBC this morning at 4:00 a.m. US Eastern Time, and Bloomberg's morning show on the E! Channel at 5:00 (both a rarity, I seldom watch TV in the morning). CNBC and Bloomberg both reported on Berkshire's latest moves, something they may have done years ago -- but I doubt with anywhere as much emphasis. Normally, I'd say this means tracking Buffett's moves will no longer prove as profitable for investors. But the reality is (as Buffett says) his universe is limited by the size of Berkshire's portfolio. He's hunting elephants and you or I can exploit opportunities in smaller creatures he can't bother with.

• I devoutly hope that a special place in hell is reserved for so-called "public servants" who collect cushy salaries at taxpayer expense, and shamelessly (and self-righteously) trash reputations and ruin lives in their climb up the political ladder. Eliot Spitzer was reportedly born into wealth, but he looks to be a perfect fit in every other way. James Freeman writes about Spitzer, Hank Greenberg and AIG in The Wall Street Journal.

• I've posted about David Webb previously. He is Hong Kong's most prominent shareholder activist, but has quit as an independent director of the city's stock exchange, citing political interference and poor corporate governance. This is a story worth keeping an eye on. We need more shareholder-friendly stock exchanges around the globe, not fewer.

• Gary North is a veteran hard-money newsletter editor. I've never followed him closely, or subscribed to his publication, yet I gather he's frequently bearish. Here he is less expecting bad times than I expected. While he still believes we'll have a recession, he doesn't think it will be as bad. And North adds that the chances of a recession are less than they were in mid-April.

• Congratulations to Bob Novak on celebrating 45 years of column writing this week. Novak is THE BEST reporting columnist around, in my book. I started reading the Evans and Novak column when I was in high school in the mid-1970s. Yes, he's conservative. But he's nobody's hack or lackey, with a career spent busting the butts of people on the Right as well as Left. (That's how you know those claiming he was hauling water for GWB in the Plame affair are either liars or ignorant.) Novak's memoir, The Prince of Darkness, might be the finest book on politics and journalism of the post-WWII era.

Here's wishing a great weekend to one and all.

Comments

[nk]

HK Exchange is particularly problematic:
- the HK Govt taking an increasingly role by quietly buying shares and not declaring them via a loophole
- BOD controlled by the HK government
- one of the directors was a director at Ocean Grand which was destroyed by management fraud
- has one of the highest paid CEOs
- arbitrarily awards cash payouts: 6months bonuses to all employees, charity donations
- but is basically a toll collector taking a cut of each transaction
- legislation controlled by lobbying of small stockbrokers
-rumor driven: eg "through train" investing from the US

[nk]

Should be "through train" from China

[John]

nk: Thanks for the info -- with Hong Kong viewed as the entry point into Mainland China, you'd think the authorities would do whatever necessary to make it a world model for transparency. Then again, I'm in the US and most of the world isn't practicing Western style corporate governance.