"The Conflicted Buffett" ... or "The Fallen Prince II"

It's time to paint Buffett.



This picture will do fine.

Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a fun column in the Times today listing questions he'd like to ask the Oracle of Omaha regarding the recent Lubrizol/David Sokol uproar. This was my favorite:

You have said that Mr. Sokol did not do anything “unlawful.” But Mr. Sokol bought shares of Lubrizol a day after he told Citigroup to indicate Berkshire’s interest in buying the company.

Why don’t you consider that “material” information, a crucial component of insider trading? Do you not believe that a Lubrizol shareholder would have considered such information important to their investment decision? Clearly Lubrizol felt that Mr. Sokol’s inquiry was material enough to hold a board meeting on Jan. 6, one day before Mr. Sokol bought almost $10 million of shares.

If Mr. Sokol was aware of Lubrizol’s board meeting, would you consider that material information? And if a news outlet had reported Mr. Sokol’s inquiry or Lubrizol’s decision to meet, do you not think that the price of Lubrizol’s shares would have risen?

Here is another way to think about it: If a Citigroup banker had bought shares of Lubrizol at the same time as Mr. Sokol, would you have considered that insider trading? Isn’t that the definition of insider trading? What did Mr. Sokol do that was different?

That's a long question. And technically is a group of questions. What's the term for that particular collective singular? A gaggle of questions? An exaltation? A grand jury?

To make life easier, you (meaning me) could just write the Sorkin quote on the painting and call it a day. Save yourself the hassle of standing outside in the pouring rain handing people magic markers and begging them to write on your painting like some kind of reverse homeless person.

Additionally, it would be fun to drag the thing to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Imagine that!

The Fallen Prince II? That's a bit harsh. I think it's a bit early to be beating Warren down too hard, but with this on top of the whole Goldman thing, he's starting to smell like week-old scallops.

Speaking of Greenspan, this is an amusing tidbit from a blog called Crooked Timber. It's like the guy's doing all my work for me. I should paint Greenspan again.

This, for the record, is a classic, early Greenspan. You can still see me pulling my shit together on a number of levels. Worth noting is that if you look extremely closely at one of the lines of his jowls that starts a couple of inches below the image-right corner of his mouth you can read the words "I slept with Hillary."



For which I apologize.

The Sorkin article can be seen here.

What are you? The Huffington Post?
It would appear so.