Buffett Essays Summary Ch1 Corporate Governance 2 Ch2 Finance and Investing 5 Ch3 Investment alternatives 8 Ch4 Common stock 11 Ch5 Mergers and acquisitions 14 Ch6 Valuation and accounting 17 Ch7 Accounting shenanigans 19 Ch8 Accounting policy 21 Ch9 Tax matters 23

Ch1 Corporate Governance
Mr. Buffett mentioned some problems existing in annual meetings and possible causes. In most situations, annual meetings are a kind of time waste for shareholders and management, because managers don’t want to express actual accounting conditions to others. Contrary to it, Berkshire’s meetings are different because many thoughtful questions would emerge and are valued to be answered. However, many people won’t be honest in these situations.
Companies that provide information also hope to obtain information from other companies. There’s no doubt that people wish enough financial details to make some predictions. But more and more corporate choose “selective disclosure”, which is corrupt behavior about accepted by the whole America. Chairman Levitt cracked down on this kind of behavior.
At the same time, Mr. Buffett doesn’t agree that CEO should make too many efforts to make too often predictions, which may cause trouble. For one thing, a much too high growth rate would spread unwarranted optimism. For another, announcing such a high rate might force companies to make some unwise decision.
Three advices are provided to investors. Many occupations have their own standard requirements which are easy to measure while CEOs don’t, because nobody can describe what bosses should do and bosses don’t have immediate superior who would measure CEOs.
Though directors and shareholders have changed very much, commentators seldom find any differences among three fundamentally different situations. It would cost a long time to monitor a manager’s ability and honesty.