Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist … - Roger Lowenstein

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The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much, but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism.

Roger Lowenstein

Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist but the Great Explainer of American capitalism. He taught a generation how to think about business, and he showed that securities were not just tokens like the Monopoly flatiron, and that investing need not be a game of chance. It was also a logical, commonsensical enterprise, like the tangible businesses beneath. He stripped Wall Street of its mystery and rejoined it to Main Street -- a mythical or disappearing place, perhaps, but one that is comprehensible to the ordinary American.

Character, Commonsensical, Investing, Life, Unique, Wall

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Buffett does enjoy being a billionaire, but in offbeat ways. As he put it, though money cannot change your health or how many people love you, it lets you be in 'more interesting environments.

Interesting, Love, Love You, People, Though

Buffett was a billionaire who drove his own car, did his own taxes, and still lived in a home he had bought in 1958 for $31,500. He seemed to answer to a deeply rooted, distinctly American mythology, in which decency and common sense triumphed over cosmopolitan guile, and in which an idealized past held firm against a rootless and too hurriedly changing present.

Against, Buffett, Common Sense, Home, Past, Rootless

Buffett found it 'extraordinary' that academics studied such things. They studied what was measurable, rather than what was meaningful. 'As a friend [Charlie Munger] said, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Buffett, Man, Meaningful, Men, Nail, Nails

The modern spirit is a hesitant one. Spontaneity has given way to cautious legalisms, and the age of heroes has been superseded by a cult of specialization. We have no more giants; only obedient ants.

Age, Giants, Given, Hero, Hesitant, Modern

Buffett's methodology was straightforward, and in that sense 'simple. ' It was not simple in the sense of being easy to execute. Valuing companies such as Coca-Cola took a wisdom forged by years of experience; even then, there was a highly subjective element. A Berkshire stockholder once complained that there were no more franchises like Coca-Cola left. Munger tartly rebuked him. 'Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well two or three times, will make your family rich for life?

Berkshire, Easy, Experience, Simple, Two, Years