Hey, don't let this blog have you fooled: If I knew Warren Buffett personally, do you think I'd be sitting here?
I would have demanded all the "goods" from all the years that I had asked for at Christmas and other times and NOT gotten!
See ...despite my spiritual leanings, I'm no slouch! I like nice and fancy things, too. So, as soon as I met "St. Nicholas," I would have collected on the goods and....run quietly away.
But God protects "fools and babies," and no less so has he done with me by sparing me that meeting....from making a fool of myself.
How repulsed do you think St. Nicholas would be?
This is a man who gives away billions...yes...not a typo...billions, not millions...to ensure that it gets to the world of those who need it more than he! Then, he turns around and trains his protege' to do the same!
No, I couldn't ask St. Nicholas for goods.
Here's what he said about material wealth:
"I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die."
(But I still would consider it an honor to meet the man. {A 2007 auction that offered lunch with Buffett raised a final bid of $657, 100 for charity.} Come to think of it... recently...I had another such HONOR meeting someone else like that...but that's another story possibly for another time.)
I consider Warren Edward Buffett the St. Nicholas of all times!
Here is a man who has acquired tremendous wealth ($40 billion in 2009; $62 billion in 2008) but still lives in the same five-bedroom Omaha, Nebraska, home he moved into when he first purchased it in 1958 for $31,500. (Net worth today: $700,000; he also has a $4 million home in Laguna Beach, California: Can you BLAME HIM for having this backup? Who wants to be in Omaha 12 months of the year!)
The thing I LOVE about Buffett is that he does his stuff without much fanfare and showing off about his goodness.
In addition to his education at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Columbia University, respectively receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Economics, I also believe he read one of my favorite fables on Giving and Money Management: "Magnificent Obsession," by Lloyd Douglas.
Early in 2006, he must have quietly invited Bill Gates to his home for a game of bridge and a quiet Sunday dinner with him and his wife, Astrid. (His first wife, Susan, died in 2004, but they had lived apart since 1977 when she moved to San Francisco to pursue a singing career. He married his long-time companion, Astrid Menks, in 2006).
Yes, I picture the scene at the nice "little" (sic) stucco home.
He opened the door himself and welcomed Bill and Melinda in.
Then, after he must have defeated Bill Gates soundly at that bridge game, he sat back in contentment and began to tell the story...about WHY he chose to become "St. Nicholas," and works HARD to acquire billions...just to give it away. I'm guessing he must have whipped Gates at the bridge game, because it was in June 2006 that he announced he would give 83 percent of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Transferring 10 million of his Berkshire Hathaway Class B Stock to the Foundation, he essentially gave to them a (US) $30.7 billion gift.
The good thing is, he is not a Robin Hood: he's not STEALING from the rich or anybody else.
Referred to at various times as the "Oracle of Omaha" or "Sage of Omaha," Buffett became rich the old-fashioned way...he's EARNED IT! Yes, through his brilliant financial knowledge and intimacies with the intricacies of companies he is able to make projections about their ability to rise and fall. He's made a killing by investing in the right stocks!
He does this...and then he quietly gives it all away.
As the kids would say, "How cool is that?"
Can you talk about sleeping peacefully at night?
Can you IMAGINE his conversations with GOD?
Can you IMAGINE THE day, he and HIS GOD meet face to face?
Can I have a witness!!!
My appreciation for the goodness of Warren Buffett goes beyond the ordinary! I'm fascinated by his goodness and his lack of seeking glory!
I TRULY LOVE THIS MAN!!! And as a Public Relations professional, I am very wary about reading too much into other people's PR...but...
From the depths of ALL I BELIEVE IN ...about the GOODNESS OF PEOPLE...he proves that it exists!
He keeps what he needs to live on and gives the rest away!
Can you see WHY God is smiling and giving him more and more and more and more and more and more...
I went past the age of most kids in wanting to believe in Santa Claus!
Despite ALL the evidence that we did not have a chimney in Guyana, South America, and we could not hang stockings by the fire for Santa to fill, by God, I wanted to believe in this mythological figure!
I wouldn't GIVE IT UP until I was about seven or eight years old!
I wanted the illusion! I wanted to believe in the goodness of man.
I wanted to believe that there truly was a man who heard the quiet pleas of desperate children and then responded...one night of the year...and delivered on all their prayers.
I did not want to live in a world of broken dreams. In a world where people overlooked the needs of others and did not care about anything but their fame and glory and
"getting rich," for richness sake!
(Fast Forward many, many years)....In the midst of believing that I was living in an ocean of selfish and uncaring people...in stepped Warren Buffett!
Warren Buffett TRULY is St. Nicholas to the world!
He truly manifests the goodness of man.
I hope on Christmas Eve, as Warren Buffett sits with his cup of hot chocolate and the cookies his "kids" left out for Santa, he knows that many hearts are warm and alight with appreciation for his BEAUTIFUL SOUL!
MERRY CHRISTMAS, SANTA CLAUS!!!
Hey, can you all see the physical resemblance, too?
I clearly do!
Don't know about you...but as I "lay me down to sleep" on Christmas Eve...I'll be dreaming of a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, this year, with Santa Claus filling up my stockings with ALL that is GOOD!
Merry Christmas!
Namaste',
Che'
NOTE: Read this wonderful news story about "Kansas' new Secret Santa" giving away about $14K this year: cut/paste...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091210/ap_on_re_us/us_secret_santa. Also Cut/Paste this YouTube link to enjoy "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," sung by Bruce Springsteen or Mariah Carey:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWv72L4wgCc&NR=1.
Please Cut/Paste this entire link for more Christmas songs. http://bitsandpieces.us/2009/12/14/christmas-songs/
2 comments:
Comment from email...posted by Che':
By the way, I think your choice of Warren Buffett as Santa Claus MARVELOUS! Of course, I worry that he's become a bit too much of a celebrity to be who he was, especially after what looks like recent cosmetic surgery. (I think that's what the Buffetts and the Gates discussed over their bridge; the couples are very good friends.) I also wonder what effect his donation of so much Class B stock (the stock that should trade at 10% of the A shares, issued in the 1990s, and meant for the small investor) will have on the other owners. Not a good one, I fear.
SENT BY ANONYMOUS!
Comment from another reader, posted by Che':
Another great blog. Thanks Cheryl. Who would have "thunk" it about Warren
Buffett. :o).
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