Ya, I agree with Mark.
These are the type of perks you can negotiate when you are the richest and wisest investor on the planet. Interesting thing is… we can all benefit from his great negotiating skills… by becoming a berkshire shareholder.

Things are getting so strange in this world, I can’t help myself but to point some things out today in light-hearted fashion – sorry to contaminate the mailboxes of those that don’t care.

This is ridiculous and look at how much this guy could make in the next 5 years.. Warren Buffett and the Berky Bunch are going to be bigger than the Beatles. We need to put our thinking caps on as these deals are very simple, and no reason the same can’t be done with our dire property clients if we think outside the square – but hang on, my name isn’t Warren Buffett admittedly.

GS:
Bought $5 billion preferred stock at largely discounted price – around $115 with 10% coupon paying annually for 3 years
Bought $5 billion in warrants, exercisable at $115 anytime within the next 5 years.
If Goldman recovers and returns to its peak, which was only back in October 31 2007 at $247, on the preferred stock he will far more than double his money and on the warrant the same will be the case, plus earning $500 million per year in the mean time. So, let’s say the stock doubles in price over the next 5 years (would think it should, and could increase very quickly if the bail-out finally gets approved), then he will make circa:
Preferred – $5 billion
Warrant – $5 billion but safety here in that he doesn’t have to exercise if goes down – these were a gift mind you (awww shucks), at no cost which warrants would normally have
Interest coupons – $1.5 billion
TOTAL – $11.5 billion

GE:
Same structure in his funding of the company but different values
Bought $3 billion in preferred stock – at $22.25
10% coupon for 3 years
$3 billion in warrants exercisable within 5 years at $22.25
GE peaked at $41.77 at almost the same time last year – October 5.

So, again potential here to earn double money and more in next few years:
Preferred – $3 billion
Warrant – $3 billion
Interest coupons – $900 million
TOTAL – $6.9 billion

Total over 5 years for both deals looking at this conservative outlook on two absolute killer companies:

$18.4 billion profit, plus a substantial ownership stake in both superpowers

Let’s look at the day of Deal Completions now:
Now, on the day of each deal completion, share prices actually closed at
GS – $125.05 (remember deal done on pref shares and warrants at $115) then rose to $134.75 after close trading on news of Buffett’s deal – HEAR THAT, Buffett struck exercise price deal above spot price –CHRIST
GE – $24.50 (down 3.9% and remember pref’s and warrants are $22.50) – again, the guy got an exercise price lower than the god damn spot price – that is what is meant to happen with put option prices, not call options which warrants are.
In the single day of both of these deals, including after hours trading – had he bought, immediately exercised all warrants, foregone the interest in coupons, existed in a utopian society (or dystopia may be more accurate in this case) and gave a right royal stabbing of both firms in the back or in the lower nether regions, he could have made approx:
GS – (134.75/115) x 5 billion x 2 – 10 billion = 11.71739 billion – 10 billion = $1.72 billion
GE – (24.5/22.5) x 3 billion x 2 – 6 billion = 6.53333 billion – 6 billion = $533.3 million
Yeah he really screwed up the GE deal let’s face it – ouch that hurts in the nether regions regardless of that stab hitting them in the back – but hey, it did give the superpower firms a few cheeky billions to play with at a teenee weenie cost

From now on, I think we should be calling these Warrants a new name – Warren Buffetts, or Warrens, because they ain’t making sense in the conventional English economic language.

And the last semantic observation – The shares are both G’s, GE and GS and sound uncannily similar as they roll off the tongue
Sounds like history is repeating itself with Buffett and the Berky Bunch , and the economic Gods are having a good laugh. I can just imagine Warren Buffet sitting in a room with his cronies and Omaha homeboys, with a line of capital raising chiefs from top blue-chip companies who are on their shaky knees at his door.
Buffett says to his homies, ‘yo yo yo- fellas, how bout we deal with the G’s this week’. Homey 1 replies, ‘Word Warren’
Buffett calls in GS, “Wassup G. Now come to uncle Warren. Uncle Warren is going to help you today, but nothing comes cheap so please bend over while I give you a good smack, and come back every day for the next 5 years so I can smack you some more until it feels good”
Out walks GS
Repeat Homey GE a few days later, though this time Buffett’s arm is a bit tired from smacking Homey GS the last few days, plus his mind a little tired, plus he likes GS a little more so won’t get so smart with GE hence not being so aggressive, and the story no doubt will continue on with other letters of the alphabet in the coming weeks as the knee trembling capital raisers continue to wait at his door.

to anyone that disproves: this re: our Oceans: “has now collapsed and is sliding toward total extinction”

DW’s context was the Ocean’s natural bounty, (they are/it is going to Zero.) to those that would like to discuss factory-fish farming, please see: http://www.salmonnation.com/ and http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/AquaculturePR4_30_07.cfm as starting points.

Simply, under current conditions, as it reigns, it rains serious degradation in, and on, the seas that host those operations.

Wanna guess another Technology, well proven, that has been kept tamped-down?
Yep, indoor, closed-system Aquaculture.
Truly UFR.

Needed: Rooseveltian Resolve
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932 with the mandate to get the country out of the Depression. In the end, the most effective actions he took were the same that Japan needs to take—-namely, rehabilitation of the banking system and devaluation of the currency to promote monetary easing. But Roosevelt’s specific policy actions were, I think, less important than his willingness to be aggressive and to experiment—-in short, to do whatever was necessary to get the country moving again. Many of his policies did not work as intended, but in the end FDR deserves great credit for having the courage to abandon failed paradigms and to do what needed to be done. Japan is not in a Great Depression by any means, but its economy has
operated below potential for nearly a decade. Nor is it by any means clear that recovery is imminent. Policy options exist that could greatly reduce these losses. Why isn’t more happening? To this outsider, at least, Japanese monetary policy seems paralyzed, with a paralysis that is largely self-induced. Most striking is the apparent unwillingness of the monetary authorities to experiment, to try anything that isn’t absolutely guaranteed to work. Perhaps it’s time for some Rooseveltian resolve in Japan.

The Boston area also has a “modest” number of hospitals and biotech/pharma employers in addition to the famed fishing, whaling, and sea chantey composing industries…

It seems to me we were headed for deflation. If Hank and the boys get all they want, maybe, maybe we reflate.
(No. Definitely we crash MINUS 700+ BILLION)