Nike USA Basketball Ad with Marvin Gaye

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

I just finished reading Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. It was published in 1995 but there is a new afterword by the author that was written in January of 2008.

This was a good book. The author put a lot of work into it. He says that it took him three years. It's long but he does a great job. So, if you're interested in Buffett, this is a good book to read.

I bought it for $19.00 at Borders but Amazon.com is selling it for less but their version doesn't have the afterword.

Buffet was not interviewed for this biography directly. It amazes me because there is just so much information the Roger Lowenstein compiled from numerous sources to create a flowing book.

Update: You can find the exact book at Amazon.

Flip a Coin or Take the $

The findings are consistent with research on human behavior and responses to risk, said Martin A. Asher, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author. For example, psychologists have found that people are more averse to taking a risk when they are expecting to gain something, and more willing to take a risk when they have something to lose.
“If you approach a class of students and say, I’ll either write you a check for $200, or we can flip a coin and I will pay you nothing or $500,” most students will take the $200 rather than risk getting nothing, Mr. Asher said.
But reverse the situation, so that students have to write the check, and they will choose to flip the coin, risking a bigger loss because they hope to pay nothing at all, he continued. “They’ll take the gamble.”
The third co-author of the study was Blakeley B. McShane, a graduate student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

An interesting statistic that I found in this article.