The essays of Warren Buffett lessons for corporate America ; essays by Warren Buffett

In the third edition of this international best seller, Lawrence Cunningham brings you the latest wisdom from Warren Buffett’s annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. New material addresses: the financial crisis and its continuing implications for investors, managers and society; the housing bubble at the bottom of that crisis; the debt and derivatives excesses that fueled the crisis and how to deal with them; controlling risk and protecting reputation in corporate governance; Berkshire’s acquisition and operation of Burlington Northern Santa Fe; the role of oversight in heavily regulated industries; investment possibilities today; and weaknesses of popular option valuation models. Some other material has been rearranged to deepen the themes and lessons that the collection has always produced: Buffett’s “owner-related business principles” are in the prologue as a separate subject and valuation and accounting topics are spread over four instead of two sections and reordered to sharpen their payoff. Media coverage is available at the following links: Interviews/Podcasts: Motley Fool, click here. Money, Riches and Wealth, click here. Manual of Ideas, click here. Corporate Counsel, click here. Reviews: William J. Taylor, ABA Banking Journal, click here. Bob Morris, Blogging on Business, click here. Pamela Holmes, Saturday Evening Post, click here. Kevin M. LaCroix, D&O Diary, click here. Blog Posts: On Finance issues (Columbia University), click here. On Berkshire post-Buffett (Manual of Ideas), click here. On Publishing the book (Value Walk), click here. On Governance issues (Harvard University blog), click here. Featured Stories/Recommended Reading: Motley Fool, click here. Stock Market Blog, click here. Motley Fool Interviews with LAC at Berkshire's 2013 Annual Meeting Berkshire Businesses: Vastly Different, Same DNA, click here. Is Berkshire's Fat Wallet an Enemy to Its Success?, click here. Post-Buffett Berkshire: Same Question, Same Answer, click here. How a Disciplined Value Approach Works Across the Decades, click here. Through the Years: Constant Themes in Buffett's Letters, click here. Buffett's Single Greatest Accomplishment, click here. Where Buffett Is Finding Moats These Days, click here. How Buffett Has Changed Through the Years, click here. Speculating on Buffett's Next Acquisition, click here. Buffett Says “Chief Risk Officers” Are a Terrible Mistake, click here. Berkshire Without Buffett, click here. The Author's Annual Letters To The Stockholders Of Berkshire Hathaway Are Edited To Present The Main Themes Regarding Business, Investing, Price, Value, Corporate Governance, And Other Important Topics. Prologue : Owner-related Business Principles -- I. Corporate Governance -- Full And Fair Disclosure -- Boards And Mangers -- The Anxieties Of Business Change -- Social Compacts -- An Owner-based Approach To Corporate Charity -- A Principled Approach To Executive Pay -- Risk, Reputation And Oversight -- Ii. Finance And Investing -- Mr. Market -- Arbitrage -- Debunking Standard Dogma -- Value Investing : A Redundancy -- Intelligent Investing -- Cigar Butts And The Institutional Imperative -- Life And Debt -- Iii. Investment Alternatives -- Surveying The Field -- Junk Bonds -- Zero-coupon Bonds -- Preferred Stock -- Derivatives -- Foreign Currencies And Equities -- Home Ownership : Practice And Policy -- Iv. Common Stock -- The Bane Of Trading : Transaction Costs -- Attracting The Right Sort Of Investor -- Dividend Policy And Share Repurchases -- Stock Splits And Trading Activity -- Shareholder Strategies -- Berkshire's Recapitalization -- V. Mergers And Acquisitions -- Bad Motives And High Prices -- Sensible Share Repurchases Versus Greenmail -- Leveraged Buyouts -- Sound Acquisition Policies -- On Selling One's Business -- The Buyer Of Choice -- Vi. Valuation And Accounting -- Aesop And Inefficient Bush Theory -- Intrinsic Value, Book Value, And Market Price -- Look-through Earnings -- Economic Versus Accounting Goodwill -- Owner Earnings And The Cash Flow Fallacy -- Option Valuation -- Vii. Accounting Shenanigans -- Satire -- Standard Setting -- Stock Options -- Restructuring Changes -- Pension Estimates -- Realization Events -- Viii. Accounting Policy -- Mergers -- Segment Data And Consolidation -- Deferred Taxes -- Retiree Benefits -- Ix. Tax Matters -- Distribution Of The Corporate Tax Burden -- Taxation And Investment Philosophy. Essays By Warren E. Buffet ; Selected, Arranged, And Introduced By Lawrence A. Cunningham. Includes Index. **Recommended Reading by Warren Buffett at Berkshire's Annual Meetings (2000 and 2008) and on CNBC with Liz Claman (2006) making it a __Business Week__ best seller.*** By arranging Buffett's lengthy writings thematically, Cunningham's classic book makes clear and coherent the principles and logic of Buffett's philosophy of business, investing and life. * When first published in 1997, many knew Buffett's writings were gems, but this book's novelty was to lay out exact principles and their relationship to each other. The central discovery is that the philosophy pivots around one core concept: the vast difference between price and value. From that core radiate the other themes that the book's arrangement clarifies. * __The Essays of Warren Buffett__ is a unique book that takes the raw material of Buffett's 700+ pages of letters and renders them into a finely-woven 270-page narrative, fulfilling Buffett's hope that Cunningham would "popularize" his writings. **TABLE OF CONTENTS**PrefaceIntroducitonPrologueI. Corporate GovernanceII. Finance and InvestingIII. Investment AlternativesIV. Common StockV. Mergers and AcquisitionsVI. Valuation and AccountingVII. Accounting ShenanigansVIII. Accounting PolicyIX. Tax MattersEpilogueIndexConcept GlossaryDisposition Summary