At Berkshire, full reporting means giving you the information that we would wish you to give to us if our positions were reversed. - Warren Buffett

Instead, he takes those coupons from his low-return bond and — if inclined to reinvest — looks for the highest return with safety currently available. Good money is not thrown after bad.

People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.

Of course, Charlie and I can identify only a few Inevitables, even after a lifetime of looking for them. Leadership alone provides no certainties: Witness the shocks some years back at General Motors, IBM and Sears, all of which had enjoyed long periods of seeming invincibility. Though some industries or lines of business exhibit characteristics that endow leaders with virtually insurmountable advantages, and that tend to establish Survival of the Fattest as almost a natural law, most do not. Thus, for every Inevitable, there are dozens of Impostors, companies now riding high but vulnerable to competitive attacks.