Stan [Perlmeter] was a liberal arts major... We happened to be in the same building... Again, it took five minutes for Stan to embrace the value appr… - Warren Buffett

When returns on capital are ordinary, an earn-more-by-putting-up-more record is no great managerial achievement. You can get the same result personally while operating from your rocking chair. Just quadruple the capital you commit to a savings account and you will quadruple your earnings. You would hardly expect hosannas for that particular accomplishment. Yet, retirement announcements regularly sing the praises of CEOs who have, say, quadrupled earnings of their widget company during their reign — with no one examining whether this gain was attributable simply to many years of retained earnings and the workings of compound interest.

Naming the plane has not been easy. I initially suggested ‘The Charles T. Munger.’ Charlie countered with ‘The Aberration.’ We finally settled on ‘The Indefensible.

Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me when we contemplate investing in businesses that in general look outstanding.