Buffett bailout of WorldCom raises questions of influence

Sat Jul 13 00:43:34 UTC 2002

----- Original Message -----
From: <alex at yuriev.com>
To: "Bradley Dunn" <bradley at dunn.org>
Cc: "Scott Francis" <darkuncle at darkuncle.net>; <nanog at merit.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: Buffett bailout of WorldCom raises questions of influence

> Anyone making this statement would do well to realize that the loss that
> MSFT experienced in cable is equivalent to that person spending a $10 for
> lunch. While it could be an enormous expense for a bum on a street, it
does
> not mean anything for someone who makes $100k per year after taxes.

My copy of Microsoft's Q1FY2002 earnings statement has an after-tax writeoff
of $1.24 billion for investment losses, largely in cable, which reduced
earnings per share from 43 cents to 23 cents. Expensive lunch indeed. But
what's a few orders of magnitude on NANOG?

The monetary loss wasn't the point anyway. The point was Microsoft's track
record when venturing outside its core business is mixed at best. (The
jury's still out on the Xbox.)

Bradley