Warren Buffett vigorously defends Goldman Sachs. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Over the weekend, investor extraordinaire Warren Buffett came to the defense of embattled investment house Goldman Sachs.  Goldman has been under fire for some time, for the role it played in the Wall Street meltdown and the recession.  Buffet asserted that the fraud allegations and investigations are unwarranted.  He also came to the defense of Ben Bernanke, and that the Fed Chairman was right in the course the Federal Reserve took in its actions in making out short term loans to ailing Wall Street firms and banks.

Warren Buffett offers support of Goldman Sachs

Warren Buffett defended Goldman Sachs against the charges of fraud leveled in a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit.  The purchases in question were a bundle of mortgages in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) packages, sold as the product Abacus. Hedge fund Paulson and Co. bet on the securities losing money. The charge is that Goldman Sachs purchased the securities without notifying stockholders of the bet against Abacus. Warren Buffett said in Reuters: “I don’t have a problem with the Abacus transaction at all,” and that “I think I understand it better than most.”

Buffett Defends Bernanke

Warren Buffett also leaped to the defense of Ben Bernanke.  Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has taken a bit of a beating in the press for seeming to be too willing to pump cash into Wall Street. Buffett said that “there’s no one in the United States  that I know of whom I would rather have running the Fed than Ben Bernanke.”  Bernanke, sometimes called “Helicopter Ben” orchestrated the emergency infusion of cash into troubled Wall Street firms.

Berkshire-Hathaway owns a hefty stake in Goldman

Warren Buffett, through his company Berkshire-Hathaway, has a wide variety of concerns and investments, and a hefty one is a stake in Goldman Sachs. Buffett owns more than $5 billion in Goldman shares.  He would be in a unique position to see whether a transaction could be fraudulent or imprudent.  He seems to be satisfied with the actions of Goldman Sachs and executive Lloyd Blankfein.  Buffett, after all, is an Investment Wizard, and wouldn’t back a company if he didn’t have a legitimate reason to do so.

He wants to teach your kids about money. You should listen, too. (Photo: DIC Entertainment)

What have we learned about the way people handle money lately? Loose and lazy seems to be the general rule in America, in that people don’t tend to plan as much for the future as they should and operate on instant gratification. Lack of impulse control is common. Yet the current recession has been a deep, dark, truthful mirror of sorts, not only for ourselves but for our government. Just as we must manage our money well and make informed decisions, the government needs to do the same and stop shoveling problems under the rug. Hopefully, the Obama administration will start breaking some of the old ways.

But what about us?

Payday loans and unsecured loans offer short-term help, but what should we do over the long haul? We should look to any sources we can find to teach ourselves and our children about finance. First and foremost, it should be part of the core educational curriculum from a very early stage in schools.

However, there are other tools. For instance, Warren Buffett, the mastermind investor of Berkshire-Hathaway, has agreed to lend his voice to a new animated series called “The Secret Millionaire’s Club.” The idea behind this is to “get children to grasp basic finance lessons well before they do things like, say, agree to a risky, adjustable rate mortgage,” reports The Huffington Post.

Here’s Buffett’s idea

If we can get through to some young people, say it’s better to be ahead of the game than behind, watch out for credit cards, most important message is the best investment you can make is in yourself. Teach them if something is too good to be true it probably is. So if they learn those things the easy way through these stories early on it may save them learning the hard way later on.

He’s definitely enthusiastic about “The Secret Millionaire’s Club.” Here’s a recent CNBC interview:

Stock market looking up

People need to know about these kinds of things. People want to know what’s going on with the stock market. Specifically, whether or not they should start investing again. On that matter, Warren Buffett has had good things to say. Now that the Dow has hit 9,000 for the first time since January, he’s weighing in: “I would much rather own equities at 9,000 on the DOW than have a long investment in government bonds or a continuously rolling investment in short term money now. Again, I don’t know where it’s going to go next week or next month.”

So according to Buffett, investors should invest now. Business may still be flat, but as Buffett puts it, “If you wait until you see the robin, spring will already be over.”

Short term money?

Payday loans and unsecured loans are short term money. If your budget has a real need for that kind of boost, you can apply right here, right now. And be sure to check out “The Secret Millionaire’s Club” when it hits a computer or television near you.

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