Public positions

Buffett's speeches are known for mixing business discussions with humor. Each year, Buffett presides over Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting in the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska, an event drawing over 20,000 visitors from both United States and abroad, giving it the nickname "Woodstock of Capitalism". Berkshire's annual reports and letters to shareholders, prepared by Buffett, frequently receive coverage by the financial media. Buffett's writings are known for containing literary quotes ranging from the Bible to Mae West, as well as Midwestern advice, and numerous jokes. Various websites extol Buffett's virtues while others decry Buffett’s business models or dismiss his investment advice and decisions.

Buffett and tobacco
During the RJR Nabisco, Inc. hostile takeover fight in 1987, Buffett was quoted as telling John Gutfreund:

“ I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty. ”

Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s 1994 annual meeting, Buffett said investments in tobacco are:

“ fraught with questions that relate to societal attitudes and those of the present administration. I would not like to have a significant percentage of my net worth invested in tobacco businesses. The economy of the business may be fine, but that doesn't mean it has a bright future. ”

Buffett and coal
In 2007, Buffett's PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of his MidAmerican Energy Company, cancelled six proposed coal-fired power plants. These included Utah's Intermountain Power Project Unit 3, Jim Bridger Unit 5, and four proposed plants previously included in PacifiCorp's Integrated Resource Plan. The cancellations came in the wake of pressure from regulators and citizen groups, including a petition drive organized by Salt Lake City commercial real estate broker Alexander Lofft and directed at Buffett personally. The 1,600 petitioners, who described themselves in a letter to Buffett as "a collection of citizens, business owners and managers, service professionals, public servants, and organization representatives ... your friends and new customers here in Utah," explained that, in their view, any further expansion of coal generation in Utah would "compromise our health, obscure our viewsheds, shrink and contaminate our watersheds, and thin out our most beloved snowpack," concluding that "our attractiveness as a place to live and work is also threatened, and so is our economic competitiveness as a major metro area and a state, compromising our recent gains in income and property values."

Klamath river
American Indian tribes and salmon fisherman sought to win support from Warren Buffett for a proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River. He had David Sokol respond that the FERC would decide the question.

Trade deficit
Buffett views the United States' expanding trade deficit as a trend that will devalue the U.S. dollar and U.S. assets. He believes that the U.S. dollar will lose value in the long run, as a result of putting a larger portion of ownership of U.S. assets in the hands of foreigners.

In his letter to shareholders in March, 2005, Warren Buffett predicted that in another ten years’ time the net ownership of the U.S. by outsiders would amount to $11 trillion. “Americans … would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an ‘ownership society’ will not find happiness in—and I’ll use hyperbole here for emphasis—a 'sharecropping society’.” Author Ann Pettifor has adopted the image in her writings and has stated: "He is right. And so the thing we must fear most now, is not just the collapse of banks and investment funds, or of the international financial architecture, but of a 'sharecropper society, angry at its downfall."

Dollar and gold
This induced Buffett to enter the foreign currency market for the first time in 2002. However, he substantially reduced his stake in 2005 as changing interest rates increased the costs of holding currency contracts. Buffett continues to be bearish on the dollar, and says he is looking to make acquisitions of companies which derive a substantial portion of their revenues from outside the United States.

Buffett emphasized the non-productive aspect of a gold standard for the USD in 1998 at Harvard:

“ It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head. ”

In 1977 Buffett was also quoted as saying about stocks, gold, farmland, and inflation:

“ stocks are probably still the best of all the poor alternatives in an era of inflation—at least they are if you buy in at appropriate prices. ”

Taxes
Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes, while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money. Buffett favors the inheritance tax, saying that repealing it would be like "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics". In 2007, Buffett testified before the Senate and urged them to preserve the estate tax so as to avoid a plutocracy. Some critics have argued that Buffett (through Berkshire Hathaway) has a personal interest in the continuation of the estate tax, since Berkshire Hathaway has benefited from the estate tax in past business dealings and had developed and marketed insurance policies to protect policy holders against future estate tax payments.

Buffett believes government should not be in the business of gambling, or legalizing casinos, calling it a tax on ignorance.

Expensing of stock options
He has been a strong proponent of stock option expensing, on the Income Statement. At the 2004 annual meeting, he lambasted a bill before the United States Congress that would consider only some company-issued stock options compensation as an expense, likening the bill to one once passed by the Indiana House of Representatives that 'changed' Pi from 3.14159 to 3.2 .

When a company gives something of value to its employees in return for their services, it is clearly a compensation expense. And if expenses don't belong in the earnings statement, where in the world do they belong?

Investment in China
Buffett invested in PetroChina Company Limited and in a rare move, posted a commentary on Berkshire Hathaway's website stating why he would not divest from the company despite calls from some activists to do so, due to its connection with the Sudanese genocide that caused Harvard to divest from the company in 2005. He did, however, sell this stake soon afterwards, sparing him the billions of dollars he would have lost had he held on to the company in the midst of the steep drop in oil prices beginning in the summer of 2008.

In October 2008, Buffett invested in new energy automobile business by paying $230 million for 10% of BYD Company(SEHK: 1211), which runs a subsidiary of electric automobile manufacturer BYD Auto. In less than one year, the investment has reaped him over 500% return of profit.