Naked Capitalism has the article Ilargi: Warren Buffett is Everything That’s Wrong With America.

The introduction to the article emphasizes some points that interest me lately.

Yves here. I’m sure readers can add to this antidote to the pervasive Warren Buffett hagiography in American media. For instance, Buffett lavishes praise on the executives of Wells Fargo, when Wells engages in abusive servicing (see here and here for examples). So Buffett is part of the cohort that has held bank leaders as competent and deserving of their leadership roles, which serves to hide the fact that a big chunk of industry profits rests on predatory behavior, like gotcha terms in checking accounts and credit cards.

The article itself focuses on another recent foible of Warren Buffet.

Last week, Buffett announced a plan to merge a number of ‘food’ companies in a deal he set up with Brazilian 3G Capital. For some reason, they all have German names (I’m not sure why that is or what it means, if anything): Heinz, Kraft, Oscar Mayer.
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Buffett, the supposed genius, can only do these deals because nobody demands anybody to pay for the externalities that arise as a result of Warren pushing crap posing as food upon the American people. And then when he’s done getting even richer off of poisoning your kids, he’ll donate billions to their well-being.

The article makes very good points that are more general than just the food issue. You’ll have to read it yourself to get the full benefit.

As I started to read, I thought that Warren Buffet isn’t all bad. I put the explanation for that thought into the following comment:

There is this feeling, partly myth and partly real, that Warren Buffet has a unique management style that lets companies that he buys continue to excel. He picks companies with good managers, and he lets them continue to do their thing. He only offers advice and direction moderately when asked.

Some or all of that may be true, but there is the other side of Warren Buffet which Ilargi highlights in this article. He is ruthless at times. The bargains he gets can only be achieved because his wealth is what gives him great power to drive hard bargains.

I admire Warren Buffet for the part of the myth that may be true, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the negative side. When I used to watch Nightly Business Report on PBS, it used to drive me batty to see how Suzy Gharib would fawn all over Warren Buffet. You know you aren’t getting straight news when you see behavior like that.