How Special Government Privileges Enrich Warren Buffet

Dealbook has a jaw-dropping report on how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lets billionaire investors duck transparency:

On Monday, Mr. Buffett disclosed that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, had bought a 5.5 percent stake in International Business Machines, his first big investment in a technology company ever.

But Mr. Buffett didn’t build his $10 billion-plus stake in I.B.M. overnight. He started buying eight months ago, beginning in March. You wouldn’t have known that if you had been studiously reading Berkshire Hathaway’s filings — known as 13Fs — in which companies must disclose stock holdings. There was no mention of I.B.M. in Berkshire’s quarterly filing in April, nor in August. Instead, if you were looking carefully, you might have found an odd footnote that said: “Confidential information has been omitted from the form 13F and filed separately with the commission.”