Special interests won the day in Tallahassee last week. For two years, a coalition of my Florida Senate colleagues demanded that the state Department of Transportation renegotiate a sweetheart deal with CSX Railroad for a new commuter-rail line around Orlando. ...more

December 13, 2009

Billionaires Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger will spend most of Saturday at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting dispensing sage advice on finance, the recession and life, and roughly 35,000 people are expected to pack an arena and overflow rooms at a nearby hotel to listen. ...more

April 30, 2009

The title of Alice Schroeder's biography about Warren Buffett is "Snowball -- Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." Schroeder opens her story with a vignette about a day in Buffett's childhood when he recalls catching a snowflake on his hand and then two more until he gets a handful, enough to roll a snowball unstopping through the world. As a child, Buffett was always engrossed with numbers. He counted things over and over again. As soon as he was old enough, he took an after school job delivering newspapers and then another before school. Very shortly, he had a very respectable bank account that he was always trying to figure out ways to make larger. Schroeder writes a very detailed summary of his life from early childhood until his current status as the world's richest man. Buffett assisted and aided Schroeder in her research. She reports he had a few bumps along the way and lost some money but he used each failure as a learning tool and used it to build his dynasty. He and his wife Susie have a great partnership together and most of all, he says, he did his Dad proud. ...more

March 25, 2009

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett had some sage advice for Washington the other day. ...more

March 15, 2009

The meltdown of global financial markets slashed the ranks of the world's billionaires by 30 percent in 2008, Forbes magazine reports in its annual tally of the planet's richest people. ...more

March 14, 2009

The property insurance merry-go-round continues as Florida's leaders struggle to balance the cost of homeownership against financial pressures on the state. ...more

March 11, 2009

Billionaire Warren Buffett said unemployment likely will climb much higher, depending on how effective the nation's policies are, but he remains optimistic about the long run. ...more

March 10, 2009

OK, I will be honest with you. In high school, I got a "C" in algebra. I admit I am not the sharpest tool in the math shed of life. However, I don't think I am the only American who is struggling with trying to get his mind around a $1 trillion national debt, much less a $3 trillion national debt. ...more

March 8, 2009

OK, I will be honest with you. In high school, I got a "C" in algebra. I admit I am not the sharpest tool in the math shed of life. However, I don't think I am the only American who is struggling with trying to get his mind around a $1 trillion national debt, much less a $3 trillion national debt. ...more

March 7, 2009

For years, prosaic consumer products sought to puff up their appeal by boasting they contained "secret" ingredients that improved their performance. Colgate toothpaste had Gardol, Dial soap had AT-7 and Certs breath mints had Retsyn. ...more

February 21, 2009