The entrepreneurs I’ve met are dreamers as well as doers.  So I tend to think it is important to surround oneself around people who inspire one to dream.  Thus, the reason this article is a must read.

A.  I really like Warren Buffett – of course who doesn’t.   A true entrepreneur who learned the lessons of business and life seemingly earlier than most.  His biography, The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein is a must read.

B.  I’ve also grown interested in Ben Stein.  I just watched Expelled, The Movie, a must-see for any independent thinking person.  The fact that Ben Stein set out on his own to do this made me realize there is more to this guy than someone who had a fairly lame game show (I’ve learned that the show won 7 Emmies – crazy).

So the article is written by Ben Stein in the CNN Money section and it goes through a dinner he shared with Warren Buffett.  A few quotes are listed below.  The article can be found at:  Ben Stein Dines with Warren Buffett

On the person who saved the economy:

The man who saved it, he said, was Ken Lewis, beleaguered head of Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500). By buying Merrill Lynch just as everything at Lehman was falling apart, he put some confidence back into the system and stopped — or helped mightily to stop — a “run on the bank” which would have laid waste all of Wall Street.

(Interesting counter article to Buffett’s opinion: Ken Lewis Fail at Forbes)

On Employment and Labor:

Buffett said that he did not see a good labor market for some time to come. Nevertheless, he said, he advised young people to “follow their passion” and do what they loved. If that did not provide a living, they should try something else.

On terrorism (quick aside – the quote below is one reason I respected George W. Bush)

We all spent a good part of the dinner discussing ways the terrorists might greatly diminish life in this country. I won’t share these thoughts, but they are grim. (If my mother can read this from the afterlife, Buffett is the only human being I have ever met who puts FAR more salt on his food than I do.)

On things of the government:  National Debt, high deficits ….

Buffett, like everyone else, is mystified by the Japanese example of super high deficits, a huge national debt, and no inflation and ultra-low interest rates. Something like that is apparently happening here, he suggested, which we would all agree is true (although this week’s producer prices number was worrisome and had not come out as of our dinner). But why it is happening now and did not happen in the past (there was inflation between 1933 and 1937, in a far worse economic environment), no one knew