Buffett's real secret

Buffett's real secret, beyond the IQ and emotional hard drive, is optimism. Berkshire is just a big levered up play on the economy. Trains, ice cream, Coke and banking. Buffett's famous for saying 'be greedy when others are fearful,' but what his real gift is believing in America and levering up on it. He generates cash betting against super catastrophic events in insurance and uses the money to bet against the collapse of the economy. That's been his formula for more than 60 years. If you take nothing else away from Buffett's notes it's that the richest man in the world got that way by betting against Doomsday. There's a lesson in that for all of us.