A sage that knows his onions

摘要

In 1940, a stockbroker from the Midwest took his ten-year-old son on a trip to New York City. They dropped in at the office of Sidney Weinberg, who was trying to restore the reputation of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that had been disgraced during the great crash of 1929. Weinberg took the time to chat to the precocious youngster, even asking the name of his favourite stock.rnThat may have been the most productive half-hour of Weinberg's life. Sixty-eight years later, Goldman Sachs turned to that lad, now one of the richest men in the world, for a capital injection of $5 billion. The infusion of Warren Buffett's money, and the backing of his reputation, means that Goldman has so far escaped the fate of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers during the recent credit crunch.rnThe broad outline of Mr Buffett's story is widely known. Like many shy small boys, he liked collecting, categorising and measuring things. Money was just another way of keeping score and he steadily built up his boyhood savings through paper rounds and small businesses like recycling pinball machines.