I once met a guy from Kansas City, and he told me an interesting story regarding Warren Buffet. According to the story, Buffet (early in his career) acquired huge numbers of coin operated laundramats in the Midwest-and made a fortune off them-being cash businesses, he was of the opinion that not all of the income was reported.
Anybody know more about this?
ralph–I read the Wikipedia article on Buffet and came to the conclusion that the laundramat story was probably not true, given the nature of his early career. It always could be true, but unlikely in my opinion.
I just went through the index of this book. The index isn’t the most user friendly, but I don’t see any reference to coin operated laundromats. There is, however, a description of a pinball business (obviously, coin operated) that young Warren ran when he was in high school.
I have never met anyone that ran such a business that reported every single cent of it. It is pretty hard to comply even if you are trying to be completely honest. Even waiters and waitresses usually just keep a rough tally of tips and who gets part of it rather than having a spreadsheet turned on all the time. What was the general implication in this story? That is hardly Al Capone level corruption even if part of it is true. It would be true for anyone that ever worked in a cash based business at any time in their life and that was a long time ago anyway.