现在，人们应该知道不要打赌沃伦巴菲特。世界上第四个最富有的人已经表明了时间，尽管他是他的傻瓜的形象，但他是最受欢迎和精明的形象之一投资者大约。Still, when the Berkshire Hathaway CEO announced in January that he was teaming up with Quicken Loans to offer $1 billion to anyone who could correctly pick all 63 games in this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, dreamers from Main Street to Wall Street started thinking about how they’d spend the money and whether it made more sense to take a lump sum of $500 million or receive $25 million payments spread out over 40 years. I planned to go with the lump sum.
Come tournament time, it didn’t take long for reality to set in. Like many of the 15 million or so who signed up for the billion-dollar challenge, I saw my bracket get busted in the very first game, when the Dayton Flyers knocked off Ohio State on a last-second layup, beating the No. 6 seed 60-59. By the end of the first day, an estimated 95 percent of those who had taken Buffett’s bet had seen their hopes shattered. When Duke, a No. 3 seed, lost in the first game the following afternoon, the number of remaining perfect brackets was fast approaching zero, which it reached within a few hours.
当然，巴菲特从来没有像10亿美元的勾手那里（虽然估计价值580亿美元的净值，但他肯定会负担得起）。伯克郡的国家赔偿公司撰写了保险单，以涵盖有人赢得的不太可能的情景中的Quicken Loans支付。
在另一种非常不同的押注中，巴菲特一直在为伯克希尔旗下的中美能源控股公司(MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.)公用事业部门投资数十亿美元，用于风力涡轮机和太阳能发电厂。2012年1月，该公司的中美可再生能源子公司斥资20亿美元收购了位于加州圣路易斯奥比斯波的一个太阳能发电厂。同月，该公司从新泽西州普林斯顿的独立电力生产商手中购买了亚利桑那州尤马县一个价值18亿美元的太阳能项目49%的股份NRG能源．一年后，中美能源恢复了收购狂潮，收购了加州克恩县和洛杉矶县的项目。
自2004年以来，米米人能源一直在购买和安装风力涡轮机，并具有比美国的任何其他受监管效用从风产生更多电力的能力，其1,267个风力涡轮机占公司发电能力的近30％。Midamerican的当前扩张将在2015年完成时加入448个涡轮机和9个百分点发电点。
尽管巴菲特对可再生能源进行了巨大赌注，但奥马哈对气候变化的看法是众所周知的。2009年8月，他在一个Op-ed块中写了一下纽约时报“世界对温室排放的令人担忧”，“我们吹入大气中的二氧化碳加倍，可能会对社会随后的问题进行两倍多。”环境活动家可能太快了解这些话。该专栏是关于“美元的排放” - 在巴菲特的令人难忘的短语中 - 以及美国的潜在灾难性影响;它与气候变化没什么关系。
伯克希尔首席执行官3月份关于CNBC的评论可能是他对他对分裂问题，特别是美国人之间的看法的勇气。When asked how the rise of extreme weather events in recent years has changed the way Berkshire’s reinsurance business calculates risk, he responded: “I think the public has the impression that, because there’s been so much talk about climate, that events of the last ten years from an insurance standpoint in climate have been unusual. The answer is, they haven’t.” Buffett went on to say that “the effects of climate change, if any, have not affected ... the insurance market.”
无论他对气候变化的看法，巴菲特都将米培立能量定位为可再生能源的领导者，这将在世界转型到较低碳经济中发挥重要作用。至于NCAA锦标赛，未来的亿万富翁（包括我）将不得不等到明年。
关注在推特上的Michael Peltz@mppeltz.．