Regardless of political affiliation, most people listen intently to Warren Buffett’s ruminations and recommendations about business and investing. For many, Buffett is about as close to a sage as we have for our time in history.
While he’s most well known for his investing success, Buffett has also chimed in on various political issues. This is no surprise as his business and investment philosophy is governed by the sort of principles that ultimately have consequences in wider domains of life.
Here we offer you a list of five books that at various times in his life, Warren Buffett has endorsed in one way or another:
 In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washingtonby Bob Rubin
With a compelling and candid voice and a sharp eye for detail, Rubin portrays the daily life of the White House-confronting matters both mighty and mundane–as astutely as he examines the challenges that lie ahead for the nation. |
 Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastropheby Graham Allison
Allison offers an ambitious but feasible blueprint for eliminating the possibility of nuclear terrorist attacks. But, according to Allison, if policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is likely to occur in the next decade. |
 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dreamby Barack Obama
In this book, Presidential candidiate Barack Obama offers a vision of the future that involves repairing a “political process that is broken” and restoring a government that has fallen out of touch with the people. |
 Will America Grow up Before it Grows Old : How the Coming Social Security Crisis Threatens You, Your Family and Your Countryby Peter G. Peterson
Peterson discusses the looming fiscal crisis that he believes faces the United States early next century when the baby-boom generation retires, leaving only the much smaller baby-bust generation at work to keep the country’s Social Security coffers full. |
 Epidemic of Care : A Call for Safer, Better, and More Accountable Health Careby George C. Halvorson
Health care costs are out of control, the quality of health care is frightfully low, and far too many people are uninsured. The solution, according to George Halvorson and George Isham, is a new managed care system, in which health plans focus more on improving the quality of care and less on rationing care. |
Bonus Book:
 Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About Itby Peter G. Peterson
Peterson attacks 10 partisan myths, among them that means-testing federal benefits will shred the safety net; that the elderly are poorer than children, that Americans are overtaxed and that using tax cuts to shrink government can work. What’s gone wrong? He blames interest groups, individualism, short-termitis and generational change. |
Buffett is a wellknown Malthusian. Why would I trust someone who has so clearly failed to understand political economy?
Maybe we could wait until the food riots are over before we dispense with Malthusianism entirely?