Warren Buffett is justifiably lionized by investors and mainly fawned over by the press. But beneath the fanfare, some critics say the "Oracle of Omaha" has lost his magic touch, and point to the recent slide in Berkshire Hathaway's stock as evidence.

The short case against Buffett, or more specifically Berkshire shares, rests largely on the following:

• Berkshire's stock is too linked to the cult of Buffett, who is irreplaceable and approaching 80 years old. "Should he decide to begin to delegate responsibilities (sooner than later), it can be expected that many long-term investors in Berkshire will likely consider cashing out," noted short-seller Doug Kass opined earlier this year.
• Berkshire is over-exposed to the housing market, via its holdings in Clayton Homes, Acme Brick, Nebraska Furniture, and others.
• Berkshire is overexposed to financial via its holdings in Wells Fargo, US Bancorp, American Express, Bank of America, Moody's, and others.
• Berkshire is saddled with the aftermath of both scandal and a bad derivatives portfolio at General Re, plus faces a generally less favorable insurance cycle for that and other insurance holdings.

But don't bet against Buffett or Berkshire stock, says James Altucher, managing director of formula capital and author of Trade Like Warren Buffett.

Altucher says Buffett's financial holdings are best poised to survive the current downturn and thrive when the cycle inevitably turns. The investor and author also has tremendous confidence in Buffett's ability to "reenergize his portfolio" and play demographic trends, in this case via holdings in healthcare names like Sanofi-Aventis and Glaxosmithkline.

Finally, Altucher notes that every time in history Berkshire shares have fallen more than 25% from a peak -- as they did in the recent peak-to-trough decline -- they have risen at least 37% in the ensuing 12 months.

Here we go again....

After the release of the minutes of the Fed's August meeting on Tuesday, stories about a possible Fed rate hike started circulating.

Such reports hinged on the following declaration: Fed "members generally anticipated that the next policy move would likely be a tightening."

That's probably true, but the eagerness of some news organizations to distill the minutes into a simple conclusion (i.e., "rate hike coming") omitted several key points which add up to a "no rate hike anytime soon" conclusion, including:

• The line following the one about a tightening, which reads: "The timing and extent of any change in policy stance would depend on evolving economic and financial developments."
• The Fed's downgrading of its GDP forecast for the second half of 2008 and 2009.
• The Fed's comment about how "the financial system remained fragile" and a separate report Tuesday from the FDIC showing a sharp rise in the number of "problem banks."
• In addition, "most members did not see the current stance of policy as particularly accommodative," the minutes read. Translation: Most Fed members don't think policy is too loose, meaning there's less need to tighten -- more especially now that commodity prices (especially oil) have come down from their mid-summer peaks.

Finally, while Ben Bernanke must talk tough about inflation, his actions suggest otherwise and the Fed would actually prefer a little inflation to a deflationary spiral -- especially given the nation's debt overhang -- as Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video.

In sum, take any reports about future Fed rate hikes with a very large grain of salt, and don't forget, many reporters fell into this same "rate hike coming" trap in the spring.

Whether Hillary Clinton's speech accomplished party unity grabbed the headlines from day two of the Democratic convention in Denver.

But economic issues were also a major theme among the speakers, including Sen. Clinton, who talked about creating "a clean energy economy that will create millions of green-collar jobs."

Energy independence and alternative energy initiatives were also the key theme of a speech by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who declared: "The petro-dictators will never own American wind and sunshine." (Schweitzer did not, however, give as much attention to "clean coal" technologies, of which he is a big champion.)

Former Virginia governor Mark Warner also talked about alternative energy and generated a flurry in the Twitter community by declaring, "Just think about this: in just four months we will have an administration that actually believes in science."

Henry Blodget says the alternative energy talk was nice, but wonders "where's the beef?" -- i.e., specific policy recommendations, which were lacking amid the rhetoric. Henry also thinks the GOP convention (which, yes, we'll be covering with equal verve) will likely tackle similar themes of energy independence. Still, I wonder if John McCain will focus more on drilling for U.S. oil vs. alternative energy policies, even though he supports such "green" measures.

At this point, there's only one "candidate" who is talking about doing both offshore drilling and pursuing alternative energy policies: Paris Hilton.

John McCain touched off a furor last week when he couldn't remember how many houses he owns.

The answer is seven.

His wealth, of course, is largely tied to that of his wife Cindy, whose father founded a lucrative Budweiser distributorship.

Together, the net worth of the McCain couple is some $140 million. Obama's is just over $1 million. But the guy who wins the poor guy sweepstakes is Joe Biden, worth a paltry $150 THOUSAND. And by many accounts, Biden's everyman lifestyle was a key factor in why 0bama chose him to be his running mate.

After all, the McCain camp has had some success branding Obama as both an elitist and celebrity, suggesting he's not just like the rest of us.

And recent political history has shown that the elitist tag can hurt. Remember George H.W. Bush, who didn't have a clue about price scanners, much less the price of milk?

And John Kerry, the WINDSURFER? His culinary gaffes were many -- he went to a Midwest diner and ordered green tea. And even worse, he ordered a Philly cheese steak with Swiss cheese, instead of Cheez Whiz.

They both lost.

So how important is a candidate's wealth? Tell us what you think.

From AllThingsD, Aug. 26, 2008:

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) wrapped up its acquisition of technology services giant Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS), the company’s largest purchase since the $20 billion merger former HP CEO Carly Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq Computers six years ago.

Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as rancorous.

Valued at $13.9 billion when it was first announced, the deal will more than double the size of HP’s consulting and outsourcing business. It will likely do the same to the $16.6 billion in revenue from services the company made in 2007 as well.

When the dust has settled around the merger, HP will be the second-largest provider of consulting and outsourcing services, behind IBM (IBM). But it will take some doing to get there. “It’s a very significant combination,” Gartner’s (IT) Ben Pring said when the deal was announced back in May. “[But] people who are skeptical of big integrations will have a field day around this. It’s putting together two large businesses with two different heritages. It’s going to be a big culture clash.”

But if HP manages to pull it off? Well, as Fiorina would likely tell you, bigger is better if you can do it right.

“It’s somewhat amusing because we’ve seen this play before. I think this is sort of further evidence that HP really does see value at scale basically, at size,” Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said back in May. “One of the things we’ve seen very clearly over the last couple years is that Carly really had the right idea, she just couldn’t execute on it. She wasn’t wrong for saying HP needed to be bigger, effectively,” said Haff. “If (the merger) does go through we’re going to end up with an HP that looks a lot like Carly wanted it to look.”

Hedge funds used to be seen as a license to print money, but 2008 is shaping up to be the year the bubble burst. Earlier this month, former CNBC anchor Ron Insana folded Insana Capital Partners, the hedge fund he launched in 2006, while superstar investor Dan Benton announced that he's shuttering his $2 billion hedge fund Andor Capital Management in October.

Our guest, New York Times M&A reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, detailed Insana's travails on his DealBook blog, and goes into the finer points of the rash of hedge fund failures in the accompanying video.

Fox News snubbed MySpace, its corporate parent's social networking site, in favor of rival Facebook this week, which says a lot about that ailing News Corp. property. Nevertheless, it continues to extend its lead in the United States: According to comScore, MySpace attracted 75 million unique visitors here in July, up 2.5 million from June.

So who are all these MySpace users? According to our guest and my colleague, Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider, bands and people looking for their music continue to flock to the network, which is valued at somewhere between $3 billion and $6 billion. Apparently that's not good enough for News Corp. oligarch Rupert Murdoch, who's made noise about selling or redeploying the site he paid $580 million for in 2005.

In the accompanying video, Peter and I discuss whether such a move makes sense, as well as how Murdoch can make another of his underperforming properties, the Fox Business Network, pay off.

Two disparate events -- the Beijing Olympics and the Russian invasion of Georgia -- are just the latest examples of what Financial Times U.S. managing editor Chrystia Freeland calls a "new age of authoritarianism." Apparently, the end of the Cold War as signaled by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 wasn't quite as complete as the West had hoped.

In the accompanying video, Freeland explains how oil wealth bolsters neo-authoritarian regimes, and how such dependence makes countries like Russia and Venezuela vulnerable. We also discuss what this means for U.S. investors (many of whom turned a blind eye to the run-up to Georgia), as well as how foreign companies can continue to do business with Putin's Russia without simply providing spoils for its kleptocrats.

A new Zogby poll puts John McCain ahead of Barack Obama by 5 points, and that's troubling news not just for supporters of the senator from Illinois. Our guest Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times, says Russia's leaders have reason to fear a McCain presidency as well: McCain has never been under Russia's spell, and has verbally sided with Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili for some time.

Beyond the Russian "neo-authoritarians," though, Obama is the popular choice for most Europeans, Freeland says. Just as Russia's occupation of Georgia has tarnished that country's global reputation, she says the war in Iraq has cost the United States the moral high ground worldwide.

A nation's economy is suffering from a weak currency, high fuel costs and an overly indebted consumer, which is rapidly losing confidence as job growth stalls. Sound familiar?

Yes, South Korea is battling many of the same ills as America, made worse by its nearly 100% reliance on imported energy and proximity to intensifying competition from Chinese manufacturing.

"I would like to just encourage the Korean people and the public to hang in there for the next year of so along with the government and we will do all that we can to try to improve the overall situation here in Korea," President Myung-bak Lee told me in an exclusive interview at his residence, the Blue House.

A former CEO of Hyundai Construction, President Lee is an avid believer in free trade and deregulation, and is putting a "high priority" on reforming Korea's tax system and related regulations, including those restricting foreign investment.

President Lee believes such changes will help Korea be better positioned for the recovery, paving the way for the nation to reach his ambitious 10 year goals he refers to as the '747' plan: 7% GDP growth, $40,000 in average household income, and becoming the world's seventh-largest economy.