[FatOtt]

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As for not thinking about about value, nothing could be further from the truth...see the post above...I dont believe that the value differs markedly at any time from the price, and thats not an accident.

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Do you recognize the implication? If the price is always roughly equal to the value, there's no point in buying shares. If the price is "fair", that price anticipates the possibly superior investment returns of Warren Buffett. You should only be buying if you think the price isn't roughly equal to the value.

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The other 2 advantages that he has are the float from his insurance operations, acquired at almost zero cost

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Take a look at the last 5 years of underwriting results - it's anything but "almost zero cost" because of Gen Re's horrible record.

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Why cant you get him to manage all your money for 2% a year? Surely it will only cost you what you pay to acquire the shares? Have I misunderstood something here thats peculiar to the US?

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Do you really not understand this? Here's an analogy: Warren Buffett is going to manage $1,000 for you (at some acceptable expense, let's say 1% per year). That would be fantastic if you could just give him $1,000 and let him go. The problem is that it costs far more because you're not writing the check for $1,000, you're writing the check for whatever the share price is trading at. So if the stock is overvalued, you may be paying $3,000 for the privilege of managing only $1,000. If this still doesn't make sense to you, at a minimum you should understand the difference between "regular" mutual funds and closed-end funds and figure out how that applies to this situation.