The recession took a nasty toll on NetJets, one of Warren Buffett's holdings. While the company made a profit of $207 million in 2010, it lost $711 million the year before, Bloomberg reported.

NetJets owns a fleet of business aircraft and lets customers buy hours of flight time. With the economy picking up steam, Buffet apparently feels that demand for his aircrafts will also grow.

Last Friday Warren Buffett said he was anxious to pull the trigger on another large deal -- having only recently completed the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A and BRK.B) acquisition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Since then, prognosticators far and wide have been making suggestions about his next possible moves.

Considering I wrote about the railroads the day before the BNSF announcement, I thought I would share a few ideas, old and new.

Having accepted a speaking engagement at a university school of business recently, I had to think about what introductory information I could impart to the students about investing that would be practical, immediately useful and establish a foundation for whatever direction their paths might lead. This was supposed to be the first in a series. However, since I pull no punches and can be a little edgy in my candor and presentation, who knew if I would be invited back?

My outline had five basic elements. The first thing I told them was to start now!

I have always felt that for all the blabbing we do -- or blogging, in my case -- we should try as best we can to be accountable for our good and bad calls. This report is long overdue, but I will post it anyway since all of my past year's picks and results have been made public.

The market was very harsh in the early part of 2009, filling investors fear and trepidation, and sinking to a March 9, 2009 bottom. Perhaps some of the bleeding has stopped, but the economy has not healed as bears and bulls seem to carry the day, or every other day.

Warren Buffett decided to stock up on Tesco (TSCO) shares earlier this week, MarketWatch reported this morning. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) purchased roughly 2 million additional shares, boosting to group's stake in the British supermarket past 3%.

Buffett's decision comes two weeks after the company announced a succession plan, naming Philip Clarke as chief executive effective in March. In addition, Tesco released first-quarter earnings a week ago, receiving a mixed reaction from analysts as same-store sales were mostly flat.

Voltaire said, "Common sense is not so common" and George Bernard Shaw commented that having " ...enough of it was genius."

This reminds me of Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) or Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. (AAPL) that have both displayed plenty of the former and arrived at the latter in their business pursuits.

Derivatives like Collateral Debt Obligations, or CDO's, and Credit Default Swaps, get their value from something else entirely: total hype in an environment of smoke and mirrors.

It turns out that if you build layer upon layer of derivatives until you have no idea what the original underlying value truly is, it becomes so convoluted that a genius can't comprehend it at all. It is self evident that nobody could even determine all the counter-party risk.

The following article was contributed via Seed.com, AOL's new platform for freelance writers.

Warren Buffett is one of the few investors in the world that has consistently succeeded where others failed. Part of his success is due to his common sense approach to the stock market. Investors have mocked Buffett for his old fashioned approach to investing when he sat out the dot com era bubble. But Buffett had the last laugh when others lost out during the bust.

Buffett also managed to largely avoid the major losses investors faced when they invested in securities dependent on subprime lending practices. In fact, he managed to profit from it.

Here are some principles Warren Buffett follows and investors would be wise to model:

Yesterday it was announced very loudly that "my pal Warren" was going to acquire the 77.4% of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) railroad, that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) does not already own, for $100 per share, offering about a $24 premium to Mondays closing price.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is -- yikes! Buffett has gone all in, betting the economy is healing, and silencing anyone that questioned his integrity or motives for cautious optimism saying it was all talk!

Here's the latest PM dose of happy doom. Tyler over at ZeroHedge points out that CDS (credit default spreads) on Berkshire Hathaway are hitting all time highs, implying that the risks Berkshire's (NYS: BRK.B) robust cash machine could break down (and even default at some point) are rising fast. Piqqem Sentiment on Berkshire B-class shares is negative, natch, after Buffett's recent mea culpa for losing money last year. If Buffett has lost his mojo, then does anyone have any magic left?

Late last year my colleague Joseph Lazzaro posted a story about NYU's 'Dr. Doom' Roubini: Stocks may fall another 20% during recession. That has to make one take pause when considering an investment in the stock market today, even after a major drop retesting November lows this week. On the other hand, Warren Buffett went out of his way to encourage the investing public and money managers alike that it was safe to go back into the market.

However, today it has been widely reported that Buffett sold off half of his holdings in Johnson & Johnson and trimmed his stake in Procter & Gamble.

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) CEO Warren Buffett has swooped in to buy $300 million of Harley Davidson (NYSE: HOG) distressed debt. And Harley will pay through the nose for Buffett's generosity. That's because Berkshire will get 15% interest on the senior unsecured notes. I guess Buffett likes wallowing in the mud.

Harley is suffering from the downturn and Buffett sees himself getting a great deal on the debt of a company that will ultimately survive. As I posted, Harley's fourth-quarter profit fell 58% due to weaker demand for its motorcycles. The net income of $77.8 million, or 34 cents a share, was the lowest quarterly profit in nine years. Harley will cut 1,100 jobs and close three plants to save $60 million a year. 70% of the firings will take place in 2009 and the rest in 2010.

But Harley stock is up on the news. Frankly that 15% interest rate tells me just how risky Harley is. And I am sure it needs the cash badly if it's willing to pay such a high interest rate. It must be great to be Buffett.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book is You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Never mind the $2.83 billion dollar loss -- investors are pushing Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) up $4.00 per share (20%) at 11:30 EST to above $20 for the first time in a couple of weeks. This is particularly amusing to me after 'my pal Warren' took some heat from Barron's (subscription required) only a few days ago for being the largest shareholder on a sinking ship.

AP excerpt: Wells Fargo said today that it swung to a $2.83 billion loss in the fourth quarter as it took significant charges to reduce its exposure to the risky assets of Wachovia and built up its reserves to cover future losses.

"We wanted to make sure that as much of the risk of the balance sheet as we could was reduced when we start on this new, wonderful organization," said Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins in an interview with The Associated Press. While this hurt the bottom line in the fourth quarter, Atkins said, it will have the effect of strengthening the company going forward.

Since the stock market is down so much I have been buying something in the fourth quarter almost every week. I have been patient and have been expanding my watch list. The difficulty for me is that I feel like almost everything is on sale -- but is everything a bargain?

Maybe not; maybe I'm delusional. Perhaps that is because I am tuned into another time and place when I would have been dancing in the streets if I were able to acquire Anglo American ADR (NASDAQ: AAUK) or General Electric (NYSE: GE) for pennies on the dollar. Maybe that is all these stocks are worth? That is what Wall Street currently thinks. That is what Main Street currently thinks. There is a lot more bad news than good.

Then why is Warren Buffett buying, and Carl Icahn and Ken Heebner? After all, I'm just following in their shadows.

The reason is that most investors are simply focused on all the bad news. That is what has most folks' attention and that is making the market -- bankruptcies, billions of dollars in losses, government out of control, Wall Street out of control and more. There is also serious fear things will get worse. If you lost money in the stock market (all of us), or lost your job or your house or any combination of the above, then things look bleak and for now they are. However, we should not be investing for now; we should be investing for the future.

Consider the following elements that support a recovery in the next year. I do not mean a boom, just a recovery -- just a more positive investing environment.

1) By spring it is estimated the government will have poured $2 trillion dollars into an economy of $13 trillion over a 12-month period. Not only is this a market stimulus, but it may prove to be highly inflationary, and if so equities are a better place to be then cash.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed isn't the only foreign investor giving a vote of confidence to struggling Citigroup (NYSE: C). Mexican-based Inbursa bank, controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, recently took a significant stake in the company, spending about $150 million to buy 29 million Citigroup shares, according to published reports.

Citigroup's stock price had been under significant pressure in recent weeks, which was later exacerbated when it announced that it would cut 53,000 jobs. Last week, shares dropped below $5 for the first time since 1994. But late Sunday, the government announced that it would give the bank an additional $20 billion and would absorb up to $300 billion in potential losses, a model some experts should be used to deal with other struggling institutions. The move also seems to be sitting well with investors including Slim, marked by a 60% jump earlier this week.

But Citi isn't the only company that Slim, one of the richest men in the world, has had his eyes on. Regulatory filings show that he recently boosted his stake in luxury retailer Saks (NYSE: SKS), buying nearly 7.6 million shares of the company over a four-day period. Saks is one of many luxury retailers suffering during the economic turmoil as even the rich cut down on spending. But with Slim's move, he is now the company's largest shareholder.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) stock has fallen 26% this year to a low not seen since February 2007. That does not sound great, but compared to the S&P's 42% drop so far in 2008, Buffett looks relatively good.

Buffett has been in the news quite a bit lately. His biography tops the business book best seller list and he's been flogger-in-chief for the administration's $810 billion bailout plan -- since it was signed into law, the NYSE index has lost $3.8 trillion of its market capitalization. He's also been trying the cheer-lead America into buying stocks.

But I am wondering whether all this cheer-leading was part of the deal that allowed him to get 10% interest payments and warrants to buy The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) and General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) a few weeks ago -- their stocks are well below the $115 and $22.25 a share exercise prices on those warrants. Along with his painful loss of wealth, Buffett's reputation has taken somewhat of a tumble as a result of his getting out in front of what now looks like a bad bailout approach.