How Much Has Berkshire Earnings Been Growing?

In 2001 when we suffered significant insurance losses to the 9-11 we actually were in the red in terms of operating earnings and you'll notice the figures are very irregular. Over time by adding new subsidiaries by further developing the businesses we have their earnings have moved up in a very irregular fashion quite substantially I put in also the capital gains we've achieved through investments and derivatives and they total some 32 billion dollars after tax close to 50 billion pre-tax those are not important in any given year that those numbers can go all over the place. The main advantage from my standpoint in that 32 billion dollars is it gives us money to buy other businesses what we really want to focus onWhat we hope is that