New Recession Villain: Warren Buffett's Cell Phone

If Warren Buffett knew how to use his cell phone, the financial world might be in better shape, blogs Karen Tumulty of Time. Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed last year, a Barclays executive attempting to rescue the firm with an assist from Buffett left a message on the Oracle of Omaha's phone. Problem is, Buffett never got the message—until 10 months later, when he noticed the blinking indicator and asked his daughter to figure it out.

"Lehman Brothers might not have gone under, seriously," writes Tumulty. She caught up with Buffett—who had asked the Barclays exec to send a fax, for obvious reasons—and asked him if he would have agreed to the deal. "He pulled the simple little Samsung phone out of his pocket and pondered it for a moment," then suggested he just might have done so. "I don't know," he said.
(More Warren Buffett stories.)