What power would BRK have with a more combined purchasing organization given its size? Health, legal, HR, accounting, on and on .......

Having worked with captive systems at Westinghouse, I would argue strenuously against this, or at least a super*well thought plan before doing any of this.

We had a captive system of IT (in the broadcasting division) which was far more cumbersome than off-the-shelf systems available to the rest of the radio/tv world. It may have interfaced better with the Electric Company, but that was little benefit (and in fact often costly) to those of us in the trenches.

Likewise we were hampered by HR concerns of importance to shipyards and turbine generators, but not so much to putting on the Mike Douglas show.

I’m not saying there might not be some savings around the edges, or perhaps even staring in plain sight, just that one should be careful about thinking you can send a legal issue from Pilot Travel Centers up to lawyers who mostly work on See’s Candy contracts. (Exaggeration for effect.)