A lot of people seem to believe an opportunity loss is equivalent to a real world loss, and can justify legal action, retribution, all kinds of bad. I've never understood this, and it makes me happy because Buffett and I could not be futher apart politically and philosophically in other ways (unless I am mistaken he wasn't an overt fan of the welfare state. I'd be delighted if he included that in a model of public finance utility function stuff)