If the Board of Directors initiates a dividend policy it is not subject to a shareholder vote. Eventually I think that BRK will approach capital allocation in the same manner that KMI (Rich Kinder) is doing.

- pay a dividend that they raise by a small amount each year (BRK's dividend will be nowhere close to the payout % that KMI has)

- repurchase shares when it is opportunistic to do so

- if the ROI meets their criteria invest $ in the current businesses (expansion, bolt on acquisitions, etc.)

The biggest difference is that KMI is not going to do an acquisition that unrelated to their current business whereas BRK can buy anything they want to.

For whatever reason a lot of people still think that in the event of a decent sized market decline BRK will be able to acquire high quality businesses. Good luck with that. If the stock of a high quality business has had a sizable decline the last thing that their management team wants to do is to sell the business. They are most likely to be interested in selling when the stock is at or near the 52 week (or all time) high and the acquirer is offering a premium.

Another thing that boggles the mind is the thought process that BRK can only buy a large company....otherwise it "won't move the needle." If BRK had purchased 1 or 2 quality companies per year in the $5-20 billion rane over the past 10 years would that not cumulatively have moved the needle? And in the event one of the acquisitions was a poor performer (can we say, Precision Castparts) it would not be a big deal especially if the other new pick ups had done well.