Looking back at his performance during the global financial crisis of the past two years, Warren Buffett tells the Wall Street Journal, "We didn't do all the smartest things. We didn't do anything really dumb." Buffett admits that he could have done better if he waited until the stock market bottomed in March of this year, but he's happy with the Goldman Sachs [GS 166.00 --- UNCH (0) ] and General Electric deals [GE 15.92 --- UNCH (0) ] he agreed to in September and October of 2008. "I made plenty of mistakes. I didn't maximize the opportunities offered by the chaos. But in the end, it worked out OK." That's because he avoided making a number of deals offered to him that could have proven disasterous. Plus, rejecting all those offers left him with the ammunition to make his biggest deal ever, last month's announced $26 billion acquisition of railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe [BNI 98.58 --- UNCH (0) ].