FORTUNE — After five rounds of voting, with 32 contenders over the course of one week, the people have spoken, and they have called for the Oracle. The winner of Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year, reader’s 
Last year, the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) chairman and CEO told Fortune that readers may have chosen him because he suggested that America’s wealthy should pay a higher percentage of their income in federal taxes than they did at the time. He still thinks so, as he told CNN this year.
Buffett, who is No. 19 on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year list this year, has remained optimistic about the American economy and the manufacturing sector. In the third quarter of 2012, he invested in machinery-maker Deere & Company (DE), a company called Precision Castparts (PCP) that makes nuts and bolts, and automobile brake-maker Wabco (WBC).
Buffett has also said that he doubts the country will fall off of the looming fiscal cliff, the housing market will recover, and that President Obama could very well create millions of jobs over his next four-year term. Let it be so!
