Here, I'll get that.
Warren Buffett was born on 30 August 1930. Charlie Munger was born on 1 January 1924. So Buffett's almost 79 and Munger's 85.
Off the top of my head, here's a few other financial guys who are ER failures:
Schloss: 92.
Kerkorian: 92.
Redstone: 86.
Murdock: 85.
Pickens: 81.
Li Ka-Shing: 80.
What does thumb sucking represent--a refusal to move on to the next stage of your life? In that case it might be equivalent to working into your 90s.
Buffett's thumb-sucking comment refers to his feeling/intuition that he should be doing something but, for whatever reason, failing to think the rest of the way through the issue, making a decision, and then acting on it.
So for him it could be as simple as a regret that he didn't invest in Intel back when it was a startup, or wishing that he'd sold his Coke shares back in 1998-9. Other regrets have been more complicated, like buying USAir shares in the 1980s or loading up on silver or buying into Salomon.
I think it's fair to point out that Buffett has acquired the knowledge and the experience to recognize when he should be doing something with an investment. Most of us will be lucky to ever get to that point, and that's why he recommends index funds for most of us.
I think Buffett is also carefully cultivating an image of how he runs Berkshire Hathaway. "Thumb-sucking" is one of those poignant phrases that makes him seem so endearingly human (Business Week calls it "so homespun it hurts") to distract the public from the way that he relentlessly [-]gouges the hell out of desperate companies and governments[/-] seeks value. Advocating an additional stimulus program by referring to the government's existing stimulus program as "half a Viagra tablet" is another [-]backhanded compliment[/-] homily endorsement.