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Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

gatesnotes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#141

Post by [deleted] »

hyperpallium wrote: post #88
hxta98596 wrote: post #29

It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world. Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause. With that said and not to diminish the goo…

Instead of corporate or national concerns, his view is global. This is the perspective of the king of the world - or god. Like Rockefeller, everyone loves him (now). Lots of people work for his vision, perhaps more than as MS ceo. No taxes. For the richest man in the world, it's possibly the only step up.

[deleted]

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#142

Post by aczerepinski »

hxta98596 wrote: post #29

It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world. Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause. With that said and not to diminish the goo…

Also, Buffett's gift is still inspiring to me 10 years later. The world's richest man never spent his enormous fortune other than living a normal upper middle class lifestyle. He not only decided to give away all the money, but is doing so without the typical pursuit of marking his name in stone on every building in the world. He didn't even create a charity in his name. Very possible that the Gates foundation will live on for many decades and Buffett won't mind that his name isn't strongly linked to it.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#143

Post by douche »

Locke1689 wrote: post #114
imron wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he had done absolutely nothing with his dad's money, except park it in an index fund, he'd be 4 times richer. That's actually not correct. He says he got a $1,000,000 loan in 1975. The Fortune article picks a time 13 years after his first loan, and coincidentally at the start of a bull market. I'm not sure how that comparison is valid. See a more thorough analysis here: https://dqydj.com/donald-trump-beat-sp-500…

Except that all the numbers on his net worth are based just on his word and he's clearly a serial liar. Interestingly, I think the fact that he's quite stupid may be how he succeeded at the presidential election. An intelligent, principled person would have a vision and philosophy that guides their actions. When questioned on details or specifics they would use their philosophy to arrive at a reasoned answer. Trump h…

The cognitive dissonance is just breathtaking.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#144

Post by johnsea »

woodandsteel wrote: post #82
johnsea wrote: post #17

Nice On the opposite number side, I hope they can help to find ways to reduce the population growth. It is unsustainable, especially in Africa and Arabic countries. (Pity one cannot just implement a China-like one child policy:))

You didn't read the link, did you. I say that because one of its topics is promoting contraception. Or perhaps you did read the link, and decided to pretend that it hadn't talked about contraception.

Of course I did. I'm just not sure if the link 'child_mortality->lower_birthrate|ending_poverty' and/or 'Africa|Some_Arabic_country->getting_richer->lower_birthrate' will work strong enough and come soon enough if at all.

Some of this I heard since the 80ties.

Currently I think it's more a cultural, religious and bad governance thing. And unfortunately I see 'no market incentives' which could fix that.

Why are e.g. oil-rich countries like Nigeria and Irak not able to provide good life for a large middle class of citiziens? What could be done? (I have no idea - what I see though is that China improved living conditions for hundreds of millions of citizens, it's likely singular but maybe some things could be learned?)

For me not the 122 Mio children saved should be at the top but - what they also do - tackle the 'too many Homo sapiens' issue.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#145

Post by johnsea »

willvarfar wrote: post #123
harshreality wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like he's assuming changing one of these changes all: child mortality == poverty == lack of education == large families High fertility rates, poverty, low education, lack of affordable birth control, child mortality... these and other things cluster together. What's causing what? If you found a genie and wished for an end to kids dying in Africa, with no intervention in any other parameters, how much do you rea…

The harsh reality is that Hans spent his life trying to educate people and get them draw conclusions from data instead of repeating their prejudices.

Sorry, but the harsh reality is that data (models) not always work. Especially for complex things. Remember 'The Limits to Growth'?

His videos are certainly well made. Motion Charts let you visualize/see numbers nicely and help popularize certain insights. But don't be too hasty with conclusions. Much didn't work in the past. Or was know already but knowledge alone doesn't mean that it can be implemented.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#146

Post by hackly »

mvp wrote: post #132
woodandsteel wrote: post #83

You know, we get a fair number of commenters here at HN who are cynical about the world, who say everyone with any power is corrupt, things are getting worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. Whenever someone like that shows up, perhaps we can refer them to this letter.

I doubt that'll work. Once we develop a cynical view of the world, it's quite easy to see the negative side of everything. Just for example, take the biggest benefit claimed in the letter of 122 million children saved. It seems to suggest that it's because of their work. Has nobody else anywhere , including those in the affected countries done anything to save the children. Why do they or anybody think that all of th…

To your first point, if a cynic prefers to credit more than a single foundation or individual for those gains, then that must be so benevolent of them to think so well of a greater number of people. Let us all be cynics then.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#147

Post by pjmorris »

xapata wrote: post #93
pjmorris wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, anyone with over a Billion dollars is more like an insider than an outsider. Probably anybody over ~4 Million, actually.

If you conflate "insider" with economic class, there's no benefit to using the term anymore.

It is very fair to say that there is a class of people of various professions who have a great deal of influence but not a great deal of money. To what degree would you buy my notion that most of those people work for people in a higher economic class? Where do you see decisions being made independent of (or out of proportion to) their economic impact?

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#148

Post by hans0l074 »

I was wondering today after reading this - what are the statistics on the next stages of the lives of these children? Saving their lives is, undoubtedly, the most important thing anyone can do. I think it's also important to see that they continue to have good lives well into adulthood (perhaps even learning about the frameworks that helped them survive as a baby?). In countries like India (where I'm originally from), child mortality rates have improved, but there seems to be this gravity well made of a mixture of superstition, religion, illiteracy, caste-based nonsense that is difficult to escape from. And this does not help translate this victory into winning the long-term war on poverty.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#149

Post by wallace_f »

oblio wrote: post #133
wallace_f wrote: post #97

It is an envious position to be in where you can positively impact such an incomprehensible number of human lives in the best of ways. It's incredibly heart warming how many people have been saved by the Gates Foundation. Although, the realist in me worries about the possibility that in the long-run, civil liberties and human rights are also of importance to humanity in saving human lives, and human dignity. Without…

Read the article...: > Warren, your gift doubled the foundation’s resources. It’s allowed us to expand our work in US education, support smallholder farmers, and create financial services for the poor. But in this letter, we’re going to tell you about our work in global health—because that was the starting point of our philanthropy, and it’s the majority of what we do.

Read my comment.... > civil and human rights abuses

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#150

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

WalterBright wrote: post #128
Nomentatus wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compilers were one thing they didn't bundle. Whether they let you know everything about their operating system they knew is quite another matter. We now know there was no "Chinese Wall" between OS dev and app dev. Then toss in FUD for good measure, OED contracts that got them a DOJ consent decree for illegal activity and more...

I'm familiar with the famous IE "bundling" thing that the case revolved around. Microsoft gave away IE for free. How this was supposedly different from Microsoft giving away a long list of other tools, like a text editor, escapes me. As for me, I started with Netscape (free). I switched to IE (free) because IE crashed less often. I eventually switched to Chrome (free) because IE hung accessing github. Every operating…

Absolutely spot on. How an average user was expected to download an "alternative browser" without having a browser pre-installed was beyond me. The whole "browser choice" prompt was a farce.

This is before we get into the part about removing Windows Media Player from some EU releases...

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