Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders [pdf]

Post by riffic » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

oli5679 wrote: post #101

wz1000 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the big boost was started by the industrial revolution Exactly. Now, lets look at some of the causes of the first Industrial Revolution First, large tracts of lands in Britain, largely held in the commons, were stolen from the peasantry and given to private individuals and landlords, as part of the Enclosure movement. This forced the peasants to look for work in cities en masse, providing cheap labor for the capita…

Your first point is interesting. People gloss over how disruptive the industrial Revolution was, and the downward pressure it put on the wages of farm workers. I'm not convinced by your second one. Why didn't states like Portugal industrialise equally quickly? Or within America, why didn't states with more slaves grow faster? Germany has no history of slavery, and the same is true for modern industrialisation transit…

  Germany has no history of slavery

Post by austenallred » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #217

austenallred wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I don't know if it's accurate that the United States wouldn't exist without slavery. I wish we could accurately run simulations; a lot of variables.

Try running it without the centuries of british and european progress and see what you end up with.

Post by simonh » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

dsacco wrote: post #17

There's one particular passage I'd like to point out, on page 5: Our efforts to materially increase the normalized earnings of Berkshire will be aided – as they have been throughout our managerial tenure – by America’s economic dynamism. One word sums up our country’s achievements: miraculous. From a standing start 240 years ago – a span of time less than triple my days on earth – Americans have combined human ingenu…

Post by mcguire » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

all_usernames wrote: post #113

thedevil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think it's important to remember these atrocities, I think that for economic understanding it's important to note that these were not the major drivers of growth. Remember that atrocities like that happened in many places that did not grow into giant economies. Stealing land and enslaving people may have given a head start, but clearly something else delivered the big gains. If you look at the history and the…

> for economic understanding it's important to note that these were not the major drivers of growth. Two hundred years of slavery was not a major driver of economic growth? Edit: Serious question, rephrased: do economic historians really not consider slavery a major driver of growth? If so, that would be highly counterintuitive. We're talking about the free labor of ~10 million people over two centuries, in an econom…

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 9:10 PM UTC

Shubley wrote: post #143

wokky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't often see this sort of pride in America. Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado... I'd go even further: our current presidential administration spends a lot of energy telling us that America sucks because the people in it suck, the government they built sucks, and the ideals they aspire to suck, and that the solution is to deal out cruelty to the right kinds of peopl…

>the people in it suck, the government they built sucks, and the ideals they aspire to suck, and that the solution is to deal out cruelty to the right kinds of people. Amazing reality inversion. Trump never said anything like any of these. He has said politicians and the political class suck. Not 'Americans'. Hillary and others on that side consistently say Americans suck (deplorables), US traditional culture is evil…