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Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

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Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#181

Post by newbie578 »

kinnth wrote: post #37
heresie-dabord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still, end of an era. That is an enormous understatement. At 94, Buffet has witnessed history and has represented a vision of betterment, a just society, and sound economic stewardship. These things were not and are not hallucinations. But for many, it seems, the lessons about co-operation, stable economic growth. the sane application of democratic principles, and the rule of law must be learned again. It's the end…

Buffet reminded me a lot of Angela Merkel. They stood clearly and simply for good moral judgment, fair systems and looked at the bigger picture to carry most people forward. They also based all their decision in facts, truth and science. They learn't their trades (economics & politics) over time and weren't afraid to adapt as times changed. Their slow and steady presence did more for equality and fairness than many o…

I cannot believe that there are people praising Merkel with a straight face. She is literally a laughing stock in Europe, I put her as the poster boy for immigration crisis together with the energy crisis. The only thing she did was shove problems further in the future not caring about the consequences.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#182

Post by yupitsme123 »

epolanski wrote: post #153
chrisco255 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you balance the trade, it means reduced foreign ownership of U.S. assets, yes, which means ownership of U.S. assets by domestic citizens will increase. One of the primary problems with an unbalanced trade deficit is that your own inhabitants are left with less wealth over time, as assets are sold off to fund consumption.

Why would it even be desirable to have less foreign ownership of US assets? Like what is the sound logic here? As an Italian I would love more foreign ownership of Italian businesses, that would not only bring capital but more scrutiny.

The extreme opposite of zero foreign ownership would be full foreign ownerhship, ie. colonization. All your resources and wealth belong to a foreign nation.

If we agree that that's a bad thing, then it stands to reason that there's a certain point where foreign ownership becomes a bad thing.

I think China has done an excellent job of bringing in foreign investment while keeping those foreign investors from running amok.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#183

Post by austhrow743 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #168
WalterBright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uniquely privileged position? The only unique thing about America is free markets. Any country can become highly successful by enacting free markets. The only thing in the way is their disbelief that they work. There's a common thread across the world and history. The more free market a country is, the more it prospers.

> The only unique thing about America is free markets Is that unique to America? I'm in EU, I thought we had free markets too. > The more free market a country is, the more it prospers. Some countries, including the US, reached prosperity by protecting their markets.

One of the biggest “services” expenses, i think maybe the biggest, comes in the form of employees.

Afaik the EU is regulated much more heavily in that area than the US, like here in Australia.

It makes sense to me that some amount of the US’ economic advantage comes from their ability to more efficiently match employees with the work currently demanded by the market.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#184

Post by vmurthy »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #43
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #16

I always run across great quotes from Warren Buffett, but I never spent any time actually reading any of his writings or anything written about him. What's the best place to start to absorb some of his wisdom? Anything that's applicable to startups, tech, and life in general, beyond being the CEO of a holding company?

Honestly his ex wifes book about how he reads 10k reports is really good. Cant remember the name.

If you’re talking about Mary Buffett, it is his ex daughter-in-law. How to read financial reports like Warren Buffett is the book (I think)

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#185

Post by yupitsme123 »

nabla9 wrote: post #116
johntarter wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a problem to Warren Buffet and he used a parable in the past to explain the issue: A perpetuation of this transfer will lead to major trouble. To understand why, take a wildly fanciful trip with me to two isolated, side-by-side islands of equal size, Squanderville and Thriftville. Land is the only capital asset on these islands, and their communities are primitive, needing only food and producing only food. Wo…

The failure of this parable is the assuming that money that comes in to Squanderville is spent on consumption. In reality people in Thriftville invest money in Squanderville and that money grows new sectors other than manufacturing while the share of manufacturing as GDP declines everywhere.

If they're the "investors" then aren't they also the equity owners? Yes they're growing new sectors, but they own the profits of those sectors, not the people in Squanderville, who have no capital left to invest. Hence the "colonization" analogy in the parable.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#187

Post by nojito »

nabla9 wrote: post #73
dehrmann wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of his accomplishments, but read his quotes and story as being a product of his time. He famously missed out on a lot of solid tech investments because of his background as a value investor. Value investing doesn't exist the same way it did when Berkshire started making a name for itself. Tech investing also isn't them same as 1997, 2004, or 2010.

Berkshire has outperformed Nasdaq and SP500 from the IPO (May 9, 1996), 10y, 5y, 1y time periods and he has now $340B in cash. All this with low risk holding lots of cash. He has not missed anything.

His only miss was actually buying Berkshire. He estimates that he lost out on well over $200B had he never bought Berkshire.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#188

Post by Flatcircle »

deeg wrote: post #186

Conventional wisdom (which I believe) is that long term individual investors do not beat the market. However, from my mostly-uniformed view, Buffett did exactly that. What was his "secret"? Did he build most of his wealth outside the market?

Charlie Munger used to talk about how easy it used to be because there was so much less competition and the competition wasn't that smart. Think by the 70's once they figured out how to accurately price options with the Black-Scholes model things started to ramp up. By that point, Buffett was already a player and had the funds to make moves.

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#189

Post by willhslade »

neom wrote: post #131
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tens of thousands protested around her office Germany has a population of 84 million people. 10,000 should not be able to dictate a policy decision of this magnitude, regardless of how loud they are. > Nuclear is complicated (and mostly fear driven) The politics of nuclear are complicated, the science (more engineering) of nuclear are complicated, the imperative is clear and simple. You are correct that it's mostly…

We've been running nuclear here in Canada for over 80 years now. CANDU is very safe and not very complicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

Did you know about this? https://thewalrus.ca/nuclear-accidents/

Re: Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire

#190

Post by epolanski »

chrisco255 wrote: post #176
epolanski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What's the issue, if me, an Italian, own land in Indiana or North Cali?

You, a single actor, probably wouldn't be a significant factor. However, an international government or corporate entity owning hundreds of thousands of acres and exploiting resources on the land and routing them back to their home country can be problematic. It places additional strain on limited resources and the profits are not spent in the local economy...just sent overseas. Absentee ownership of non-productive r…

I see it completely opposite of you.

1) The foreign entity is investing where Americans aren't.

2) There is a very huge risk for the foreign entity to own such an operation because of political changes. By law or decree the US or the state can always nationalize these lands.

Thus, ultimately, I see no issue there.

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