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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

#291

Post by arrosenberg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #271
arrosenberg wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. A pragmatist would have been more sympathetic for reasons beyond pure capitalist economics.

> Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. No, they aren't. It's dubious that even the widening relative gap between the working class and the capitalist class plays a major role, though that at least has the virtue of being a real condition and not a fantasy.

If you have an alternative hypothesis, I’m all ears. The lack of good paying jobs and the knock on effects of expanding wealth disparity seems to be underlying most of the issues driving radicalism, left and right, up and down.

In America, at least, workers think tomorrow will be worse than today and they are resorting to populism to try and reverse the trend.

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

#292

Post by teaearlgraycold »

linotype wrote: post #239
arrosenberg wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. A pragmatist would have been more sympathetic for reasons beyond pure capitalist economics.

I just don’t buy this argument. By global standards, even the poorest Americans (with obvious exceptions like the homeless) are relatively wealthy. Comparison is the theft of joy.

Well it would be one thing if it were an inevitable natural conclusion. But working people are getting poorer because the owner class is hoarding wealth. It’s simply unjust. It’s the difference between losing your house to a hurricane and having someone burn it down.

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

#293

Post by enjo »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #261
paulpauper wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munger was still going strong at 99, good genes both of them, i guess

I met a lady in her 90s who looks and acts the same age as her daughter, who is in her 60s. She lives independently, talks quickly, walks without a cane, and has a generally youthful appearance and demeanor. I asked what her secret is to aging so well. "I don't know, just don't have any health issues, I guess", she said. Maybe if you can make it that long without encountering Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, heart d…

Maybe. But I often think about my grandparents. Both lived to be 96. Neither had significant health issues until the day they died.

My grandmother was extremely active throughout her life. She worked out. She was active at church. She volunteered throughout her 70's and 80's. She was always happy to go out to dinner with anyone that wanted.

Most of my memories of my grandfather (her husband) where him sitting on a recliner watching TV. He rarely left the house.

Their quality of life in the last 15 years of their lives was so different. Grandma died on her feet. She had a heart attack in the middle of the night and that was it. The day before she had been out with friends and had dinner with the family. My grandfather just sort of wasted away. He was weak, frail, and kind of miserable.

All I'm saying is there sure seemed to be a lot more than dodging all of those diseases and issues with those two. My grandmother invested in herself. She worked really hard to maintain that quality of life.

She's my role model as I age.

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

#294

Post by pests »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #244
Lammy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look this up because I am not rich enough to be on a first-name basis with my close personal billionaire friend Charles Thomas Munger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger

"had to look this up because i've been living under rock"

Everyone lives under a rock, just different rocks. I'm sure there is plenty you don't know too.

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

#296

Post by TeaBrain »

WalterBright wrote: post #286
TeaBrain wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting two things confused here. The original question was what privileges the US had that others do not. The USD being the reserve currency is unquestionably a privilege. That it is not the original cause of American prosperity is completely besides the point.

Oh, it's exactly the point.

Yes, it does happen to be a point, but it's completely besides the point of the subject in question existing as a privilege in the current day.

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

#297

Post by TeaBrain »

emtel wrote: post #260
TeaBrain wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Significantly less free than in the US, and correspondingly less prosperity. Which measures of freedom became restricted in the EU following the GFC that led to the prosperity of the EU diverging from the US?

US per capita gdp has been higher than Europe since 1960, and the gap has steadily widened: https://m.statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-ec...

I'm aware, and I'm not contesting this, but this is besides the point. What I'm getting at is that Walter seems to think that prosperity has a 1 to 1 correlation to market freedom. If the GDP of the US started diverging farther away from the EU at a greater rate than prior to the GFC, then to his way of thinking, this must have something to do with how the EU limited market freedom following the GFC.

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

#298

Post by [deleted] »

emtel wrote: post #260
TeaBrain wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Significantly less free than in the US, and correspondingly less prosperity. Which measures of freedom became restricted in the EU following the GFC that led to the prosperity of the EU diverging from the US?

US per capita gdp has been higher than Europe since 1960, and the gap has steadily widened: https://m.statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-ec...

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by postpawl »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #238
tw04 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say that his pragmatism seemed to fall apart pretty quickly when the rubber met the road - unless I’m misinformed (which I may be). Berkshire was a key player in the rail workers strike of 2022 and Warren didn’t seem to want to give an inch to the working man when given the opportunity to do so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_...

The idea that companies should just agree to whatever proposal comes in from a union is preposterous.

They were negotiating their way up from zero paid sick days per year.

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

#300

Post by TeaBrain »

WalterBright wrote: post #285
TeaBrain wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, regardless of how free the US market was in the mid-20th century, this is not the most unique privilege about the US today, as you put it in your previous comment. Any country could institute the same market regulations and degrees of freedom as the US, but only one country can have the position of having the dominant reserve currency and dominant trade currency.

As countries that have turned to free markets have shown, they enjoy great prosperity from it. The reserve currency thing is irrelevant.

>The reserve currency thing is irrelevant.

The little "thing" or status of having reserve currency has allowed the US to enjoy lower international borrowing costs than anywhere else in the world. This has immensely benefited the US, in facilitating ease of borrowing with relatively low interest rates and by facilitating lower exchange rate risk in borrowing than any other nation.

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