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Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

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181–190 of 216 posts

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#181

>Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. >I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistake…

> Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman. Considering the Warren Buffett wisdom-industrial complex this might be the best place to share these nuggets. And I know his heart is in the right place, but the fact that you need to spell this kind of thing out is somehow extremely depressing.

The fact that he spelled it out does not imply that it needed to be said. There is no idea in that letter, that is not personal history, that hasn't been said before.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#182
post #63

> It's hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior > There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. Huh.

Buffett has long been a critic of things over favouring the rich. He argued he should pay more tax https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/31/usnews and almost got a law passed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#183
> (Thrift runs deep in Buffett blood.)

Combine it with the fact that the only real asset you have is your time.

Imagine getting a tailwind at the age of 50 and being financially illiterate. AND, being partially blind.

I was literally too busy to not realize what really mattered. Decades gone by!

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#184
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warren Buffet is the definition of oligarchy. Dude runs a rail and insurance monopoly while buying large top stocks for yield. He maintains a persona of this traditional and nice family dude who is old and wise. But this is the US, and people are ranked/valued by how rich they are regardless of how it is acquired. Still, he avoided political scrutiny (say comparing to Musk or Bezos) by maintaining this image. That wa…

The image machine for him really is something. Buffet is a bigamist. By all intents and purposes he lived with two wives. The legal status was not that of bigamy, to be clear. He married his other wife after his first wife died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett The personal section here is not exactly false, but is a great example of how one should not trust Wikipedia outright. A careful reading of it sho…

To be clear, he had 1 wife and a mistress. I agree it's not in line with his traditional image, but it's not illegal.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think is responsible for such a dysfunctional government? Is it your average working class person earning about $65k/year or is it billionaires that can throw unfathomable amounts of money at any topic of their interest without it even making a dent in their pocket? To take a recent example, the median income in New York City is about $79k/year (before taxes), while Bill Ackman alone essentially threw away…

A majority of voters elected Trump, while Ackman failed to influence the mayoral election with his money.

Gee golly, really!? Thanks for letting me know, I had no idea!

I could've also mentioned Ackman personally calling Trump in 2020 to beg him to shut down the economy for a month and my argument would be just the same: I don't want billionaires using their money to shape the world to their liking.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#186

I took away 3 things: 1. CEOs have become very greedy. (Elon's pay package) 2. America will experience a downturn and the market could go down > 50%. 3. He's not giving a penny more to The Gates' foundation.

Elon's pay package is not about getting paid. he just want to retain control of Tesla, since they're going to be producing vast numbers of robots.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#187

> (Thrift runs deep in Buffett blood.) Combine it with the fact that the only real asset you have is your time. Imagine getting a tailwind at the age of 50 and being financially illiterate. AND, being partially blind. I was literally too busy to not realize what really mattered. Decades gone by!

Studied a listed company for about a year, invested a very negligible amount not knowing the share price was at an all-time high. Mr. Market doubled my principal in about 16 months. I realize my intelligence had no role here. It's a defense company being controlled by a democratically elected, nationalistic government. Mr. Market is doubling my money, not me.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image machine for him really is something. Buffet is a bigamist. By all intents and purposes he lived with two wives. The legal status was not that of bigamy, to be clear. He married his other wife after his first wife died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett The personal section here is not exactly false, but is a great example of how one should not trust Wikipedia outright. A careful reading of it sho…

To be clear, he had 1 wife and a mistress. I agree it's not in line with his traditional image, but it's not illegal.

For someone with his wealth, having only one mistress shows some self-constraint.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image machine for him really is something. Buffet is a bigamist. By all intents and purposes he lived with two wives. The legal status was not that of bigamy, to be clear. He married his other wife after his first wife died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett The personal section here is not exactly false, but is a great example of how one should not trust Wikipedia outright. A careful reading of it sho…

To be clear, he had 1 wife and a mistress. I agree it's not in line with his traditional image, but it's not illegal.

Not even really a mistress. His first wife left him and then he got a girlfriend who he married after the first wife died.

In modern America peoples marriages breaking down and then them getting together with someone else is pretty common.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#190

>Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. >I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistake…

Warren Buffett is a great investor but nobody in finance buys his folksy image. Everybody knows he's an animal. I heard from folks in the room that the way 3G and Buffett came in to do layoffs at Tim Hortons was one of the most cold blooded things they've ever seen.

Just look at how he chopped up GEICO (his favorite company). The company imploded under Buffets hand picked snake of a CEO (Todd Combs).
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