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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

#381

Post by ethbr1 »

pests wrote: post #256
dehugger wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider, for a moment, the state that China was in at the conclusion of WW2. It hadn't even industrialized yet. The British and the Japanese absolutely trashed China for over a hundred years! Russia was also not industrialized until after their revolution in ~1920, and suffered horrific losses in the homeland during WW2. The US emerged from WW2 fully industrialized and nearly unscathed. The US mainland remained unto…

> The US mainland remained untouched throughout both world wars. Minus some balloons from the Japanese I believe?

And the 8 Germans who landed at east Long Island, NY and Jacksonville, FL. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius

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

#382

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ornornor wrote: post #322
postpawl wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Crazy this is still a thing nowadays especially in so-called developed economies.

Nothing crazy about that. It's mostly European countries that have mandatory paid sick leave by law for everyone, as they fought for that right in the post-war times when the economy was booming and the world outside the west less safe from outsourcing, and importing cheap labor less easy, so the perfect storm giving labor most power over employers, something that's not gonna repeat again in the globalized world of today.

It was the temporal global exception, not the rule, as the worldwide norm was working people to death for most of history. Companies would gladly give their workers zero benefits if they could get away with it.

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

#383

Post by FirmwareBurner »

hhghkj wrote: post #373
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compensation packages are just that - a package. Complaining about one individual component in isolation is disingenuous. Unions sent a couple of the big car makers into bankruptcy. They've sent all kinds of companies into bankruptcy - the idea that anything they are suggesting is good by nature is about the same as suggesting communism is good by nature. Sounds pleasant, doesn't work.

Businesses that can't stay afloat without underpaying workers have a failing business model. Blaming unions for their eventual demise is foolish. Communism and Capitalism are actually quite similar in a sense. Neither of them works well in their purest form, both lead to formation of an oligarchy (party elite,billionaires). Most livable countries in the world mix them in form of free market social democracy.

>Businesses that can't stay afloat without underpaying workers have a failing business model.

Yet companies have flourished under that model for decades/centuries. Employers and governments have plenty of levers to make sure workers have no choice but to work while being underpaid.

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

#384

Post by danielmarkbruce »

sofixa wrote: post #369
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called competition - it's the reason you get to sit there and type away on an incredible machine at a very low cost and eat food at a very low cost... The vast majority of businesses are operating on thin margins. Get in the real world, not some fantasy land.

I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro, which is made by Apple with their net profit margin of 24.3% for Q4 2024. BNSF, one of the companies which is the topic of this conversation, has an operating ratio of 68% for 2024 (how much of their revenue goes towards operational costs). Their net income was $5 billion. They can afford to have a little extra employees to cover fucking sick leave. > Get in the real world, not some…

Apple barely make the product. Look at the margins of all their suppliers. That fat line showing about $200b of cogs is filled with low margin businesses - the vast majority of the world is not some outlier like Apple.

Gotta look more than one layer deep financial statement guy. People who actually read a lot of financial statements have looked at a looooot more than the ones of the names on TV.

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

#385

Post by mierz00 »

WalterBright wrote: post #127
terribleperson wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the justification for tarriffs is that America is somehow being 'taken advantage' of by the rest of the world and the tarriffs are the rest of the world finally paying their fair share. The reality is that (until now) America has had a uniquely privileged position in the world economy that got America, in general, very beneficial trade deals. He's commenting on the attitude driving the tariffs.

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.

Free markets are the end state, not what is required to become successful. We can see this in countries that have prospered over the last century.

Japan and South Korea both had huge land reforms effectively killing the landlord class and redistributing farms to families.

They then forced businesses to export while maintaining high tariffs and once that was all in place they relaxed the tarifs and opened up the markets.

Countries that took the free market approach include Indonesia and Cambodia.

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

#386

Post by danielmarkbruce »

TFYS wrote: post #372
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called competition - it's the reason you get to sit there and type away on an incredible machine at a very low cost and eat food at a very low cost... The vast majority of businesses are operating on thin margins. Get in the real world, not some fantasy land.

Competition is not the reason. The reason is workers choosing to improve things, invent things and make things more efficient. Competition is a way to incentivize people to do that, but it's not the only way.

Workers don't get to do that without some capital allocated. Rowing is one thing, deciding direction is just as important - and you'll find that the people deciding which way to row are largely trying to win.

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

#387

Post by FirmwareBurner »

sofixa wrote: post #369
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called competition - it's the reason you get to sit there and type away on an incredible machine at a very low cost and eat food at a very low cost... The vast majority of businesses are operating on thin margins. Get in the real world, not some fantasy land.

I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro, which is made by Apple with their net profit margin of 24.3% for Q4 2024. BNSF, one of the companies which is the topic of this conversation, has an operating ratio of 68% for 2024 (how much of their revenue goes towards operational costs). Their net income was $5 billion. They can afford to have a little extra employees to cover fucking sick leave. > Get in the real world, not some…

>I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro, which is made by Apple with their net profit margin of 24.3% for Q4 2024.

Apple's margins are so high because the margins of their suppliers are so low (used to work for one of them) with some used to have suicide nets at their factories. Apple is an exception worldwide when it comes to HW margins, not the norm.

>They can afford to have a little extra employees to cover fucking sick leave.

Shareholders care more about line going up then about the welfare of the workers.

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

#388

Post by danielmarkbruce »

mullingitover wrote: post #377
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compensation packages are just that - a package. Complaining about one individual component in isolation is disingenuous. Unions sent a couple of the big car makers into bankruptcy. They've sent all kinds of companies into bankruptcy - the idea that anything they are suggesting is good by nature is about the same as suggesting communism is good by nature. Sounds pleasant, doesn't work.

> Unions sent a couple of the big car makers into bankruptcy. It goes both ways, unfortunately. Industry in general couldn't exist without laborers, and it has a long history of brutal abuse and horrific, dangerous working conditions that killed and maimed many. I think it's a cultural problem. We aren't far removed from a time when the general business model was to coercively work people to death to extract every pe…

Yup, it goes both ways. It's not a given that what a company is proposing is good or bad, and it's not a given that what a union is proposing is good or bad. And they negotiate and it is what it is.

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

#389

Post by danielmarkbruce »

hhghkj wrote: post #373
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compensation packages are just that - a package. Complaining about one individual component in isolation is disingenuous. Unions sent a couple of the big car makers into bankruptcy. They've sent all kinds of companies into bankruptcy - the idea that anything they are suggesting is good by nature is about the same as suggesting communism is good by nature. Sounds pleasant, doesn't work.

Businesses that can't stay afloat without underpaying workers have a failing business model. Blaming unions for their eventual demise is foolish. Communism and Capitalism are actually quite similar in a sense. Neither of them works well in their purest form, both lead to formation of an oligarchy (party elite,billionaires). Most livable countries in the world mix them in form of free market social democracy.

Sure, but you say that as though the union is only representing underpaid workers. In many cases they represent overpaid workers.

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

#390

Post by mikem170 »

ashoeafoot wrote: post #84
tchalla wrote: post #24

Buffet on Tariffs > “It’s a big mistake, in my view, when you have seven and a half billion people that don’t like you very well, and you got 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they’ve done - I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it’s wise,” Buffett said. “The United States won. I mean, we have become an incredibly important country, starting from nothing 250 years ago. There’s not been any…

Change in general, should always come gradually , that way the inevitable consequences rear their head early. Its the bold paintstrokes that topple the world on its side. Obamas biofuels come to mind triggering the arab spring by raising bread prices.

> Obamas biofuels come to mind triggering the arab spring by raising bread prices.

Why do you call them "Obama biofuels" when biofuel mandates were passed while Bush was president?

Standards for biofuels appeared in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 [0] (mandating 4 billion gallons of biofuel by 2006, 7.5 billion by 2012) and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [1], aka the Clean Energy Act of 2007 (mandating 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022). Bush signed both laws.

I assume that corn-state representatives were pushing for more biofuels, since farmers want to sell more corn, regardless of how green anything is, or is not. At the time Obama was one of many in congress, both Democrats and Republicans, who voted in favor of these laws.

I would agree with you that biofuel production exacerbated food supply issues leading into the Arab Spring.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Securi...

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