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Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

nytimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#41

Post by pg »

dejb wrote: post #36

Buffet is undoubtedly a great investor. But I have a slight feeling that could be doing this more for altruistic reasons rather than personal profit. He might believe that he can inject enough confidence in the system by his reputation then maybe he can help improve things. Not necessarily by enough for his investements to pay off but to avoid a worse fate for the financial system. Remember the guy has committed to g…

Clearly he wrote the essay to be altruistic. But I doubt very much that he's buying the stock to be. Buffett would never be so arrogant as to think that one person can affect the markets. The whole thing is infused with the sort of fatalism about markets that any successful investor learns to have.

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#42

Post by known »

dejb wrote: post #36

Buffet is undoubtedly a great investor. But I have a slight feeling that could be doing this more for altruistic reasons rather than personal profit. He might believe that he can inject enough confidence in the system by his reputation then maybe he can help improve things. Not necessarily by enough for his investements to pay off but to avoid a worse fate for the financial system. Remember the guy has committed to g…

I believe Buffett is always competing with Himself.

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#44

Post by aaronblohowiak »

ca98am79 wrote: post #39
dejb wrote: post #36

Buffet is undoubtedly a great investor. But I have a slight feeling that could be doing this more for altruistic reasons rather than personal profit. He might believe that he can inject enough confidence in the system by his reputation then maybe he can help improve things. Not necessarily by enough for his investements to pay off but to avoid a worse fate for the financial system. Remember the guy has committed to g…

Dude - Buffet didn't become the richest person in the WORLD by being altruistic. Think about it.

[citation needed] - he wasn't a crooked thief. There is a surprising lack of scandal surrounding him (i'm not one to care what consenting adults do in privacy.) He is a substantial philanthropist and value-based investor.

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#45

Post by rglullis »

ca98am79 wrote: post #38
prakash wrote: post #13

A word of caution: Don't invest if you can't sleep soundly at night. Buffet can probably afford to lose a few billions here and there, but you probably can't.

yeah but he is putting ALL of that billions into stocks (100%!), that is pretty damn aggressive for someone especially at his age. This is a huge aggressive move on his part, and if Warren Buffet - the richest guy in the world - is buying and thinks stocks are cheap, I personally would find it hard to sleep at night if I didn't do the same.

Read again. He is only doing that with his personal investments. It is not "billions".

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#46

Post by ca98am79 »

rglullis wrote: post #45
ca98am79 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but he is putting ALL of that billions into stocks (100%!), that is pretty damn aggressive for someone especially at his age. This is a huge aggressive move on his part, and if Warren Buffet - the richest guy in the world - is buying and thinks stocks are cheap, I personally would find it hard to sleep at night if I didn't do the same.

Read again. He is only doing that with his personal investments. It is not "billions".

Buffet owns about 27% of Bershire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway's market cap is $196 billion. 27% of $196 billion is $53 billion. Warren Buffet's estimated net worth is $62.3 billion - that means he has a little less than $10 billion for personal investments.

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#48

Post by ksvs »

richcollins wrote: post #29

Had you followed that advice after the Japanese crash of 1990, you would still be down almost 75%: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=^N225

He's not saying buy stocks after any crash, just after this one. The Japanese crash was a unique one because a corrupt old boy network of companies holding one another's stock and banks refusing to write off bad debt caused the fall to be artificially prolonged.

Re: Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

#49

Post by DanielBMarkham »

breck wrote: post #28
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #4

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful Excellent advice. Buffett walks in great footsteps here. Wasn't it J.P. Getty that came out during the depression and said something like "Buy stocks. We're buying as much as we possibly can." ( I paraphrase from memory here)

I could only find "I buy when other people are selling," but he did apparently make a killing during the Great Depression simply by buying stocks. I thought this quote was terrific and really relevant to HN: "Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still? " There are a bunch of great quotes: http:…

Found it. It's from "How to be Rich" which I finished last week (after getting a recommendation from another HN'er -- good book!)

(Regarding the May, 1962 Crash)

"I told them quite frankly that, while I sympathized wholeheartedly with anyone who had lost money because of market developments, I saw little if any reason for alarm and absoutely none for panic....I said I felt that the stock market was in a much healthier and certainly in a much more realistic position because of the long-needed adjustment in prices. As for what I was doing, the answer was simple. I was buying stocks...Most seasoned investors are doubtless doing much the same thing. They're snapping up the fine stock bargains available as a result of the emotionally inspired selling wave." [page 152]

Perhaps there's some difference this time around, but I doubt it. I imagine old J.P. would be saying the same thing today if he were alive.

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