[HN Gopher] Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop B...
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Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 255 points
Date : 2025-05-03 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| jll29 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250503183427/https://www.bloom...
| nu11ptr wrote:
| Wow, not sure why this surprises me, but I guess I figured he
| would be like Charlie and keep working until he passed.
| Lammy wrote:
| 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
| palmotea wrote:
| > 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
|
| It's almost certain that the GP isn't either, and is only
| _para_ socially on a first name basis.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I would assume this means that he is not in great health.
| Hopefully I'm wrong and he just decided that 85 years or so of
| hustling for dollars was enough.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| At 94, if he had a health concern, I don't think he'd be
| planning out 7 months for stepping down.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I heard he has a knack for prediction. Pair that with
| advantageous events (or prior to) and 7mo ahead is the
| result of a calculation.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| Sure, but at his age, heath issues spiral out of control
| very very very fast. I fully expect that he doesn't have
| a specific health concern right now and is planning ahead
| because if he did have a specific health issue, I don't
| expect that he would be able to plan 7 months ahead.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I suspect there has been succession a plan in place for
| at least 20 years.
| nabla9 wrote:
| He probably took a health insurance and plans to cash in.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Stepping down ASAP would look worse than doing it 7 months
| out
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| Sure, but if there is a health concern, announcing a date
| and then passing away before then is even worse then just
| stepping down asap.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| There's video of his announcement.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/03/warren-buffett-to-ask-
| board-...
|
| On one hand, he doesn't sound that great (in terms of subtle
| overall health markers in his voice) when he talks.
|
| On the other hand, he's 94 and most people (especially men)
| don't make it into their 90s, so...
| paulpauper wrote:
| comparing the video to 2024, he sounded similar to last
| year. not much of a difference
| andsoitis wrote:
| You want an orderly succession.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| The difference is that Charlie didn't have his partner die.
| lokimedes wrote:
| And now after decades of stock buybacks, quantitative easing and
| other mad financial manipulation, comes again the time for value
| investors, and he leaves?! :)
| Supermancho wrote:
| What are you trying to say? It's not clear at all.
| lokimedes wrote:
| Just finding it mildly amusing to consider that in the messed
| up economics we are entering with Trump, there may be a shift
| to value investing, something I have always associated with
| Buffett.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Pretty clear and funny to me. Not sure how to explain it
| without just repeating the same thing.
|
| It seems the markets will soon go through a period when
| Buffet's approach will work best, which makes it an
| inoportune moment for him to retire. Of course at his age
| retirement is expected, maybe even inevitable - that's the
| joke.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| I don't know how much of Bershire's funds Buffet personally
| manages nowadays - he's had other people managing a lot of
| it for years.
| Supermancho wrote:
| > And now after decades of stock buybacks, quantitative
| easing and other mad financial manipulation, comes again
| the time for value investors
|
| These are things that have happened in the past. Mad
| financial manipulations? Like what is "mad"? "Comes again
| the time." How is it different than any other day?
|
| > Pretty clear and funny to me.
|
| You're making up your own interpretation of nonsense then
| calling it obvious. Good luck with that.
| epolanski wrote:
| > It seems the markets will soon go through a period when
| Buffet's approach will work best
|
| Why would you think so?
|
| US equity is still at insanely high valuations, markets are
| full of denials about it and about the future tariff
| related uncertainty.
| AustinDev wrote:
| They have like half a trillion in cash on the balance sheet.
| I'm sure they're going to scoop up a bunch of value in the
| coming years. Whoever takes over has a hell of a war chest to
| work with.
| riffraff wrote:
| He's 94 years old, it's honestly impressive he was still there.
| Still, end of an era.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > 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 of an era bona fides and respect for truth and
| accountability as the structural integrity of democratic
| society.
| kinnth wrote:
| 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 others. We will need to find these values
| again after the current times have played out.
| fifilura wrote:
| It is ok, I understand how you are thinking.
|
| But unfortunately I think Merkels legacy will be "Wandel
| durch handel".
|
| Trying to pacify Russia and Putin through increasing trade.
| Did not work.
| jnwatson wrote:
| Don't forget the climate-change-decision-accelerating
| decision to mothball all their nuclear reactors. This was
| a monumentally poor strategic decision from multiple
| angles.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| It doesn't have to have been totally wrong always, but
| it's certainly been wrong at least since the invasion of
| Georgia in 2008.
| thi2 wrote:
| That has to be about a different Angela Merkel, the one I
| know had one priority: preserving status quo.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Which recent German politician in power wasn't about
| preserving the status quo? The entire country and culture
| is all about the status quo.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Well when the alternative is right wing fascism, I'll
| take the status quo thank you.
| netsharc wrote:
| Feh, Merkel created conditions for the rise of right wing
| fascism... IMO.
|
| She and her finance minister championed austerity uber
| alles, squeezing the middle and lower class across the
| EU, and then she said refugees were welcome. I agree with
| the idea of helping people fleeing bombs and bullets, but
| after decades of saying there's money, we need to watch
| our budgets, suddenly there's money? Nooo fucking wonder
| the populist right managed to grasp on to the
| disillusionment of the lower/middle class.
| bergheim wrote:
| > They also based all their decision in facts, truth and
| science
|
| What? She shut down nuclear power plants to ramp up coal
| and Russian dependence.
|
| Idolizing people is rarely helpful.
| JimmyBiscuit wrote:
| She shut down nuclear power because of extreme pressure
| from the population. Tens of thousands protested around
| her office. Nuclear is complicated (and mostly fear
| driven) in Germany. Oddly enough the first exit was done
| under Schroder who is a russian asset. Makes you think.
| codethief wrote:
| > Oddly enough the first exit was done under Schroder who
| is a russian asset. Makes you think.
|
| Oddly enough? Schroder was in a coalition with the green
| party that had emerged from the anti-nuclear movement two
| decades before.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > 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 fear driven, but stoked by "green" advocacy
| organizations and/or manipulated by people with a stake
| in the continued use of fossil fuels (and largely the
| latter funding the former).
|
| True leadership would stand up to both of these
| pressures, making people understand that the voice of
| 10,000 (or even 100,000) people can not dictate policy
| alone and educating people on the reality of nuclear
| power, while also fixing some of the real issues with
| nuclear power (an aging power plant fleet and an
| inability economically build better replacements).
|
| Merkel totally flopped on energy policy.
| neom wrote:
| 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
| cjpearson wrote:
| The protestors were not a very vocal minority, but
| representative of the majority opinion. At the time well
| over 80% of Germans wanted an end to nuclear power.
| (Although now following the Ukraine invasion and rising
| energy costs the opposition has significantly softened.)
|
| In a democratic system it is simply difficult to maintain
| such extremely unpopular positions. Governments which do
| so don't last long. Merkel flip-flopped and maintained
| her Chancellorship.
| netsharc wrote:
| She finally agreed to shut down nuclear because Fukushima
| happened just a few days before the state elections of
| Baden-Wurttemberg. She was afraid of a rout so she agreed
| to do the above, and her party lost to the Greens anyway.
| neom wrote:
| Measured governance. I feel the same, although I'm sure the
| Europeans and Germans not at all, but they also talked
| Angela out of nuclear, so one might argue the Germans are a
| bit too measured compared to their Chancellor.
| huijzer wrote:
| > They stood clearly and simply for good moral judgment
|
| Merkel has severely underestimated Putin. She played a role
| in the continuous betting on Russian oil. Merkel has called
| the internet "neuland" and wasn't her government also the
| one starting with hydrogen subsidies. I donno about you but
| to this day I only hear lots of talk about hydrogen but
| near zero results. So all the wrong bets.
|
| Also I don't know whether you noticed but Germany is
| expected to be in a recession for three years in a row now.
|
| About equity and fairness okay I guess you are right.
| Everybody in Germany will be poor if things continue like
| this.
| ponector wrote:
| Silent approval of Putin's invasions to Georgia and Ukraine
| doesn't look like "good moral judgment, fair systems"
| FiniteField wrote:
| "The current times" are a direct result of decisions like
| that of Merkel to throw open the borders of Germany to a
| million unchecked foreign men. If there's one reason that
| the AfD is the largest party in Germany today, it's because
| of that decision Merkel made a whole decade ago. How was
| that "based in facts, truth and science", or "slow and
| steady"?
| paulpauper wrote:
| Munger was still going strong at 99, good genes both of them, i
| guess
| nly wrote:
| And the best healthcare money can buy anywhere in the world.
| KajMagnus wrote:
| Doctors aren't that useful, unfortunately
| Ekaros wrote:
| Yeah, quality years at end of life are not solved problem
| even for the rich. Being this active must be genetic.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| And no amount of good doctors can make you change your
| lifestyle. At the end of the day, a ton of doctor advise
| is ways to change your lifestyle, and that takes personal
| effort.
| KajMagnus wrote:
| Having friends also contributes to living longer (Buffet and
| Charlie)
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| I read the title and thought, about time, he's probably
| 80-something.
|
| I really hope I could be productive at 90. Heck, I hope I'm
| productive at 70.
| sbankowi wrote:
| Heck, I hope I'm productive on Monday!
| mckirk wrote:
| Generally I'm really glad that HN has resisted the social
| media brain-rot trends, but sometimes the ability to react
| to a comment with a heart emoji would be cool.
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| Chocolate chips[1] were invented in 1937, when Buffet was 6yrs
| old, and commercialized as we know them today in 1941 when
| Buffet was 10.
|
| He's literally older than chocolate chips!
|
| [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| 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?
| xNeil wrote:
| Not by Buffett, but you'll love Poor Charlie's Alamanack, by
| Charlie Munger, his lifelong business partner.
|
| https://www.stripe.press/poor-charlies-almanack/cover
| cromulent wrote:
| Buffet said of Munger:
|
| > "In terms of managing money, there wasn't anybody better in
| the world to talk to for many, many decades than Charlie."
|
| Buffet gets all the press, but he acknowledges Munger as a
| huge part, if you listen.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Munger really gave Buffet wings. They did it together.
| iamsanteri wrote:
| For Buffett I recommend Essays of Warren Buffett. Regarding
| Munger's Almanack, I wrote a nice summary just before his
| death:
|
| "A real estate investment of $24 by the Dutch to buy the
| island of Manhattan would today be roughly equivalent to $3
| trillion. Across 378 years, that's about a seven percent
| annual compound rate of return..."
|
| https://www.lostbookofsales.com/notes/poor-charlies-
| almanack...
| KajMagnus wrote:
| It's a great book (I think), reading it now. It's the only
| book this far that I've brought with me to the gym (because I
| wanted to continue reading it, in between the exercises)
| tchalla wrote:
| Start here - The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville
|
| https://business.columbia.edu/cgi-finance/chazen-global-insi...
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| I still remember the feeling I got when I first read the
| first paragraph and especially this phrase:
|
| "For one thing, if (a) you had taken 225 million orangutans
| distributed roughly as the U.S. population is; if (b) 215
| winners were left after 20 days; and if (c) you found that 40
| came from a particular zoo in Omaha, you would be pretty sure
| you were on to something."
|
| Compared to anything in finance I've read up until then, it
| felt like I just found the right guy.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| His shareholder letters are on the Berkshire website and are
| excellent.
| edouard-harris wrote:
| Somewhat dated (10 years old), but a classic and probably the
| best single place to get started:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Warren-Buffett-Lessons-Corpora...
| andsoitis wrote:
| Beside the various books he's written, there's also his writing
| on Berkshire Hathaways' website:
| https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
| tim333 wrote:
| He didn't write a book. Maybe he will now he has more time.
| andsoitis wrote:
| You're right. I stand corrected.
| dehrmann wrote:
| 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.
| nabla9 wrote:
| 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.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Just because it beat indexes doesn't mean it couldn't have
| done better.
|
| From 2017:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/06/warren-buffett-admits-he-
| mad...
| nabla9 wrote:
| "Not to diminish the accomplishments of Magnus Carlsen ,
| but he has lost many games."
|
| "Not to diminish the accomplishments of the world's best
| poker player, but he did lose many hands."
| dehrmann wrote:
| My point is that you have to put all of his wisdom and
| stories in the context of what he's good at and the
| environment he was in. He tried to apply his value
| investing playbook to early Google, and it looked like a
| bad investment. He later realized this (see my link), but
| that gets talked about less than value investing in its
| heyday. Aside: for debated reasons, value investing,
| which used to outperform, has been in a slump for a long
| time.
|
| It's east to hear his story and think if you do the same
| thing, you'd be successful. If you did the same thing in
| 1970, you might be! And some of his wisdom is generally
| applicable, but reading his story as a guide for
| investing today isn't the right approach.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Think of the time horizon.
|
| The current tech investing boom is just a blip just like
| previous tech booms (Auto industry boom, aircraft boom,
| personal computer boom).
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Someone probably said something similar in the 1960s when
| Buffet avoided crowded Go-Go era investments in the 1960s
| to his benefit.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It's not that he missed out on it, both Buffett and munger
| said that they didn't really understand technology so they
| didn't feel a reason to go there. They felt they better
| understood insurance and railroads and candies and whatnot
| and they made Bank doing it.
| zhivota wrote:
| I agree and I think furthermore no one has really
| understood technology enough to have consistently made the
| right moves, because tech stocks fundamentally were blazing
| a new trail.
|
| Buffett invested in businesses that, relatively speaking,
| were already well understood, if not widely by everyone,
| the point being that you could look at the balances and
| financial statements of an insurance company and derive an
| investment plan that was based on basically nothing new.
| Google, and tech in general, were not like that.
|
| I think now some tech stocks do look like that. Microsoft,
| Oracle, Salesforce, all have business models that are much
| more well understood at this point than 30 years ago.
|
| Even though Google has been wildly successful, I do see
| them as riskier since they derive so much of their income
| from web search ads, which feels like a precarious position
| compared to selling office productivity suites, databases,
| and CRMs to enterprises (I know Google does some of this
| but it's not where they make the bulk of their income).
| epolanski wrote:
| You are, and you're doing so naively, because one of the
| reasons Buffett has been successful is that he stuck to
| things that were in his circle of competence.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Honestly his ex wifes book about how he reads 10k reports is
| really good. Cant remember the name.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| Never heard about it, and can't find a trace on google. If
| you remember, please post here.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Watch YouTube videos of old Berkshire meetings, especially ones
| with Charlie.
| Animats wrote:
| "The Intelligent Investor", by Benjamin Graham. He was
| Buffett's mentor, and contributed to that book. It's straight
| value investing. Never buy a startup.
|
| There are biographies of Buffett. I read one of them years ago.
| It goes into great detail about the early deals that got him
| started. I never did quite understand the deal that moved him
| into the big leagues, the takeover of GEICO insurance.
| ivape wrote:
| It's kind of a damn shame a man like that was not tapped for any
| major economic position in the government. I don't know how men
| like Peter Navarro got so far. In a sense, all the money in the
| world didn't actually fulfill his true potential, and I say that
| with the utmost respect.
| xNeil wrote:
| Not convinced working for government is the best use of your
| potential, though considering he owns 5% of all US Treasury
| Bills, I wouldn't say his impact is any less than being a
| government employee.
| curiousgal wrote:
| > best use
|
| Well I don't think him sitting on billions of dollars at 94
| is better from a societal perspective.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| That money has already been committed to charitable use for
| the most part, or already donated. He is essentially
| managing billions of dollars on behalf of charitable
| causes. Seems like a pretty good use of his money
| management skills.
|
| Besides all that he has advocated for that money to be
| taxed away from him for decades.
|
| He pretty famously lives below his means in a normal
| suburban house and drives around in a car that most
| software engineers could afford (Cadillac sedan).
|
| From a societal perspective, I'm not sure you could ask for
| much more from any one man.
| mulmen wrote:
| "Sitting on"? He famously invests in companies that do
| things.
| knorker wrote:
| The money isn't "out of circulation". That's not how money
| works.
|
| Even as T-bills they're doing something.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| > I don't know how men like Peter Navarro got so far.
|
| It's a weird story. IIRC in the run for president before trumps
| first term he sent Jared Kushner to find out about trade.
| Kushner browsed Amazon, looking at book covers, and picked
| Navarro's book because he liked the title... and the rest is
| history
| atombender wrote:
| Trump should have hired Ron Vara [1], seems like a much more
| competent guy.
|
| [1] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DINJlumRqed/
| ivape wrote:
| You've got to be kidding ...
|
| Oh god, you're not:
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/328969-report-
| ku...
|
| I feel impotent, what is there to be done?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| He has been asked many times but was not interested.
| johntarter wrote:
| Warren Buffet has warned about the trade deficit problem since
| 2003 and has proposed an alternate solution called "import
| certificates" where exporters could earn them and sell them to
| the importers who must use them. This would result in an even
| trade balance. He admitted it's essentially a tariff by another
| name but a more fair and systematic one. In other words, he
| aligns with Peter Navarro in the problem but differs in the
| solution.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The Mahathir bin Mohamad of the financial world
| tchalla wrote:
| 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 anything like it."
| disambiguation wrote:
| Also buffet on tariffs (2003)
|
| https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf
|
| Though he makes the distinction between "import certificates"
| and Trump's version of tariffs.
| throw0101b wrote:
| Contra:
|
| > _A common response I've seen to this is Warren Buffett
| repeatedly expressing concern about the trade deficit.
| Buffett's main concern has always been that we're sending
| pieces of paper abroad that give foreigners claims on US
| assets. And this is true, but I'd argue it's been a massive
| net positive on the whole. First, as a percentage of total
| ownership, foreign ownership of US securities is actually
| flat since 2008. So despite 20 years of a persistent current
| account deficit there hasn't been a huge change in foreign
| ownership as a percentage of the total. But the current
| account deficit also reflects the way many firms in the USA
| outsource their comparative advantage. And that accrues to US
| firms (and households) as increases in net worth. This is a
| big reason why corporate profit margins have expanded so much
| in the last 30 years. Global competition has made US firms
| more efficient and that's accrued to Americans as a huge gain
| in net worth. So this isn't a situation where we're just
| sending Dollars abroad for no good reason. We're doing it in
| large part because that is investment in our businesses that
| has added value to those very firms and their owners. Could
| that all reverse? For sure. And weirdly, the thing that would
| cause it to reverse is ultra protectionist measures thereby
| reducing demand for US Dollar assets and reducing investment
| in US firms._
|
| * https://disciplinefunds.com/2025/04/24/three-things-you-
| gues...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Buffett actually does share a fear of trade deficits, though.
| His proposed solution, as an alternative to tariffs, were
| "import certificates"-essentially a marketable credit required
| to import goods. These would be earned via exports by
| exporters, be freely priced and traded, and would essentially
| bind import levels to export levels.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It's really a non-problem.
|
| Net capital inflows into the U.S. = U.S. trade deficit. The
| balance of payments is simply: Sales of assets - Purchases of
| assets = Purchases of goods - Sales of goods
|
| If you balance the trade, it means foreigners must stop
| investing into the US.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| 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.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| That's zero-sum thinking. Increases demand for US assets
| can make americans wealthier in many ways (e.g. providing
| more capital to american businesses).
| bnjms wrote:
| Some goods are zero sum. Land is zero sum. Ownership of
| land by non local entities is... idk seems bad
| epolanski wrote:
| Why?
|
| What's the issue, if me, an Italian, own land in Indiana
| or North Cali?
| chrisco255 wrote:
| 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 real estate can also
| drive up the costs of housing for citizens, making
| homeownership more difficult and driving down wealth in
| the middle class.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Proportionately, perhaps, but that doesn't mean by value
| of assets owned. It just means the aggregate value of
| assets in the US will be less.
| monadINtop wrote:
| >which means ownership of U.S. assets by domestic
| citizens will increase
|
| Which to be clear will be largely domestic oligarchs and
| other whales since the vast majority of domestic citizens
| in the US don't have enough capital to own any
| significant amount of assets, US or otherwise.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| It applies across the spectrum, but to your point, at
| least domestic billionaires pay domestic taxes and spend
| money domestically.
|
| Speaking to the middle class, home ownership
| (traditionally one of the most reliable sources of wealth
| for the middle class) would increase.
| nabla9 wrote:
| >U.S. assets by domestic citizens will increase.
|
| You think zero sum like accountant or land owner.
|
| They money coming is invested for opportunities. There
| will be less opportunities for startups, less VC money.
| Less affordable loans for corporations to expand and
| invest.
| epolanski wrote:
| 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.
| Ekaros wrote:
| On one side it could mean that less money leaves. That is
| no dividends are paid to outside the country. All profits
| stay in.
|
| On other hand the economy overall and stock market
| especially have enormously increased due to outside
| investments. As injection of money in later one directly
| pushes valuations up. And the borrowing is only possible
| when someone loans money...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| If the foreign entities are not aligned with your
| country's values, what good is it? For example, Putin is
| arguably one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.
| Would you be bothered if he scooped up a controlling
| share in Italy's defense contractors or machining
| manufacturers?
| johntarter wrote:
| 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.
| Working eight hours a day, in fact, each inhabitant can
| produce enough food to sustain himself or herself. And for
| a long time that's how things go along. On each island
| everybody works the prescribed eight hours a day, which
| means that each society is self-sufficient.
|
| Eventually, though, the industrious citizens of Thriftville
| decide to do some serious saving and investing, and they
| start to work 16 hours a day. In this mode they continue to
| live off the food they produce in eight hours of work but
| begin exporting an equal amount to their one and only
| trading outlet, Squanderville.
|
| The citizens of Squanderville are ecstatic about this turn
| of events, since they can now live their lives free from
| toil but eat as well as ever. Oh, yes, there's a quid pro
| quo-but to the Squanders, it seems harmless: All that the
| Thrifts want in exchange for their food is Squanderbonds
| (which are denominated, naturally, in Squanderbucks).
|
| Over time Thriftville accumulates an enormous amount of
| these bonds, which at their core represent claim checks on
| the future output of Squanderville. A few pundits in
| Squanderville smell trouble coming. They foresee that for
| the Squanders both to eat and to pay off-or simply service-
| the debt they're piling up will eventually require them to
| work more than eight hours a day. But the residents of
| Squanderville are in no mood to listen to such doomsaying.
| Meanwhile, the citizens of Thriftville begin to get
| nervous. Just how good, they ask, are the IOUs of a
| shiftless island? So the Thrifts change strategy: Though
| they continue to hold some bonds, they sell most of them to
| Squanderville residents for Squanderbucks and use the
| proceeds to buy Squanderville land. And eventually the
| Thrifts own all of Squanderville.
|
| At that point, the Squanders are forced to deal with an
| ugly equation: They must now not only return to working
| eight hours a day in order to eat-they have nothing left to
| trade-but must also work additional hours to service their
| debt and pay Thriftville rent on the land so imprudently
| sold. In effect, Squanderville has been colonized by
| purchase rather than conquest. It can be argued, of course,
| that the present value of the future production that
| Squanderville must forever ship to Thriftville only equates
| to the production Thriftville initially gave up and that
| therefore both have received a fair deal. But since one
| generation of Squanders gets the free ride and future
| generations pay in perpetuity for it, there are-in
| economist talk-some pretty dramatic "intergenerational
| inequities."
|
| Source:
| https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf
| nabla9 wrote:
| 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.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Sounds like it would achieve a similar effect, but would be
| far more complex to implement and yet would still have the
| effect of being a tax on imports while not actually
| generating any revenue for the federal government.
| Keyframe wrote:
| That sounds awful a lot like we had it back in the Yugoslavia
| days. It wasn't exactly free market, as you might know.
| Companies that exported stuff had credits attached to them
| and with that quota they could then import goods. They
| couldn't trade those credits. You then had absurd situations
| like a company that sells agricultural stuff and has stores
| for those was also selling, for example, commodore 64 in
| their stores since that's what they imported.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| 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.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I'm a bit slow in this field. Could someone explain how this
| quote relates to tariffs? I've re-read it three times now,
| looking for the connection to a tax on imported goods, but I
| just can't see it.
|
| I _think_ it's saying that the US population is crowing about
| how well we've done, and so we should be able to tax whatever
| imports we want? But what an odd way to say that if so. How
| well we've done seems completely unrelated to tariffs.
|
| Then the quote caps off with some back-patting about how we've
| only been around 250 years, and that our rise is unprecedented.
| Again seemingly unrelated to tariffs.
| terribleperson wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 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.
| pyth0 wrote:
| This is only true if you ignore the important material
| and historical factors that go into the success of a
| country. Like for example, the immense wealth of natural
| resources and variation in climates that the US has. Or
| how about escaping much of the devastation that Europe
| faced in WW2 and benefiting immensely from helping them
| rebuild. Or having (for the most part) incredibly safe
| and stable relationships with neighbors to the north and
| south. Free markets have certainly contributed to
| success, but to say it's the only unique thing about
| America is just wrong.
| terribleperson wrote:
| I would say that the dollar being the global reserve
| currency is a unique privilege, yes.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| >The only unique thing about America is free markets
|
| This is less unique than the dollar being the dominant
| reserve currency and dominant currency for settling
| international trade.
| ajross wrote:
| > Any country can become highly successful by enacting
| free markets.
|
| And the existence proof for that assertion is which
| country, exactly? Lots of nations lack regulation of some
| form or another, many of them are "freer" than the US.
| The US isn't entirely "free" of trade barriers either
| (c.f. tariffpocalype).
|
| Basically this sounds like a no-true-scotsman in the
| making. No, it's not that simple.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > 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.
| yupitsme123 wrote:
| They created one kind of prosperity early on by
| protecting their markets and letting industries develop.
| Many other countries have done the same thing.
|
| The unique thing was that they then created another, less
| broadly shared, kind of prosperity by eliminating those
| protections and offshoring those industries, and focusing
| instead on dollar diplomacy.
| behnamoh wrote:
| All that money and he's still a mortal just like the rest of us.
| I wonder if mega billionaires like him have done private research
| on life longevity, cryosleep, mind-upload, etc. It's the only
| useful thing they can do with that much money that directly
| benefits them. Anything else (legacy, influence, children, etc.)
| doesn't benefit them when they're gone.
| locallost wrote:
| There are things I don't like about him, and the way he is
| idolized by people that want to accumulate money. But I will
| say you can't really throw that "all that money and he's still
| mortal" thing at him because in reality he lived really below
| his means. So the money part is interesting, why did he try to
| get so much if he didn't really need it? I think (without
| really knowing anything about him), that he wanted money like
| everyone else to be independent, but at one point it turned
| into a game to see how much he can win.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Hes literally like, autistic or something. If you've ever
| watched the documentary on him he has a got a weird way about
| him. Hes got an obsessive knack for numbers and just got into
| the finance game where literally your job is to make as much
| money as possible. Its your fiduciary obligation. The rest os
| history.
| deadbabe wrote:
| With all the billionaires we've had, the fact that no one is
| living unnaturally long or in some kind of cryosleep or AI
| simulation probably means one thing: It's simply not possible,
| and if it is, all the money in the world won't get you there.
| andrewl wrote:
| Buffett worked, at least informally, with the Obama
| administration on some financial policy issues. And he is a
| proponent of greater taxes on the very rich. Here's one short
| video (2:46) in which he talks about it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzTsTU1xL8
| photochemsyn wrote:
| If the US government really wanted to bring back industrial
| manufacturing, tax policy is one obvious route - eg a 2/3 tax
| on billionaire and corporate wealth, such as on the huge pile
| of cash Buffet-Berkshire is sitting on, but then offer a way
| out - invest that cash in domestic manufacturing and R & D and
| it won't be taxed.
|
| This could motivate the private sector to go back to the Bell
| Labs model, too.
| maxilevi wrote:
| As if the government could do better capital allocation in
| the economy than buffett
| Someone wrote:
| Why couldn't they, for the citizens of the USA? Buffett
| likely would not allocate it to optimize the outcome for US
| citizens.
| andrewl wrote:
| _As if the government could do better capital allocation in
| the economy than buffett_
|
| That seems to be what Buffett is suggesting.
| 33MHz-i486 wrote:
| that doesnt really work if they have to compete on price with
| foreign producers that have lower labor costs, looser
| environmental regulations, deeper supply chains and better
| process knowledge. might as well eat the tax (waiting for
| monopolistic opportunities) or light the money on fire
| WalterBright wrote:
| Billionaires get that way by investing in companies. You
| don't have to force them into it.
| aliljet wrote:
| How much of Berkshire actually relied on Buffet toward this
| announcement? I'm increasingly suspect of 90+ or 80+ adults
| operating the machinery of massive entities. Lots of examples of
| this.
| Frost1x wrote:
| You're probably right, but I suspect he guided the general
| direction of investments. I suspect they had very clever highly
| qualified younger people dealing with most the day to day
| decisions within those boundaries. I wouldn't discount the
| contribution of either: both broad vision and narrow focus can
| add a lot of value.
| moomin wrote:
| Someone at my firm went to a BH AGM. There's literally nothing
| like it; it's like a Star Trek con, but for capitalism.
| apexalpha wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's originally his but a small talk by him about
| getting a car made an impression on me and since watching it it's
| become a good motivator to stay in shape.
|
| This seems like a good moment to share it.
|
| https://youtu.be/0fMRHpguTPM?si=75lLHzDynMCKhT9H
| bamboozled wrote:
| Real talk.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/zXRmj
| Jhsto wrote:
| Nice paper that was linked on Marginal Revolution:
| http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf
| khazhoux wrote:
| For all I've heard about WB the last few decades, I couldn't tell
| you a single thing he's done that's impacted my life, the
| country, or the world. AFAIK he's a guy who makes a ton of money,
| plays bridge with Bill Gates, gives advice, and has a fund that
| made money for other people. Am I missing something?
| zhivota wrote:
| Buffett invested in boring industries like insurance. As
| unexciting as it is, businesses like that basically are the
| invisible infrastructure that makes society work smoothly.
|
| Don't misunderstand flashy at the only way to be important.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I always view it as there being 2 kinds of investment:
|
| * An investment that makes something possible that otherwise
| wouldn't happen. Like the US investing in NASA
|
| * Investment that is not consequential in the big scheme
| except it makes people money.
|
| Did his insurance investments keep some companies alive?
| epolanski wrote:
| He's not a politician, he doesn't have to.
|
| Still, he's given dozens of billions in charity, given
| important counsel to the government during the 80s and 2008
| financial crisis.
|
| During 2008 financial crisis he essentially saved Goldman and
| General Electric both preventing further escape of capital and
| an even worse situation for the US and potentially world
| economy.
|
| In any case, he's a capitalist who likes making money for
| himself and his shareholders, he ain't a medical researcher or
| your mayor.
| havaloc wrote:
| 94 years of age isn't too bad for someone who is a legendary Coke
| drinker - five cans a day!
|
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffe...
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I'm guessing the real problem is he's irrationally bullish on
| the US stock market when there's no sane reason to be.
| zahlman wrote:
| I have been hearing about him being overall bearish for quite
| some time (or at least, more cautious than average). I have
| no idea what your sources might be. He does pick individual
| stocks that he expects to do well, of course.
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