Buffett this, Buffett that. People could do better than idolise someone whose wealth came from parasitic speculation on productive activity.
His strategy is to take a controlling stake in a struggling company with good fundamentals but poor management. Then he’ll “fix up” the small problems and return the company to profitability.
How exactly is that parasitic?
Because shallow dismissals of wealthy / successful people is all the rage. Surely none of these people can actually have any talent. They're all just lucky or irredeemably evil, right?
> CM: what if we had no manufacturing and our only businesses were hedge funds?]
Buffet is very aware of that thinking. Even if CM is Charles Munger (VP of Hathaway).
The basic problem is that people do not want to appreciate the social value of capital allocation, well because a side effect of it is often making millions or even billions of dollars for yourself. And yet not having this mechanism is precisely the reason why the USSR collapsed.
Imagine this from the perspective of the employees: years of bad management, facing down the barrel of unemployment in a shrinking industry. Suddenly Buffett turns up, fires the bad managers and tells you profits are up so here’s a Christmas bonus. Capitalism at work.