Buffett to step down following six-decade run atop Berkshire
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
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.
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.
But unfortunately I think Merkels legacy will be "Wandel durch handel".
Trying to pacify Russia and Putin through increasing trade. Did not work.
> preserving status quo
That sounds like the same thing to me?
I am not inclined to give her a free pass on that.
What? She shut down nuclear power plants to ramp up coal and Russian dependence.
Idolizing people is rarely helpful.
Oddly enough? Schröder was in a coalition with the green party that had emerged from the anti-nuclear movement two decades before.
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.
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.
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.
There will always be people that dislike change, but it may ultimately be better to start integrating them earlier rather than later. If you make it through the bad times (e.g. now), at the other end is the outcome you desire.
How many of those unchecked are women? What's the point of having borders then? Or law enforcement putting criminals in jails, when they could be out there propping up the economy. As long as your illegal activities are putting money into the state coffers, you should be allowed to continue unchecked, screw the laws.
Yeah sure, they might cause some trouble for the lower and middle class living amongst them, but think of the economic gains for the top 1%! Their real estate and stock portfolios have never looked so good. And if people vocally disagree with this you call them fascist and put them in jail for threatening your "democracy".
How does Poland's economy manage to grow faster than Germany's without illegal immigration? Maybe they can send some researchers there to find out.
They are having babies.
Do you research things before you say them? A quick google search shows Polish fertility rate (1,26) is lower than Germany(1,46).
The refugee crisis didn't appear to have a significant impact (positive or negative) on the labor market based on a recent study by the IZA and ZEW [0] - "Our estimates suggest that those migrants have not displaced native workers but have themselves struggled to find gainful employment. We find moderate increases in crime, and our analysis further indicates that while at the macro level increased migration was accompanied by increased support for anti-immigrant parties, exposure to asylum seekers at the micro level had a small negative effect." [0]
There are systemic issues with the German economy that aren't related to immigration. A lot of the current malaise can be attributed to the economic slowdowns in Russia (with the Russian Invasion of Ukraine) [1] and China (due to Zero COVID and the subsequent indigenization) [2], due to how tied German industry was with both markets [3].
[0] - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecca.12420
[1] - https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/no-more-illusions-...
[2] - https://ecfr.eu/article/the-end-of-germanys-china-illusion/?...
[3] - https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2024/130/arti...
The bigger picture of getting germany dependent on russian gas while screwing eu allies.
Berkshire was a key player in the rail workers strike of 2022 and Warren didn’t seem to want to give an inch to the working man when given the opportunity to do so.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_...
If living standards are falling, grocery prices have increased, rents have gone up, wages have stagnated, what does the price of eggs in China have to do with my assessment of the local conditions.
https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/Charts/...
> I just don’t buy this argument. By global standards, even the poorest Americans (with obvious exceptions like the homeless) are relatively wealthy. Comparison is the theft of joy.
Define wealth. The cheapest option for many foods in other countries is often not only much cheaper, but also of much higher quality than the cheapest option for the same type of item in the US (bread, rice, etc..) in fact their cheap version could easily be pass for the US premium grocery version.
No, they aren't. It's dubious that even the widening relative gap between the working class and the capitalist class plays a major role, though that at least has the virtue of being a real condition and not a fantasy.
In America, at least, workers think tomorrow will be worse than today and they are resorting to populism to try and reverse the trend.
Ironically, it’s often the opposite party that actually pushes for policies that would materially benefit the working class. The real fallacy is equating the current wave of so-called “populism” with a genuine effort to improve conditions for workers. In practice, what’s being called “populism” is frequently just another vehicle for entrenched elites to consolidate power, not a movement to empower ordinary people.
Such as?
Democrats passed ACA, which made insurance even possible to purchase if you weren’t offered it by employer, and the annual out of pocket maximum, ban on pre existing conditions as a criteria for calculating premiums, and ACA premium credits made it more attainable than it was before ACA.
Build Back Better bill a couple years ago would have made paid leave policies nationwide and provided more assistance with childcare.
They also have significantly higher unemployment rates.
> Build Back Better bill a couple years ago
This bill was named after policy advanced by people who want to turn the general population into a class of permanent renters.
> Democrats passed ACA, which made insurance even possible to purchase if you weren’t offered it by employer, and the annual out of pocket maximum, ban on pre existing conditions as a criteria for calculating premiums, and ACA premium credits made it more attainable than it was before ACA.
Have you actually ever purchased a plan from the website? The last time I checked, the costs were the same as if I had a plan on my own. Also you could get policies prior to ACA, but were subject to health exams and non-coverage of preexisting conditions. In fact, one could argue that all ACA accomplished of benefit was forcing coverage of preexisting conditions. But let's also not forget the fine, which was applied to people who did not have health insurance under the assumption that it was a choice. In reality, people don't have health insurance if they can't afford it which made the penalty functionally a tax on the poor.
You speak of ACA like everybody will agree with you. A decade later I'm still mad at Obama and want my $4k back.
Aka giving people access to healthcare.
Health insurance is not real insurance, it’s a facade where we pretend premiums are not taxes.
99% of people could never afford the healthcare they get, they would just die. Which is fine, but there is no situation where healthcare + low taxes (wealth redistribution) exists.
So it’s high taxes + healthcare, but with a flattening and top heavy population age histogram, even that doesn’t work.
The worst is when old people only get healthcare (Medicare, which is all there was before ACA). A country is doomed if it’s just sacrificing the future to eke out a few years its oldest.
Except on immigration.
How about if I let you do that:
> In America, at least, workers think tomorrow will be worse than today and they are resorting to populism to try and reverse the trend.
See, belief about likely future conditions is a very different hypothesis than factually-existing current conditions, and a better one. To the extent that, IMO, its at least part of the actual explanation.
No, perception and reality are different things.
> Its a line trending down
Perception? Sure. Reality? No, it factually wasn't prior to the events that it is being invoked to explain.
Which is why perception of decline is a much more defensible hypothesis as to the cause than actual decline.
I’ve noticed you refuse to put forward your own reasons, why is that?
This description could apply to the French Revolution, Tsarist Russia, the fall of the Weimar Republic, and the Colombian Civil War. Why do you think it is dubious?
I don’t buy this anymore. The evidence is for a simpler hypothesis: 20 to 30% of Americans are stupid. They vote against their own economic interests, which doesn’t make sense if wealth is the problem. My personal hypothesis is lead exposure. But further empowering that segment with wealth strikes me as counterproductive.
Learn to read the signs instead of calling people stupid for not agreeing with you, and then following it up with an attempt to force their alignment.
There there's a lot more that motivates voters besides economics.
My hypothesis is that it is simply broad spectrum culture war. Mass communication and global human mobility have simply raised the stakes or control over social Commons. The same time due to related factors, there is low agreement on shared social rules, vales, and priorities.
In the sense that good fences make good neighbors, there is no clear fence today.
There is no trust in institutional norms to provide protection, so every battle for power seems existential.
I find it hard to argue with this. Real politik and the rule of the jungle have always been in effect. It is just less dramatic when there is consensus on the rules and limitations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 penny of value from them, and that mindset hasn't completely been lost. Workers are callously discarded, not at the doorstep of bankruptcy, but at the first hint that profits might not grow as fast as they could.
The unions wanted sick leave, because under the current system, employees were scheduled weeks in advance with zero margin. If the employee was sick, they had to ask for PTO which would get denied because of lack of notice and any margin (other employees to cover the job)
It is important for a company to earn a profit. You'll find companies like google and facebook, who are making fat profits.... pay fat salaries to their workers.
If the company operates in such razor thin margins that it can't provide for sick leave for employees, something is terribly wrong.
> It is important for a company to earn a profit. You'll find companies like google and facebook, who are making fat profits.... pay fat salaries to their workers
And you'll find that most companies pay as little as they can get away with. Google and Meta need to compete to get a limited (until recently) amounts of top talent.
A railway couldn't care less about the employees.
> Get in the real world, not some fantasy land
Get out of a libertrarian's wet dream and look around you, read up a little bit on various companies financials.
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.
What's your excuse for them abusing their employees? Why can't they afford to provide sick leave for their employees when not only do they have billions of net profit every year, many other railways around the world in the same type of business manage to do that and be profitable.
Yes, I edited my comment to add more data points when I collected them.
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.
Every quarter you click on, <70% operating ratio, $1.something billion net income.
I don’t know how much sick leave costs them, but they’re not as wealthy as a company as you claim here.
As long as there is some link between the quality of work you do and the rewards you get, people will in most cases try their best. Allocation of capital is no different, and in my opinion should not be treated differently. Giving capital allocators ownership/percentage of the work others do is too much, and leads to unnecessary centralization of power.
Even if you could say that people truly choose to give a piece of their paycheck to someone simply for being named the owner, it's not a reason not to consider limiting that right to choose. We limit many things that we consider harmful. This system is producing ever increasing inequality of wealth and power. There are now people so wealthy that they're able to break democracies. This will only get worse and worse.
Someone can decide to start a company tomorrow and keep 100% of the outcome (less taxes) if they want to do that instead - it's trivially easy to be 100% owner of a business - a couple hundred bucks online and you can set the legal entity up in minutes. Now, you then have to provide sufficient value to customers so that they make the choice to part with their hard earned dollars - and that's where it all falls down for many. But it has nothing to do with power or lack of it.
A capitalist system would collapse without workers, so not everyone can be a business owner. Someone needs to actually do the work, capital does nothing on its own. I guess you could imagine a world where everyone is a one man business and a subcontractor in someone else's business, but that wouldn't really change the nature of the relationship. The ones with capital would still be in a position power and take a part of what people with no power produce.
A capitalist system would collapse without workers, without capital, without a decent legal system.
Many people do work as one man businesses. It does change the nature of the relationship because the economy isn't a one way river. There are all manner of feedback looks - you mine copper, I buy your copper, make some electrical component, sell it to the manufacturer of a Komatsu, they make mining trucks, sell it to you. It all goes round and round.
What are some notable examples "workers choosing to improve things"?
Competition has a lot of negative effects as well. Competition by definition has losers. Competition leads to resentment and conflict. Competition forces people to do things they might not want to to survive, because the moment someone is willing to do something to get an edge, everyone is forced to.
Ones that choose not to treat their workers with basic dignity are badly managed.
They didn't want to give in on same-day sick days (not the same as prescheduled PTO, which they did have) because it kills what they call precision train scheduling, which is basically running trains with the absolute minimum number of people possible. I'm not saying this was right or wrong, just that it's the reason.
And here I was, under the impression that both Google and Facebook paid their moderators as little as possible.
Ms. Farmer is the CEO of BNSF Railway[1], she is the one “directly running it”.
Moreover, Berkshire/Buffet is notorious for _not_ micro-managing, for letting its subsidiaires enjoy greater autonomy than they would in an usual conglomerate.
Not sarcasm.
How exactly did he "represented a vision of betterment, a just society, and sound economic stewardship"?
> 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.
Who are these "many" that need to be taught about those "democratic principles" and the "rule of law". How are these related to Buffett?
> It's the end of an era bona fides and respect for truth and accountability as the structural integrity of democratic society.
What?
The current status of things in US politics is what I assume is being referred to here. Happy to be corrected.
You're splitting. Psychiatrically binarizing things into two possible states - a psychiatric pathology fueled by online propaganda in this context.
Please point out one case in which he wasn’t firmly on the side of capital over societal advancement. As far as I can tell he is deeply invested in oil and keeps shilling Coca Cola (and that’s probably only the surface).
I asked what her secret is to aging so well. "I don't know, just don't have any health issues, I guess", she said.
Maybe if you can make it that long without encountering Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, or various other major issues... then you basically have a decent shot at still being fine and healthy at 94.
My grandmother was extremely active throughout her life. She worked out. She was active at church. She volunteered throughout her 70's and 80's. She was always happy to go out to dinner with anyone that wanted.
Most of my memories of my grandfather (her husband) where him sitting on a recliner watching TV. He rarely left the house.
Their quality of life in the last 15 years of their lives was so different. Grandma died on her feet. She had a heart attack in the middle of the night and that was it. The day before she had been out with friends and had dinner with the family. My grandfather just sort of wasted away. He was weak, frail, and kind of miserable.
All I'm saying is there sure seemed to be a lot more than dodging all of those diseases and issues with those two. My grandmother invested in herself. She worked really hard to maintain that quality of life.
She's my role model as I age.
I really hope I could be productive at 90. Heck, I hope I'm productive at 70.
For the upvoted, seing their magical internet points go up can also feel the same as the notification that they received your heart emoji.
BUT - for the network, having scores be hidden and not displaying a loot of emoji reactions on each post makes a huge difference - it changes the incentives.
You don't get socially rewarded for engagement, because the loot is invisible in the thread (aside from being shown higher on the page). This disincentivizes Reddit-style snark, Twitter-style dunks, etc.
This probably disproportionally tends to attract the kind of people who like discreet positive reinforcement for smart well thought-out comments.
He's literally older than chocolate chips!
That's more than most people can expect if they even make it to their late 80s.
Frankly I'm astonished at people like Warren Buffet and David Attenborough (a hero of mine).
This seems like a good moment to share it.
"Variety and moderation" is probably good enough advice for most people without specific health conditions.
So while the definition of eating well has always changed, I’m not sure it was ever what Buffett reportedly does. And if Buffett’s diet is actually as reported, he is likely an outlier in terms of typical effects of such a diet into old age.
“If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I do it every day.”
https://fortune.com/well/article/warren-buffett-birthday-lon...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/warren-buffetts-upside-down-b...
> “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.”
https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf
Though he makes the distinction between "import certificates" and Trump's version of tariffs.
> 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...
Totally incorrect according to this graph: https://taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/figure1_25.p...
From article: https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-owns-us-stock-foreign...
Can you cite a source for what you've written?
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.
What's the issue, if me, an Italian, own land in Indiana or North Cali?
1) The foreign entity is investing where Americans aren't.
2) There is a very huge risk for the foreign entity to own such an operation because of political changes. By law or decree the US or the state can always nationalize these lands.
Thus, ultimately, I see no issue there.
2. I think this represents a misunderstanding of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law. The Constitution provides no power for the federal government to acquire land without just compensation, which courts have regularly held to mean fair market value. Put another way: The feds can likely devise a path for buying your land, but can't outright nationalize it. Changing that is not a matter of presidential decree or even a law by Congress; it would require an amendment to the Constitution itself, which is an extraordinarily heavy political and policy lift.
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.
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.
Speaking to the middle class, home ownership (traditionally one of the most reliable sources of wealth for the middle class) would 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.
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.
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...
If we agree that that's a bad thing, then it stands to reason that there's a certain point where foreign ownership becomes a bad thing.
I think China has done an excellent job of bringing in foreign investment while keeping those foreign investors from running amok.
Capital investments are like credit card spending, feels good for a while, but ultimately outwards-capital value should always exceed inwards-capital value (that's why somebody makes an investment).
Sometimes everybody is better off (the ideal founder story with VC investment) but all too often the investment money is stolen or misused (but the debt remains for the country to repay).
The 1MDB investments didn't help Malaysia:
US investment bank Goldman Sachs helps 1MDB sell bonds worth $3.5bn... Goldman Sachs helps 1MDB raise a further $3bn in an additional bond sale, this time to cover “new strategic economic initiatives” between Malaysia and Abu Dhabi
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
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.
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...
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.
He's commenting on the attitude driving the tariffs.
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.
Japan, S Korea and Hong Kong have next to no natural resources. Great prosperity.
Germany turned to free markets after WW2 and enjoyed the "German Miracle". (Germany has since turned to socialism, with predictable results.) Germany received far, far less Marshall Plan money than Britain and France, who had no miracle.
> but to say it's the only unique thing about America is just wrong
History shows otherwise.
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 untouched throughout both world wars.
The starting positions were far from equal. You attribute too much to free markets.
Minus some balloons from the Japanese I believe?
Russia did not industrialize in the 1920s. They did collectivize agriculture, famine ensued. They turned back to free market farming, famine went away. They turned again to collectivization, and farming collapsed again. Eventually, the Soviets allowed farmers to farm small plots and sell what they could raise. These small free market plots kept the country from starving.
Russia did work hard at industrializing during WW2, but it was propped up by the US, who heavily supplied the Soviets. The US actually built factories in the US, dismantled them, and shipped them to the Soviet Union during the war. US engineers and craftsmen taught them.
When WW2 ended, the Soviets looted everything industrial they could find from the Soviet sector. Whole factories were moved east. Soviet industrial output grew during the war.
British industry was also untouched, because the German bomber fleet did not have the range to cover much of Britain, and because Hitler stupidly decided to bomb houses instead of factories. Britain had a pretty anemic recovery from the war - despite getting far more Marshall Plan money than Germany.
Japan did not have a free market before the war, and not much of an industrial economy. Curtis LeMay had a hard time finding industrial targets to bomb, as Japanese industry was characterized as "a drill press in every home". Japan turned to free markets after the war, and we know what happened next. Recall that Japan was burned into ash in WW2. They went from utter defeat to economic superpower, despite not having any natural resources, in just 30 years.
How much more of an "unequal" starting point could there possibly be?
The only common characteristic of prosperity is free markets. And the more free market an economy is, the more prosperous it is. Over and over. It goes back to the middle ages.
The other common characteristic is when countries turn towards socialism, things just get worse and worse for them.
These minus nukes and missiles plus battleships is pre-WWII Japan.
This may be helpful if you're curious why so many countries that choose free market instead of Communism after WWII are still not industrialized today.
The dollar becoming the reserve currency has given America a lot of power, however. It certainly is a factor in the way America is able to run a trade deficit and yet still benefit.
During WW2, the US was the most powerful economy in the world. It fought WW2 in both hemispheres (which required two navies), and supplied all the allies.
Japan was well aware they could never win a sustained war with the US, and hoped that the attack on Pearl Harbor would get them a negotiated settlement. Hitler, in probably the stupidest miscalculation in history, declared war on the US.
This is less unique than the dollar being the dominant reserve currency and dominant currency for settling international trade.
You appear to be putting the cart before the horse.
The dollar isn't dominant in international trade because the domestic market is free, like the above user was referencing. The dollar has been the dominant reserve currency and currency for international trade since it overtook the pound for both of those functions in the mid 20th century, which didn't coincide with the US having a free market.
Also, I wasn't make any causal relationship in my comment, like you seem to be implying. The fact that USD is the dominant reserve currency and dominant trade currency is unquestionably more unique than having free markets, considering that the US is truly completely unique in both of these regards, while it is not nearly as unique in having a free market.
The little "thing" or status of having reserve currency has allowed the US to enjoy lower international borrowing costs than anywhere else in the world. This has immensely benefited the US, in facilitating ease of borrowing with relatively low interest rates and by facilitating lower exchange rate risk in borrowing than any other nation.
And those were not based on free market choices, as the UK would have been just as much free, but it was a devastated economy in a small country.
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.
Socialism, on the other hand, makes things worse the closer one gets to "true" socialism.
Poverty in the US continued going down until 1968, when it began edging up again. 1968 was the advent of the "Great Society" programs.
> 1968 was the advent of the "Great Society" programs.
1968 was when Nixon was elected.
> During the 19th century, the US elevated scores of millions of immigrants from poverty to the middle class and beyond. The newly wealthy "aristocracy" sprang from the poor
I don't grasp the relevance of these 19th century events to today. How does it address the fact that today, for most of the population, US outcomes are worse than many peer countries?
Who are you quoting with "aristocracy" and did they really come from poor people or from the middle class?
If you like, name a wealthy American who came from royalty. I can't think of any.
Fun fact: the Titanic was not built to transport rich people to the US. Quite the contrary, the bulk of it was for poor people immigrating to the US. The first class section was for status and marketing. The money came from the rest of the human cargo.
That said, I agree that the economy of such a society has a better chance of succeeding, but it's at the cost of suffering of lots of people. Actually both extremes are bad - socialism has its problems, but so does the unchecked capitalism.
You can play the opposite game too: name a wealthy American who did not come from a multigenerational-upper-middle-class background (i.e. someone who's parents and grandparents were all well above median income).
Of the big names, the only one I can think of is Bezos (his adoptive father was an engineer, but a first generation immigrant with no established wealth). Everyone else, all of them AFAICT, came from backgrounds where they never had to worry about money or support through the early parts of their careers.
Poverty rates are significantly lower in the industrial world outside the US, even (especially!) in the "socialist" countries you seem to liken to LBJ policies. Seems like the same data you're referring to above cuts directly and strongly against this point.
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.
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.
Afaik the EU is regulated much more heavily in that area than the US, like here in Australia.
It makes sense to me that some amount of the US’ economic advantage comes from their ability to more efficiently match employees with the work currently demanded by the market.
Significantly less free than in the US, and correspondingly less prosperity.
> Some countries, including the US, reached prosperity by protecting their markets.
Not true. If it was true, N Korea would be massively prosperous.
Which measures of freedom became restricted in the EU following the GFC that led to the prosperity of the EU diverging from the US?
Free markets are chaotic, and are constantly reallocating resources from less efficient uses to more efficient uses.
Regulations that impede that make for lower prosperity.
How does your theory account for this?
Protecting markets is done with tariffs. Are you sure you want to assert that tariffs are good for the economy?
Simple, obvious contradiction: can every country enjoy the benefits of issuing the de facto reserve currency for the world? Just by having free markets?
The US has been incredibly privileged. I’d argue that was earned in some ways and lucky in others. But it’s undeniably true.
Free markets are a choice the US made. Any country can choose to have a free market, and some have. The reserve currency thing has nothing to do with it.
What would you say is the economic impact on a country of controlling a global reserve currency?
As long as the trend of capitalist market+power consolidation is considered to be 'less free market', I think I'd agree with you.
- Sincerely, an otherwise raging leftie
Not sure is this is what OP meant, but it's a huge advantage that the current administration seems bent on getting rid of
Digital services not being taxed/tariffed when exported whereas physical goods are, is purely a historical artifact. The US has managed to get the whole world addicted to their doomscrolling dopamine algorithms, raking in trillions of dollars. If these were physical goods, this would've been entirely different.
The heroine dealer of the world. So far they've been allowed this position, which is incredibly privileged. And now that the EU sometimes takes a (paltry) step towards slightly taxing the drugs, the dealer screams and kicks, "it's unfair! They're targeting just me!".
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.
That number in his quote is referring to the entire rest of the world.
He’s saying tariffs are making 7.5 billion people dislike us even more, and that jeopardizes our unique position in the world.
> “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.
”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...
https://business.columbia.edu/cgi-finance/chazen-global-insi...
"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.
https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Warren-Buffett-Lessons-Corpora...
All this with low risk holding lots of cash. He has not missed anything.
From 2017:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/06/warren-buffett-admits-he-mad...
"Not to diminish the accomplishments of the world's best poker player, but he did lose many hands."
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.
The current tech investing boom is just a blip just like previous tech booms (Auto industry boom, aircraft boom, personal computer boom).
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).
Yeah, looking at the NASDAQ from 1997 is a good reminder of everyone's selection bias. Saying Buffett missed out on the winners (with 20/20 hindsight) is forgetting that he also missed out on a lot of losers.
Here's some of the now lesser known NASDAQ tech stocks that were doing well in 1997:
Dell (DELL)
Compaq (CPQ)
Gateway (GTW)
Silicon Graphics (SGI)
Hewlett-Packard (HWP)
America Online (AOL)
Yahoo (YHOO)
Lycos (LCOS)
Excite (XCIT)
Netscape (NSCP)
3Com (COMS)
Bay Networks (BAY)
And nobody ever went wrong by buying IBM
Ps. That's not his ex wife though, it's his son's ex wife
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7aFD7bbigjgjUt0L2LWk...
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.
What sticks out the most is what a clear thinker he is.
This could motivate the private sector to go back to the Bell Labs model, too.
That seems to be what Buffett is suggesting.
I agree that free markets are great in principle but your comments seem dogmatic - all free markets and only free markets. The conversation would be much more interesting if it was about the nuances.
Then their parents must have been billionaires, generating it with investments. If the inheritors divest from those investments, then they incur enormous income taxes. So it's likely to stay.
> by buying favorable laws and regulations,
Then it's not free market. There is no government system that is immune from buying influence and corruption.
> by anticompetitive practices (we've seen a few in the IT sector), and by other problematic behavior.
Nothing is perfect.
> The conversation would be much more interesting if it was about the nuances.
Perhaps, but nuances do not drive prosperity. It would also be more interesting if you showed me a prosperous socialist economy.
But isn't this sidestepped buy the "buy, borrow, die" approach, often criticized?
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/03/tax-loop...
I'm not an expert on taxation, but this is something people have been complaining about for a long time.
> nothing is perfect
The same could be said about anything, including free market economics. It's meaningless.
> nuances do not drive prosperity
They certainly do. The differences are often in the details.
> Perhaps
That's honest, at least ...
Being rude is not persuasive.
> including free market economics. It's meaningless.
I've explicitly said many times that free markets work even if they're not ideal or perfect.
The point is that if you're forced to put your money into industries / r&d etc then you don't have enough money to bribe people / political parties / news outlets etc.
It's almost certain that the GP isn't either, and is only parasocially on a first name basis.
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...
Well I don't think him sitting on billions of dollars at 94 is better from a societal perspective.
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.
Even as T-bills they're doing something.
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
Oh god, you're not:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/328969-report-ku...
I feel impotent, what is there to be done?
I'm sure he's full of good ideas. I think they were just a bit more ambitious than the last 40 years of politicians were willing to stomach or advocate for.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffe...
Don't misunderstand flashy at the only way to be important.
* 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?
As for saving, he was the guy with a big pile of money in '08 (and other times). Someone you call when your business is dying or you want to retire; he gets the deal, not you. His Bank of America warrant play was a big one from that time.
I didn't finish snowball, but the first half goes over a lot of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowball%3A_Warren_Buffett...
Some of his biggest investments are in things like candy, soda, beer. Not exactly great for society overall and not really enabling anything other than diabetes.
He was already an massively wealthy in 2008 and just having a huge pile of cash and using it to make more deals is not some great achievement to be celebrated.
Yes he made billions off of his 2011 bofa investment, so good for him and brk but what did this do for anyone else?
If BH didn't exist would it really matter? I don't think so.
If the U.S. became a failed state tomorrow, there's a genuine chance that Berkshire businesses would keep on operating and trading with each other, on Berkshire rails. It's like a hive of cockroaches -- businesses which are individually strong, that when woven together are un-killable.
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.
If you liked the fact that the Great Recession didn't turn into the Even Greater Depression, he seems to have had quite a bit of influence there behind the scenes as well.
A young investor who thinks the whole portfolio should be in shitcoins because they are going to moon next week won't get a look in and the culture holds.
Take away the figure head and things can creep in a bad direction.
Check out transcription of his speech:
Something that's happening in the markets is that nobody owns anything anymore. With the exception of elon and bezos. Most fortune 500s have no owner; they are all on low risk autopilot.
He was also a vehement opponent of foreign military intervention, including military aid:
"Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics."
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.
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.
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.
_Yet_.
If you looked at the Wright Brothers aircraft, what real use is there for a vehicle that carries one person, maybe 50lbs of cargo, and moves at 80 mph?
As a result, extreme results in one or the other are not usually attained by people who do not have extreme prioritization of just one.
It is totally possible that a rare talented unicorn pursuing (and succeeding at) both goals simultaneously is needed for us to achieve radical life extension.