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    ninjaginHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:59pm

    I’m a Berkshire shareholder (a bunch of B shares before they split), and I’ve been to this meeting a dozen times. Haven’t gone the past 4-5 years or so. It’s not a bad way to spend a weekend, but it’s taxing. For me, it’s an eight-hour drive to Omaha. You have to be ready to wake up at 4:00 so you can be out the door and in line no later than 6:00 so you can get a decent seat.

    They give you free “breakfast” of prepackaged danish & bagels & juice, but otherwise the food is stadium fare. It’s fun to walk around the exhibition hall and see the displays that the companies set up. I bring home a new Berkshire hat and a new BNSF engineer’s hat, and few boxes of peanut brittle and chocolates, when I go.

    The Q&A is what sets the BRK meeting apart from all other shareholder meetings, though. It used to be a walk-up-to-the-mic affair, but there got to be so many people asking the same stupid questions about investing in gold and what the best investment advice for a 12-year-old might be that they went to the panel format... a big improvement. The latest big improvement is the Yahoo streaming of the meeting, so now you don’t have to deal with the crappy logistics and bad food.

    One thing that you completely missed, though, Ham, is that Warren gauges the success of BRK if it does better than an index fund... not because he has anything against playing the index (he frequently advises investors to simplify things by playing it, actually) but because it represents the best that a disinterested investor can do. There are years where Warren’s bets don’t pay off or lose outright. He’s not perfect and is quick to admit when he’s failed. You never see that in the CEOs/Chairpersons of other public corporations.

    Oh, and about this little gem:

    Unfortunately, everyone in capitalism cannot be Warren Buffett. For every savvy trade that he pulls off, there must always be a sucker on the other side. These losers are just as much a part of the system as the winners at Berkshire Hathaway are.

    This has got to be the most stupid and factually incorrect thing I’ve ever read. Who is the sucker you talk about? (Go find the sucker. I’ll wait.) In fact, everyone can invest like Warren Buffett. B shares are ridiculously cheap... a fraction of the cost of a share in Google, for example. If you want to make money like Warren, buy Berkshire. It’s that simple. You can always opt for an index fund, though most of the time you won’t do as well.

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      festivusazilininjagin
      5/05/16 1:23pm

      The “sucker on the other side” line is just the perfect HamNo-ism. It’s misstating a fundamental economic concept to make capitalism seem evil. If there has to be a sucker in every exchange, it is impossible to create new wealth through trade. I’m curious if he actually believes that, or if he was just looking for a punchy closing line.

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      Hamilton Nolanninjagin
      5/05/16 1:29pm

      Warren Buffett would be the first one to tell you he buys assets that are underpriced. The seller of an underpriced asset has lost in the sense that he has sold below the intrinsic value. Warren Buffett’s profits, which are completely legitimate, originate in identifying mispriced assets. That’s the entire basis of his investing philosophy. This is not a statement on whether or not anyone can invest in index funds.

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    Tidal TownHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:19pm
    …the Warren Buffett model does not produce a world of brothers and sisters living in equality, drinking milk and honey and contemplating universal beauty.

    Does any model? And what about those of us that are all for equality of opportunity but not necessarily equality of outcome, which should depend on the actions of each person individually? I guess that is technically in line with socialism: “Emphasis on profit being distributed among the society or workforce to complement individual wages/salaries.”

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      AnaxamanderTidal Town
      5/05/16 12:54pm

      those of us that are all for equality of opportunity but not necessarily equality of outcome, which should depend on the actions of each person individually

      True equality of opportunity isn’t possible. Differences in ability- intelligence, for example -lead to differences in opportunity.

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      OssmidTidal Town
      5/05/16 12:56pm

      So everyone gets two crackers and 3 cups of fresh water. Any effort to steal or acquire more water or crackers will be met with a death squad. Any efforts to generate more clean water and manufacture more crackers is greatly appreciated by the world government, however all additional assets (new water and crackers) will be forcibly removed by the “manufacturer” and distributed equally among all of earth’s citizens - cuz that’s the net result.
      You want the economy to find gravity equally among all persons...then to keep it there, you best be willing to meet rebellion of any sort with incredible violence.

      But hey, what I'm I saying here...we're all just bloviating on computers built by indentured slaves, strutting around in clothes made by children....woot woot!! By arguing for everything we achieve nothing! -Merica!!

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    PopChipsHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:05pm

    Former DQ owner.

    My mother told me not to bad-mouth people. Clairee Belcher taught me that if I have nothing nice to say about somebody then I should sit next to her. So, Warren Buffet creates a real internal struggle for me.

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      artless.dodgerPopChips
      5/05/16 12:17pm

      Former Heinz employee.

      Same.

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      DumpsterbabyPopChips
      5/05/16 12:19pm

      I thought it was Truman’s daughter who said that about sitting next to her?

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    LordBurleighHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:15pm

    The issue with taking Warren Buffet as the hero of capitalism is parallel to the issue with taking Mitt Romney as the hero of capitalism: both represent deviations from the norm of a system, but those deviations depend on most of the system to function normally.

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      KC RibsLordBurleigh
      5/05/16 12:46pm

      All Warren Buffett does is move money around. He does not produce anything of value and has never invented anything new or useful, or created a new service industry of any kind. Andrew Carenegie (Steel) and John D. Rockefeller (oil) both looked down on men and women like that. Instead of creating something new, or creating lots of jobs, Buffett simply buys companies that are already doing that. At least Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison created new things with tremendous benefits to millions of people. If you want some "heros of capitalism" you should probably look to men like them and women like Mary Kay Ash, rather than gifted money managers like Warren Buffett.

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      Mo12LordBurleigh
      5/05/16 1:09pm

      I’m sure if we went to a more socialism style there would be no greedy people anymore and the government wouldn’t fuck even more people over.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

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    kajdbfkadbHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:06pm

    Thank you, person I would never have heard of or read had rich people not given you a voice + a paycheck, you really make a convincing argument everytime you try this ‘writing about capitalism’ thing

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      Jeb! & The Hologramskajdbfkadb
      5/05/16 12:18pm

      The issue with Hamilton (aside from his laser-like focus on a topic that he seems to only have a skin-deep knowledge of) isn’t his using a platform paid for by a rich white man. It’s that Gawker (and their writers) openly back Bernie Sanders and his ideas/policies, but Gawker operates with a known tax evasion shelter in the Carribbean.

      Owning it doesn’t mean it suddenly dovetails with your personal political views. This is the Internet. There are other shops hiring white people who find everything problematic.

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      RobertMadookajdbfkadb
      5/05/16 12:21pm

      Holy fuck that’s an embarrassingly subservient attitude.

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    toothpetardHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:03pm

    Capitalism, the growing of money capital; should result in more of it at available at the end of the day, not less.

    Any system that doesn’t do this isn’t capitalism.

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      Dayburnertoothpetard
      5/05/16 12:23pm

      I think this is best defined as the capitalism vs consumerism debate.

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      SouthboundPachydermtoothpetard
      5/05/16 12:37pm

      No, that is not correct. All that is required for a system to be capitalism is for the great majority of trade and industry to be in the hands of private owners working towards a goal of profit.

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    High Plains SplifferHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:57pm

    People also forget that Buffett screwed a lot of people over in his early days to buy his affable “Oracle of Omaha” persona. I was born in the 1980s, but growing up I heard about how Buffett bought one of my town’s biggest factories (that employed over 500 people in my small southeast Nebraska burg which made bomb casings during WWII and later became famous for its windmills and other farm implements), liquidated all of its holdings, broke it up into parts, and sold it off at a profit.

    The people who worked there at the time, or those whose parents or grandparents did, still have nothing but ugly things to say about Warren Buffett. In some subsequent article or book about him (it might be the one HamNo referred to, it’s been some time since I’ve read it) he did say he regretted screwing the business and town over like that, but I’m sure that was long after he reinvested that hefty stack of Tubmans he got from it into something more lucrative.

    As an epilogue, the company was later purchased by Golden State Warrior Draymond Green’s dad — no joke — who promised to revive it to its glory days, but then he took every last penny out of the business so he could watch Green all over the country when he was playing at Michigan State. We saw him sitting on the aircraft carrier during the MSU-North Carolina game.

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      AnastasiaBeaverhausenFGHigh Plains Spliffer
      5/05/16 4:08pm

      Ooof. This is tough to read. Fellow native Nebraskan, which town was this? Also required: GBR.

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      High Plains SplifferAnastasiaBeaverhausenFG
      5/05/16 4:59pm

      Be-AT-rice. Buffett and co. bought the Dempster plant in the 1950s. It finally closed in 2012.

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    XrdsAlumHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 12:17pm

    Capitalism isn’t going to produce equality; we have democracy (or what’s left of it) and the Constitution for that. Capitalism isn’t going to take care of those who end up as society’s losers (in the non-Drumpf sense of the term); we have taxes and social welfare (or what’s left of them) for that. Capitalism isn’t going to make us better people; we have our educational system (or what’s left of it) and our role models for that. If anyone is telling you otherwise they’re hucksters selling you a bill of goods.

    So, left with capitalism in and of itself, Buffett’s version is enough of an ideal to strive for. Berkshire does value investing in companies (many of them American) that actually make and build products and services people use. He doesn’t consider investing a de facto zero-sum game. Those companies aren’t often in the news for exploiting their workers (many of whom work full-time with benefits). His business isn’t based on rent-seeking or shuffling money around. He doesn’t consider taxes a “punishment” and he doesn’t consider democracy to be in fundamental conflict with capitalism but rather a complement to it. He isn’t a greedpig in his personal life and he hates the idea of himself or his family being seen as greedpigs. He has a sense of perspective about money and how someone who has a lot of it can enjoy it.

    And for all the joking about the bland Middle American furniture and art and clothes, Buffett and his acolytes still have better taste than Drumpf and his followers ever will.

    Berkshire-Hathaway and its businesses are far from perfect, but I’ll take their version of capitalism over the late-stage monstrosities we’re seeing elsewhere in this country any day.

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      WowF'ngWowXrdsAlum
      5/05/16 12:28pm

      Best follow-up.

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      Cojo99XrdsAlum
      5/05/16 12:55pm

      I would also add that many of the complaints on capitalism are actually misdirected complaints against corporatism, financialization, regulatory capture, and monopolies. All potentially preventable effects of capitalism.

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    MessyBootsHamilton Nolan
    5/05/16 2:07pm

    Had I known The HamNo from NYC was in my one horse town,I would have taken you out for a beer and shown you around. I have conflicting feelings about Warren Buffet. I’ve met him once,nice old man. A few years ago,Berkshire Hathaway acquired a public utilities company that provides electricity to one of the top 10 US cities and my father in law is president of that company ( he was very likely one of the men in khakis you saw at some point.) He is a disciple of Warren’s and they’ve done a few panels relating to energy stuff together and is the same breed of Midwestern rich dudes that are all work and no flash. Like my FIL takes pride in the fact that he still drives his 2008 Ford Pickup truck to work every day. So anyways, on one hand, I do think Warren Buffet is probably the most likable Billionaire. But on the other, he is so completely removed from real life and in his own little bubble,he doesn’t seem to understand how other people live. The reaction to that diversity question and why it matters is a great example. North Omaha has some of the highest rates of murder,unemployment, and poverty in this country and I don’t think he has ever acknowledged that in any way. It is also predominately black and has been for over a 100 years. This is his home town though and I feel like he should care in some way. He should care that a part of his city has the highest murder rate amongst black men in the nation. It also has an extremely high rate of children in poverty and subpar schools. I think some people here felt like it was kind of shitty to hand over his fortune to Bill and Melinda Gates when he could have done some good in this town that is so apart of his identity.

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      ChrisMSFHamilton Nolan
      5/05/16 5:58pm

      I used to work for a company owned by BRK and was sent to Oamaha to rep the company on the show floor. We were not a consumer goods or service company, so lots of yokels took me in, slack-jawed, when I explained this business they would never, ever need. But more importantly, I have used your Costco line a thousand times: I’m convinced a great number of attendees only own a single share of B and make the trip in only for the savings on ketchup, underwear, belts, and end tables. It’s a folksy flea market occasionally dotted with billionaires.

      Also, there’s a fundamental absurdity to the whole Q&A: a gaggle of people asking Buffett questions on how they can best avoid his own strategy. They want to make more money now (gold! Cattle! Banks! Stocks!) when the BRK way is to get a safe position and hold, and hold, and hold. He’s looking 30 years deep on his acquisitions, but so many fans are looking for returns in 30 minutes.

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