I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that.
Confidence in markets and in institutions, it's a lot like oxygen. When you have it, you don't even think about it. It's indispensable. You can go years without thinking about it. When it's gone for five minutes, it's the only thing to think about.
It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation or pays no income tax during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is 'taxed' in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 100 percent income tax but doesn't seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent.
Every day that goes by, I mean, if you don't react to Pearl Harbor for a week or two weeks or three weeks, you're behind in the war that you otherwise would have fought.
SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I'm in it, and I think you should be, too.
I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact, if it occurswe will be selling life jackets to the unprepared.
I do not believe in inheriting your position in society based on which womb you come from... I think a rich person should leave his children enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.
Well, I think the biggest mistake is not learning the habits of saving properly early. Because saving is a habit. And then, trying to get rich quick. It's pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly. But it's not easy to get rich quick.
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.
Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.