You must've been living on the Moon not to notice WB's consistent bigtime bad-mouthing of the shiny stuff over the last 3 months... But Lo! Some news softly over yonder shiny peaks breaks! Berkshire Hathaway buys Cooksons: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/...rket-news-detail.html?announcementId=11123396 May wonders never cease (!) x
Peculiar... his Dad was a goldbug, and we presume WB has certainly not ever advised US government to dump their gold. Looking on from a distance, it seems like WB changed after the 2008 melt down. It appears, on the surface, that his moral character was affected, for the worse. There is a leading wo/man for all seasons, and WB definitely led for decades. And his generosity, the entire world knows. He gave a lecture to a graduating University class (see Youtube), and the very first thing he discussed (for a good 10 minutes) was morals, and that in fact, was his entire speech. After that, he just literally fielded questions & answered them for the rest of the time. I was greatly impressed by this, and held WB in very high esteem, ever since watching that talk. Its sad what appears to have happened. 2008 unfortunately seems to have been the straw that broke his back. That being said, everyone of us is capable of breaking, if the load on us be too great. So we can't presume to think that we have some kind of special moral fibre, which WB no longer possesses. Don't believe this for a minute.
Fixed the link - Apols guys & girls And for the sake of balance... straight from The Sage's mouth... 'GOLD HAS NO VALUE' - 10th Feb 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...9074670/Warren-Buffett-gold-has-no-value.html 'Buffet even compares gold bullion investments to the 17th century tulip bubble that eventually crashed into wealthy people holding overinflated tulips...' http://z6mag.com/business/warren-bu...sletter-is-sour-on-gold-investing-165781.html x
Buffet quite rightly believes that investment in productive companies which provide a solid return is of benefit to investors and to the community. He is opposed to speculation and the type of crony capitalism which is purely interested in short term pillage without regard for the future consequences. A good case is Pacific Brands who in search of short term returns found it easier to move offshore and abandon hundreds of jobs. The society damage was of no consequence to the executives who made the decision. They were more interested in the quarter's balance sheet and their bonuses, but when the shareholders measure the ACTUAL cost to their portfolio in terms of quality of goods, reduced opportunities for their children, and the cost of a society with manufacturing ripped away, it will be too late. Buffet I think is trying to draw people towards that type of investment, rather than credit default swap bets and shares in flesh eating monsters like Goldman Sachs which produce nothing and simply destroy what is good for a percentage profit in the quarter.
WB doesn't invest in gold because gold doesn't provide an income stream. There's of course more to it than that, but I think that's it in a nutshell. The jobs industries can provide, via supporting them with capital, is not a mantra of his. His mantra is to make money - lots of it. Having read extensively about the man (including 5 or 6 books I own), the one thing that is crystal clear to me is that WB is really only interested, as alluded to above, in making as much money as he practically can (what he does with it later is a different matter). WB only has 2 rules when it comes to investing: the first, "don't lose money; the second, "don't forget the first rule." Ethics really don't come into it. If he was concerned about ethics, he would have never invested in tobacco companies or helped to bail out, in different decades, less than moral and in actual fact, fraudulent banks, viz Goldman Sachs and Bank of America (via preference stock at very high yields). Nor should this take away from WB as a man. I just don't think he should be labelled moral or ethical when it comes to investing. To this end, I believe the facts speak for themselves.
Interesting points. Here's where he talks about "integrity". Integrity noun 1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. 2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire. 3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship's hull. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vdO2qrZEYg[/youtube]
Sorry - I don't understand. How can not thinking gold is a good investment but buying a gold mining company cause people to question his morals or ethics? I don't like Coke - think people are crazy for buying it, drinking it and wrecking good spirits by mixing it in them but I still own some shares in CCA (Australian Coke franchise). Does this make me morally and ethically corrupt? malachii
Also its important to remember that Warren Buffett doesn't make all of the acquisition decisions at Berkshire Hathaway. If the acquisition was made by a Berkshire subsidiary (in this case Richline group) then the executive responsible for running that subsidiary (i.e. the CEO of Richline group) likely made the decision. Warren has a relatively hands-off managerial style so even if he doesn't always agree with a decision doesn't mean he will interfere.
That's the funny thing about morals. A university lecturer in philosophy could run semantic rings around people in a discussion on morals. Apart from the semantics, the general air since 2008 and the wall street bailouts has changed. There is no "one big smoking gun", but rather lots of small smoking guns, on all manner of things, in many areas, which appear unethical (whatever the hell this word means). Listen to Doug Casey, Jim Puplava, Janet Tavokoli, the fiasco around the way David Sokol's resignation was handled, etc. Buffett's firms got $95 billion in bailout cash, and his partner Charlie Munger says, "suck it up buddy", as well as saying we shouldn't be "bitching about a little bailout." If another round of bailouts is needed, and the government hand reaches into people's wallets, in order to shower the money down on other people's companies, we know what will be said about it. There'll be a fat, rich guy sitting in a chair, smoking a cigar, sipping on his whisky, looking into the television camera and laughing, saying "suck it up buddy". Ha ha ha...
Hey Water&Food, Please provide comment on the 102.5 million oz silver raid. http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-307581.html#p307581 As you'll see, a big american stacker (handle=SILVSTACK) and myself, have concluded that this operation most likely originated from the Caymen Islands. Also, both JPMorgan and/or Carlos Slim were the two players involved. Have you don't any Fibonacci number crunching on the trades involved? It could provide important clues to both the timing and size of their next operation. Do you have another (colourful) picture which might shed clues on this mysterious trade? Black_Sun
PS: I'm not sure if it makes any difference to your analysis of this hostile silver trading, but I understand that Carlos had raisin muffins served with maple sauce for breakfast, on that particular day. Don't know if it helps; just thought you should know.
I still don't get it - we are now talking about uni lecturers setting moral standards, bailouts and silver trading in th Cayman Islands?????? This started off by people saying Buffet had no morals or ethics because he dissed gold and then bought a gold mining company - How is this any different from not thinking gambling is a good investment but owning a casino? malachii
Like most 'influential' business people, he will talk out of his arse in an attempt to make you like him or believe what he is saying while doing another. It's just another game to these guys.
Why would he give a $hit whether you or I like him or believe him? What's in it for him? He's not a politician - he doesn't need your vote or permission for anything. malachii
pump n dump = Buy shares flood positive incorrect msgs about said shares and dump once price has increased. What is happening here is sorta the opposite Dump n Pump = Dump on gold, flood negative incorrect msgs about gold and when prices have decreased pump money into said instrument you were dumping on... basically making your own discount by spreading lies
Hell of a long time to dump n pump. He's been negative on gold forever. I was reading on old book on him when I was in uni (last century) and he was negative on gold then. malachii
