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| Economy |
| Warren Buffett: ‘American Magic' Will Spur US Economic Recovery |
| 2020-05-03 |
| [Breitbart] Washington (AFP) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffet said Saturday he’s confident the US economy will bounce back from its pummeling by the coronavirus pandemic because "American magic has always prevailed." The 89-year-old made the sanguine prediction about the world’s largest economy as his holding company Berkshire Hathaway reported first-quarter net losses of nearly $50 billion. Buffett also announced Saturday that his company had sold all its stakes in four major US airlines last month, as the pandemic clobbered the travel industry. "It turns out I was wrong," he said of his acquisitions of 10 percent stakes in American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. Berkshire Hathaway had paid $7 billion to $8 billion, and "we did not take out anything like that," he said. Between the purchases that took place over months, and the sale, "the airlines business I think changed in a very major way" and could no longer meet Berkshire criteria for profitability, he said. Buffett’s announcement may further hurt airlines already pushed to the brink by coronavirus lockdown measures, now looking to the US government for $25 billion in relief funds. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #7 Opinion: Warren Buffett and Bill Gates like railroads, and you should too If he sold airlines, it was to quickly move to something else. Yes, there is a drop in passenger-seat-miles but also in oil/fuel prices. Look for FedEx, et. al. move to rail shipping. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-05-03 17:19 |
| #6 Re #6: I used to work for GEICo. (Buffet owns GEICO.) I was hired to teach Java programming. A year or s later, they announced that they were switching to C# a Microsoft language. The rumor was that it happened because Buffet played bridge with Bill Gates. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2020-05-03 15:09 |
| #5 /\ Hear, hear |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-05-03 14:51 |
| #4 #2 Hear, hear Re Buffett, that old hypocrite talks a good game but his actual returns have less to do with business acumen than with the man's cynical exploitation of not just the tax code but also the way Congress treats certain industries. He rails against hedge funds -- but 60% or more of his returns come from leverage i.e. he's in effect a hedge funded himself. (The leverage comes from the huge cash flow generated by the privately-held cash cows in his portfolio). He trashes the banks - but some of his biggest scores came from investing in well-connected mega-banks right after the 2008-09 crisis. He postures as a champion of free enterprise -- but his most lucrative investments have always favored companies and industries that benefited critically upon favorable regulation, including at times anti-competitive cartel-like practices. No wonder the old hypocrite is such close buddies with Gates. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-05-03 14:21 |
| #3 Can't spur an economy with the governor's boot on the throat of business. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2020-05-03 13:58 |
| #2 Putting Buffett to the side for a moment, the current problem is basically a logistics problem: we have to manufacture a lot of stuff quickly and get it to the right places quickly. This really ought to play to our historic national strengths. The model that comes to mind is the famous Willow Run aircraft factory during WWII, where, in legend, a B-24 rolled off the production line every hour while the crews waited to take delivery. (Just how screwed were the Japanese at that point?) Now, you couldn't do Willow Run today because the site picked for the factory would turn out to be on the ancestral mating grounds of the left-handed sea slug, and OSHA would shut the plant down in 10 minutes if it did get built. But those are limitations we've imposed on ourselves. We could put the old-school engineers in charge and furlough the bureaucrats. If ever there was a time to do that, this seems like it. Or, as Churchill told FDR, “I trust you realize that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.” |
| Posted by: Matt 2020-05-03 10:35 |
| #1 I'm sure this crony capitalist will be fine. He surely must miss Barry, though. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-05-03 08:11 |