Buffett Articles
I saved a few of these articles over the new years break and finally had the time to digest some.
Of the two, I found the transcript of the interview with the Financial Crisis Inquiry regarding the Global Financial Crisis, it was recently released by the US National Archives and its one helluva long read @ 103 pages but quite fun, here’s the link (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/26422005) and a snippet below:
I read that the tulip bulb was in 1610 or 1620, but tulips had been around before, and they always looked beautiful and people wanted them on their tables and all that. For some reason, it gets to a critical mass, a critical point is that where the price action alone starts dominating people’s minds.
The next article comes from Time, less interesting but his thoughts on compounding are, as always, wonderful.
Before we shed tears over that figure, let’s do a little math, recognizing that GDP per capita is what counts. If, for example, the U.S. population were to grow 3% annually while GDP grew 2%, prospects would indeed be bleak for our children. But that’s not the case. We can be confident that births minus deaths will add no more than 0.5% yearly to America’s population. Immigration is more difficult to predict. I believe 1 million people annually is a reasonable estimate, an influx that will add 0.3% annually to population growth. In total, therefore, you can expect America’s population to increase about 0.8% a year. Under that assumption, gains of 2% in real GDP–that is, without nominal gains produced by inflation–will annually deliver 1.2% growth in per capita GDP. This pace no doubt sounds paltry. But over time, it works wonders. In 25 years–a single generation–1.2% annual growth boosts our current $59,000 of GDP per capita to $79,000. This $20,000 increase guarantees a far better life for our children. Source: Time