Quote:
Originally Posted by lustylad
Who says annual shareholder meetings are boring?
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Not me! (Not Buffett's, anyway.)
Actually, I never watch the entire video of the events; just some key clips. But I do read the entire transcripts. There are always a few priceless takeaways.
For instance:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiny
He looks at balance sheets more closely than income statements. Most investors do the opposite. He'll look at 8 or 10 years of balance sheet history before he looks at the income statement.
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A nice little dollop of great wisdom there! The key point is that it's a lot harder to pull off sleight-of-hand that misleads investors when you don't have the chance to jack with numbers quite as promiscuously as some do with income statements.
Back when it was initially proposed, Charlie Munger didn't seem to be much of a fan of the "import certificate" plan. He apparently seemed to think it was a bit too convoluted. My concern is that it would put an extremely hard cap on imports since it would presumably force trade balance. This would necessitate getting our fiscal house in order and radically cutting the budget deficit as well. (See: "Triffin Dilemma 2.0.")
In any event, if anyone is interested in reading Warren's original statement calling for this idea in 2003, here it is:
https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fort...2872/index.htm