Good morning. Good morning. And thanks for coming. All my loves it. I love it. Charlie loves it. We're glad to have you here.
We're going to make this this preliminary before the question is very short because we want to get it at least 60 questions have to buy it by the audience outside this arena and a half from you. So I would just like to get right to the directors and the earnings that have been put up on the web page this morning. But we'll cover those very fast and we'll get to the questions now.
I when I woke up this morning I realized that we had a competitive broadcast going out somewhere in the UK and they were celebrating a King Charles and we've got our own King Charles here today. And next to him we have Greg Able, who's in charge of all the operations except for insurance. Next. And next to Greg we have a man I ran into a 1986 and has made us look good ever since. We have a man in charge of insurance.
And now we have our directors here in front and if they would just stand briefly and then I'll go on to the next one and they're all here today. First of all doing alphabetically. George Buffett. There's Susie Buffett. There's Steve Burke. Ken Schaul. Charlotte Diamond. And Marrow Whitburn.
There's one other person I would like to mention before we get on to the earnings that we're put on the press release this morning. That's, well let's see who we have here. This is hard to believe. Can you imagine a name? Melissa Shapiro Shapiro. She was Melissa Shapiro, to Samaritan, another Shapiro. And she put this whole thing together with no help from me, no help from Charlie. And a lot of help from the people of the other room. Melissa. Yeah. Very easy. If you can remember her second name, you can remember her third name. So, Melissa Shapiro.
And with that I would like to next move on to the earnings in a couple small slides that explain what we're all about and then we're going to get to the Q&A. And the slide is up behind me. There it is. We reported in the first quarter operating earnings, a little over 8 billion. And when we talk about operating earnings, we're basically referring to the earnings of a virtual half away as generally, well, as required under GAP, excluding however, capital gains both realized and unrealized.
There's a few other very minor items. But basically, we expect to make capital gains over time. Why would we only sucks otherwise? It doesn't always work out, but overall it works out pretty well over time. But in any day, any quarter, any year, even occasionally over a five-year period, the stock prices move around capriciously. Now, we own a lot of other businesses. We consider those stocks businesses. We own a lot of other businesses where they get consolidated. And they don't move around in value.
Now, if we had a little bit of Burlington stock outstanding, if we had a little bit of the energy stock trading, those stocks would move around a lot. But the businesses are what count. So the operating earnings, as you'll see in the first quarter, came under the body billion. And I would say that in the general economy, the feedback we get is that, I would say perhaps the majority of our businesses will actually report lower earnings this year than last year.
The embarrassed degrees in the last six months or so at various times. The businesses have left the incredible period, which is about as extraordinary as I've seen in business since World War II, where the government would board out a lot of money to people who couldn't get goods. It was more extreme in World War II. But this was extreme this time. And it was just a question of getting goods to deliver and people bought. And they didn't wait for sales. And if you couldn't solve them one thing, they would put another thing in the backlog. It was an extraordinary period. And that period, as ended, it has ended with, as you know, it didn't, that employment fell along off a cliff or anything in the least.
But it is a different climate than it was six months ago. And an upper of our managers were surprised, some of them had too much inventory on order. And then all of a sudden it got delivered. And people weren't in the same frame of mind as earlier. And now we'll start having sales at places where we didn't need to have sales before.
But despite the fact that this year, I think in general, will be slower than last year, we actually are situated so that I would expect. And believe me, when I say accept, expect, it's nothing is sure, nothing sure tomorrow, nothing sure next year, and nothing is ever sure, either in markets or in business, or in business forecasts or anything else. And we don't pay much attention to markets or forecasts unless the markets happen off or something interesting to do.
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But nevertheless, we are positioned in two respects as you'll see from this first report. Our investment income is going to be a lot larger this year than last year. And that's built in. I mean, we had, as you'll see in a minute, we've had 125 billion or so in very short-term investments. And believe it or not, not that long ago, we were getting four basis points, which is next to nothing on that 125 billion, which means we were getting 50 million a year. And now they say money, they're just there a day before yesterday.
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We actually bought, because of some funny twist in the market, because of doubts about the deficit ceiling or the debt ceiling. We bought three billion of bills at a 590. That's 5.9. That's 5.92. Bond equivalent yields. So we will have what produced us not that long ago on a 12-month basis, was producing 50 million a year, producing something in the area of 5 billion a year. So we're in a position where the investment income is essentially, well, it is certain to increase quite a bit.
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And insurance underwriting is not, it does not correlate with business activity. It depends on things like hurricanes and earthquakes and other events. So on a perspective basis, on a probability basis, we're likely to have a better year this year, an insurance underwriting that we had last year. It just isn't affected by what you might call the business cycle, or what applies to generally an industry, a retailing, your name it. So I would expect, in one massive earthquake, or one hurricane that came in at just the wrong place, would kind of affect that prediction, but on a probabilistic basis, our insurance looks better this year.
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So if you get two of those, two of the elements there of our main elements of earnings, that look like they will swing in our direction, I would expect, but I can't promise that our operating and earnings will be greater than last year. And if we'll move to the second slide, I give you those operating earnings figures, just to give you an overview of what has happened since the pandemic started, and often the year before as a base. And we retain all our earnings, as you know.
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So if we're retaining 30 or 35 billion, or whatever, but it may be a year, you should expect more operating earnings over time. I mean, this number should be significantly higher, five or ten or 15 years from now, because we have the advantage of retaining earnings, and that's what got us to these figures, because they were essentially nothing when we started, and they got there by retaining earnings, and we'll keep retaining earnings.
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So it's no great triumph if these numbers move up, and what we hope is that they move up at a reasonable rate. Historically, they moved up at an unreasonable rate sometimes, but we were working with a much smaller sum then, and that can't be repeated with our present capital base, because I know there, I believe it's on this slide, let's take a look.
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Now that will be, let's see, it's on the next place paid, and let's move to the next slide. We showed that we had on March 31st, now 500 and, was it 504 billion, upgap net worth. Now what I'm surprised you, is that there's no other company in the United States, no other company, that has a number that is that large. Now that isn't because we've got the most valuable company in the United States. Other companies have used their money to repurchase shares, they could have accumulated 504 billion in gap, but basically we have more under gap accounting now than any other company in the US, and of course if you measure return on equity, that becomes a very big number to increase at a rapid rate, but we hope to do so. Not a rapid rate, additional rate.
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And right below that you see something called float, and float is money that is left in our hands somewhat akin but very importantly different than a bank deposit. But you have to pay interest to get a bank deposit. You have to pay more interest these days, and you have to run a bank and do a lot of things. And basically this is money that represents unpaid losses at this time, you get paid in advance in insurance.
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So what shows up as a net liability on our balance sheet, is gives us funds to exercise with an amount of discretion that no other insurance company that I know in the world enjoys just because we have so much net worth. And our float now comes to 165 billion, and the man sitting on the far left is responsible for moving that number up from a piton in 1986 to this incredible figure, which in most years, practically all years, hasn't cost us anything.
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So it's like having a bank with no employees, no interest, and no ability to withdraw the money in a hurry that we have working for us. And it's a very valuable asset that shows up as a liability, and a cheat is responsible for building up this treasure, which has been done by out competing insurance companies all over the world, and now a number of our insurance companies in turn are run by talented managers who contributed one way or. another start with Guykel, the B&M I career, and that float.
这就像拥有一家没有员工、没有利息、也不能随时取钱的银行为我们工作。这是一项非常有价值的资产,显示为负债,而保险欺诈是负责建立这个宝藏的人,这是通过在全球竞争保险公司的情况下完成的,现在我们的一些保险公司由才华横溢的经理运营,他们的起点是 Guykel、B&M I 职业生涯和那个资金池。
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If you think about it, just think of a balance sheet. You've got liabilities here, and you've got assets over here, and the liability side finances, the asset side is very simple. And stockholders equity finances it, long-term debt finances, and so on, but stockholders equity is very expensive in a real sense.
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Long-term debt has been cheap for a while, but it can get expensive, and it can also become due eventually, and it may not be available. But float is another item that shows up. That's all liability, but hasn't cost us anything, and it can't disappear in a hurry, and it finances the asset side in the same way as stockholders equity.
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And nobody else thinks of it much that way, but we've always thought about that way, and it's built up over time. So I show at the bottom what's happened with cash and treasury bills through March 31, and I will tell you that in the month of April, we probably added about $7 billion to that factor. Not part of that, because we didn't buy as much stock, because that reduces cash and treasury bills. We bought about $400 million with the stock in the month of April.
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That's a minus in terms of cash available. And we, however, sold net some stock, which produced maybe $4 billion. And of course, we had operating earnings, probably $2.5 billion or something in that area. And my guess is we probably increased our cash and treasury bills, $6.7 billion in the month. And I just want to give you a feel for how the cash flows at Berkshire.
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And then if we move to the final, I think it's the final one, next to last one. Now, I think it is the last one. Let's see, is the fourth. Yeah, we should have the one up there, class A equivalent shares outstanding. And you'll notice that every year, the number of our shares go down. So if we own more businesses, and the businesses make more money, share our shareholders, as owners, a Berkshire increases every year without you laying out any money.
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Now, you're laying out the alternative, which you could receive in dividends. But the reason we've gotten to where we are is because we kept the money. We did pay a dividend in 1967, in ten cents to share. It was a terrible mistake. I always tell people that I'd left the men's room and the director's vote in the wall was gone, but that isn't true. I was there. I confess. But we very invested, and as produced, the 500 billion plus of shareholders' equity in the 30 billion plus of operating earnings. And we'll continue to follow that policy, because it makes a very deal of sense.
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And with that, I think we've taken care of the plumber. You can study that the 10Q is on the webpage. And if you have a week or two vacation, you could spend it reading the 10Q. But that is the essence of Berkshire, and with that, I will start with Becky Quick. And we will alternate between Becky and the audience and her questions have come in from all over the country. And I believe you identified the sender and go to it, Becky.
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Thanks, Warren. The first question comes in from Randy Jeffs in Irvine, California. And his question is, if Silicon Valley banks deposit had not been fully covered, what do you think the economic consequences would have been to the nation? Well, I would just simply say it would have been catastrophic. And that's why they were covered. And even though the FDIC limit is $250,000, that's the way the statute reads. But that is not the way the US is going to behave. Any more than they're going to let the Dutch ceiling cause the world to go into turmoil.
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And they... Well, they're just... I can't imagine anybody in the administration, in the Congress, in the federal reserve, whatever it may have been, FDIC. I can't imagine anybody saying, I'd like to be the one I'm on television tomorrow and explain the American public why we're keeping only $250,000 insured. And we're going to start around every bag in the country and disrupt the world financial system. So, I think it was inevitable. It's hardly the enemy. No, I have nothing to add.
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I should mention this now. A cheat and Greg will be here in the morning session, which ends at noon. And so, if you've got questions to direct to them, the time to do it is in the first half of the show. And then after lunch, it'll just show and I will be back.
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Hi. Nerov Patel, Hey, Real Massachusetts. Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, it seems like you've found the sweet spot between being too conservative and too aggressive as investors. Do you ever make bad investment decisions because of your emotions and what do you do to try to keep that from happening?
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Well, we make bad investment decisions. A lot of times I make more than Charlie because I like to think it's because I make more decisions but probably more bad things I wish was. But I can't recall any time in the history of Berkshire that we made an emotional decision. I know the movie had Jamie Lee in there, but that was for laughs. Jamie Lee, she's good, but she's not good enough to get mere Charlie to make an emotional decision. Yeah. Charlie, I'm sure you have something to add on that.
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Well, it's a different movie than it's shown in most corporate meetings. But have we ever made an emotional decision? No. That's in business we're talking about. Yeah. Now, you don't want to be a no-emotion person in all of your life, but you definitely want to be a no-emotion person in making an investment or business decision. You can argue that.
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We probably, I would say that we've made an emotional decision perhaps in what a manager has been with us for some period. And we've ignored the fact that perhaps they weren't quite what they were earlier. But our businesses are so good that they run better sometimes when we know I've talked about West Goal, for example, the wonderful Louisville incentive. It ran on an automatic pilot for a while, but I don't think we suffered a buyout. But you're going to argue that if Charlie and I had liked Louis as much as we did, we might have spotted a little bit early. But I don't think it made any difference in the results. Would you agree with that, Charlie?
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Yeah, you're going to be totally with it. And I'm glad we behaved the way we did at West Goal. By the way, what do you think for a few tens of millions and it became worth $3 billion? Yeah, that wasn't common in the savings and loan business you may have noticed. They really went crazy in that industry and we had a wonderful guy in Louis. He didn't go crazy. Yeah, we didn't go crazy.
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Okay, Becky. This question comes from Ben Nol in Minneapolis. He says he's a Berkshire shareholder of three decades and he's attended many Berkshire meetings. He's here again this year. And this is addressed to a G and Greg. He says last year I asked you about how Geico and BNSF appeared to lose ground to their leading competitors. He said he's going to go on telematics and BNSF on precision scheduled railroading. A G, you responded by saying how you expected Geico to make progress in a year or two. Greg, you spoke about your pride in BNSF but you didn't directly address the threat of precision scheduled railroading. Will each of you please provide perspective on these competitive challenges and our company's strategies to address them?
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Let me. In terms of Geico and telematics, let me make the observation that Geico has certainly taken the ball by the horns and has made rapid strides in terms of trying to reach the gap in terms of telematics and its competitors. They have now reached a point where on all new business, close to 90% is has a telematics input to the pricing decision. Unfortunately, less than half of that is being taken up by the policyholders. The other point I want to make is even though we have made improvements in terms of bridging the gap on telematics, we still haven't started to realize the true benefit and the real culprit of the bottleneck is technology.
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Geico's technology needs a lot more work than I thought it did. It has more than 500 actually, more than 600 legacy systems that don't really talk to each other and we try to compress them to no more than 15, 16 systems that all talk to each other. That's a monumental challenge and because of that, even though we have made improvements in telematics, we still have a long way to go because of technology. Because of that and because of the whole issue, more broadly in terms of matching rate to risk, Geico is still working progress.
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I don't know if you had a chance to look at the first quarter results, but Geico has had a very good first quarter coming in at a combined ratio of 93 and change, which means a margin of six and change. Even though that's very good, it's not something we can take to the bank because there are two unusual items that contribute to it. Firstly, we've had what is called prior year reserve releases. We've reduced reserves for the previous years and that contributed to it. And secondly, every year, the first quarter tends to be a seasonally good quarter for auto insurance writers.
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So if you had just for those two factors, my guess is the end of the year Geico will end up with a combined ratio just south of 100 as opposed to the target they're shooting for is 96. I hope they reach the target of 96 by the end of next year. But instead of getting too excited about it, I think it's important to realize that even if we reach 96, it will come at the expense of having lost policy holders. There is a trade-off between profitability and growth. And clearly, we're going to emphasize profitability and not growth and that will come at the expense of policy holders. So it will not be until two years from now that we'll be back on track fighting the battles on both the profitability and growth threat.
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Great. Yep. Moving to BNSF. I'll start again by expressing great pride in the BNSF team. We have an exceptional group of led by Katie and her managers that show up every day to do great work on the railroad. At the same time, they would be the first acknowledged. There's more to be done there. The specific reference to precision, schedule, railroading.
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The other large railroad class A, other railroads in the US follow that, and including the two in Canada. We're well aware of what they're doing and obviously pay close attention to their operating metrics. And our team strives every day to be more efficient, obviously. I would say we balance it with the needs of our customers. If I look back to pre-2022, so we look at the three-year period of 2019, 2020, 2021, the BNSF team made significant progress on their efficiencies and delivering overall value back to the shareholders and to their customers.
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And at the same time maintaining a very safe railroad for our employees. So we're making excellent progress. That didn't stop last year. They made great progress. Again, the reality in 2022 is we did go through a period of time where we had to call it reset the railroad. We came out of the pandemic. There were the supply challenges. We had certain other labor issues and other things going on at the port.
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And the reality is our team prioritized getting the railroad back in place for the long term. Not a short-term focus on hitting certain operating metrics in 2022, we're well aware of where we were relative to those metrics. But the real focus was to get the railroad reset in a safe manner, such that we could deliver long-term value and long-term service to our customers. And that's really what we'll continue to see with that team.
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They'll be continual progress. They'll be years where it's not as quickly or even we go backwards. But over the long term, we'll see exceptional results from that team and couldn't be more proud that we have that asset.
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Thank you. I would just... Well, both of them deserve applause. I would like to add one thing. The... at Geico.com's was a jeep choice, my choice. Go back to Geico to work on the problem of matching rate to risk, which is what insurance is all about. And he arrived with exquisite timing right before the pandemic broke out. And all kinds of things changed. But Todd was doing a wonderful job at Geico. And he works closely with the jeep, because he... So, as a home in Omaha, he comes back here and we get to get on the weekend sometimes too. So, that's been a remarkable accomplishment under difficult circumstances.
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And he's not all the way home, but he's made a very, very big change in multiple ways at Geico. And one other thing I would like to mention, there have been a lot of public companies created in the last decade, or there are about some insurance.
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And there's none of them that we would like to own. And they always started out in their perspective saying, this is a tech company, not an insurance company. Well, of course, they're in a tech company with everybody's...
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Whether they're an insurance or a lot of other places, or using the facility, but you still have to properly match rate to risk. And they invariably have reported to use losses. They've eaten up capital. But there's been one company that nobody has generally heard of. There's only been one that I know of. Companies started in the last ten years. That has been an overwhelming success.
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And that's a company that Ajit and four people who joined with him set the develop a new business. It's called Berkshire Hathaway, especially. It now has... What's the float? Ajit? Coming up to 12 billion.
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Yeah. We built more float than probably all these companies combined. And now it's cost us essentially nothing in terms of an underwriting loss. The four people have turned in, I don't know, 1500 around the world. We took on the whole industry and we brought some unique talent and the four people that came and now have, like I said, 1500 or so worldwide.
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And we brought capital and we brought capabilities that really only Berkshire could supply. So it was the combination of brains and talent and energy and money. And no one has really successfully entered this space. Only people in this space who didn't like us coming and we did it without it is costing us a dime of entry.
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And it's been unmatched by any of the public companies that went public. And people have seen us do it, but they can't duplicate it. And that's what Ajit has created and Peter Eastwood has led this group. Berkshire has a way especially and it's just remarkable. So anyone with that, let's go on. Now give him a hand for that.
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Okay, let's go to section two. Hi, Charlie. I'm Elorand. I'm Karen here from Singapore. I'm glad you got that in. You're prior to these, you're right. Yes, I have a question on AI and robotics. Here's my questions.
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As AI and robotics continues to advance, what do you believe will be the positive and the negative impact of this technology on both the stocks market and society as a whole? And are there any specific industrial and companies that you believe will be most impacted? Karen, I thank you for asking Charlie that question.
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Hello, everyone. If you went into B.Y.D.s factories in China, you would see robotics going in the unbelievable rate. So we're going to see a lot more robotics in the world. I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that has gone into artificial intelligence. Very well. There won't be anything in AI that replaces the gene. I'll state that unqualifiedly. They can do amazing things.
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Bill Gates brought me out of the latest version. One he thought maybe I could handle, which has to be careful with me in terms of leading me too fast. And it did remarkable things. But you know, things like checking all the legal opinions since the beginning of time and everything and eliminating all the side. It can do all kinds of things.
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Because I know we won't be able to uninvent it. We did invent for very, very good reason the atom bomb in World War II. It was enormously important that we did so. But it was good for the next 200 years of the world that the ability to do so has been unleashed. We didn't have a choice. But when you start something, well Einstein said after that, the atom bomb said this has changed everything in the world except how men think.
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And I would say the same thing may not the same thing. I don't mean that, but I mean with AI, it can change everything in the world except how men think it behave. And that's a big step to take. It's a good question and it's the best answer we can give. Becky? This question comes from Tom Seymour.
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He says the first sentence of a recent Financial Times article, red. Charlie Munger has warned of a brewing storm in the US commercial property market with American banks full of what he said were bad loans as property prices fall. Please elaborate on what's going on in commercial real estate.
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How bad will the losses be and what sectors or geographies look particularly bad? I'll just add an addendum from another viewer who wrote in and wanted to know if Berkshire would be more active in commercial real estate as a result. Well Berkshire has never been very active in commercial real estate. It works better for taxable investors than it does for corporations to act the way Berkshire is.
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So I don't anticipate huge effects on Berkshire. But I do think that the hollowing out of the downtowns in the United States and elsewhere in the world is going to be quite significant and quite unpleasant. I think country will get through it all right. But as they say, it will all be an involved with different set of owners. Yeah and the buildings don't go away. The owners do.
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Well, most people like to buy with non-recourse in real estate. One down my ass Charlie, there was some business guy we were talking to him and you know how did they decide how much they can build like this is worth. And it's the answers. It's whatever they can borrow without signing their name.
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And if you look at real estate generally you'll understand what the phenomena is happening. If you remind yourself that that's the attitude of most people that have become big in the real estate business. And it does mean that the lenders are the ones that get the property. And of course they don't want the property usually.
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So then the real estate operator comes on negotiating with them and the banks tend to you know extend and pretend. And there's all kinds of activities that arrive out of commercial real estate development which occurs on a big scale. But it all has consequences. And I think we're about while we are starting to see the consequences of people who get borrowed to 1.5% and find out it doesn't work at current rates.
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And then we hand it back to somebody that gave them all the money they needed to build. Then Charlie's had more experience than really. Charlie got his start in real estate though. Charlie. Yes, it's difficult. I like what we do better.
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Well, Charlie once said to me when I was leaving his house a few months ago. And I was using him. We talked for a couple of hours and I said to Charlie as I left, I just, when they buddy else in the house, I said, one daughter. And I said, Charlie, I'll just keep doing what we've been doing. And Charlie said without looking up or pausing a second, he said, that's all you know how to do warn. He was right too.
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Hi, my name is Zalazi and from Santa Clara, California. And my question is to Charlie and Warren. Given the rise of disruptive technologies that can improve productivity significantly and AI being one of them, how do you envision the future of value investing in this new era? And what adaptations or new principles do you think investors should adopt? And any recommendations for investors to remain successful in this rapid changing landscape? Thank you.
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Well, I'm glad to take that one. I think value investors are going to have a harder time now that there's so many of them competing first. I've diminished a bunch of opportunities. So my advice to value investors is to get used to making less. And Charlie was telling me the same thing the whole time we've known each other. We get along wonderfully because we are making less.
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Yeah, well, but that's mostly I think it's because the larger... We never thought we could manage 500 and 8 billion. No, no, no. But I would argue that there's going to be plenty of opportunities. And part of the reason they're going to be plenty of opportunities, the tech doesn't make any difference.
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If you look at how the world's changed in the years since 1942 when I started, I'd say, well, how does a kid that doesn't know anything about airplanes, that doesn't know anything about engines and cars, and doesn't know anything about electricity and all that? But that's the reason isn't that.
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The world's changing doesn't... New things coming along don't take away the opportunities. What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things. And... It's that... And I would say that, well, the 58 years we've been running Berkshire, I would say there's been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things, and they do big dumb things, and the reason they do it to some extent is because they can get money from other people so much easier than when we started.
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So you could start 10 or 15 dumb insurance companies in the last 10 years, and you could become rich. If you were a droid at it, whether the business succeeded or not, and the underwriters got paid, and the lawyers got paid, and that creates... If that's done on a large scale, which it couldn't be done, what, 58 years ago, you couldn't get the money to do some of the dumb things that we've been doing.
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And so I think that investing has disappeared so much from this huge, capitalistic market that anybody can play in, but that the big money is in selling other people ideas that isn't outperforming, you know, performing. And I think that if you don't run too much money, which we do, but if you're running small amounts of money, I think the opportunities will be greater.
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But then Charlie and I will always defer to him on this subject. He likes to tell me how gloomy the world lives. And I like to tell him, we'll find something. So far we've both been kind of right. Charlie wouldn't you?
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We budget it, Sean, that or not. There is so much money now in the hands of so many smart people, all trying to outsmart one another, and outperlone another, getting more money out of other people. And it's a radically different world from the world we started in. And I suppose it will have its opportunities, but it's also going to have some unpleasant episodes. But they're trying to outsmart each other in arenas that you don't have to play.
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I mean, if you look at that government bond market, the Treasury Bill market, I mean you got this one bill out of line with the others, and we walked over three billion of it's the other day. But those are people. The world is overwhelmingly short term focused. And if you go to an investor relations call, they're all trying to figure out how to fill out the sheet to show the earnings for the year. And the management is interested in feeding them expectations that will slightly be beaten. That that is the world that's made to order.
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Brandy, but it is trying to think about what you do that should work over five or 10 or 20 years. And I just think that I would love to be born today and go out with not too much money and hopefully turn it into a lot of money. But and Charlie would too actually just like he would find something to do. I will just guarantee you and it wouldn't be exactly the same as before, but he would have a big big pile. I would not like the thrill of losing my big pile into a small pile. What we like my big pile just the way it is. Well, I like. We agree on that as to that. Okay. We do. You're one of the most extreme lovers of the big pile.
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This question is for both Warren and a G comes from Jason Planner in Livingston, New Jersey. He says in 2016 you entered into a very unique transaction with AIG where you assumed up to $20 billion of liabilities in exchange for about $10 billion upfront. Can you please provide us with an update on this transaction in light of the increase in interest rates. And then in Tokyo just a few weeks ago you talked about the risks of banks with assets that were susceptible to rising interest rates.
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Any insight as to how Berkshire liabilities are susceptible to duration would be appreciated. Is that directed to a jitter of mayor? Both. Okay. Let me introduce my one thing and well, but in jitter is the key to this. He's the one to put the deal together. But we got handed $10 billion. We'll say. But we weren't restricted to putting that into bonds.
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So what the exact interest rate interest rates affect just to some degree maybe in terms of the terms of the deal we did with AIG or anybody we would do a similar deal with like that. But we don't have we don't have to put it in matching bonds or anything to sort. It goes into a general pool of assets which we manage and they assets.
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Well, the liquid assets now are 130 billion plus and that but it goes in. So it you know it it is not set aside in some little compartment like people like to think. Now any any any other insurance no other insurance company could do it but they can't think that way. They aren't even used to thinking that way but they can't think that way because they don't have our our balance sheet.
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We account for 26% or something like that of the net worth of all property casually companies in the United States. So so far the payment that we have had to make have run modestly and a G will correct me on this if he's wrong because he paid a lot of attention over the. The the amount we have had to pay has run slightly below the amount we anticipated having to pay in terms of our shareable losses.
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But it served a i g's purposes it came to us with where we're in a unique position. There's nobody else that was able to write that just like when when we took on the Lloyd's I mean Lloyd's said there was no choice other than Berkshire halfway when they they essentially resuscitated their market by laying off a lot of lives. A lot of the least on Berkshire has a way so we won't see those deals very often if if they're for 500 million or something like that somebody also going there and offer more money and everybody's looking for money and Wall Street but if they start talking with the deal like the a g deal there's nothing to stop now. Correct me on all my numbers there.
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One way to look at how the deal is performing since we did the deal is at the point we in time and we did the deal we had made certain projections of how much we will pay out each year. And what we do is monitor what the actual payments are since the inception of the deal and how does that compare with what we expected to pay out. As Warren mentioned these two numbers are very close to each other most specifically the actual payouts are 96% of what we projected to pay out at this point. in time. Which is good but not great we are still ahead of the curve if we do end up paying out less than what we projected not only would we have borrowed money at a very attractive rate meaning less than 4% significantly less than 4%. In addition to that we would have made a fee which in 2,000, 15 dollars would be a million dollars. So we would have borrowed money at less than 4% and we would have made a million dollar fee which is slightly more than what we were expecting to do. So net net we were very happy with the deal we're happy we did it but the game is not over the totaliabilities are coming down the pike every second day. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the deal will work out better than what we expected it to work out.
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Well the really interesting thing is that within Burtcher the casualty and jury companies have 4 times as much stockholder capital which I need, behind each dollar of premium volume. 4 times normal and of course we see the big deals. Who would you trust if you had a big lab over there you wanted to dump on somebody? And we have 25 or billion or more coming in from things other than insurance uncorrelated insurance. Every year with no obligations we don't pay dividends. If you pay dividends and you cut your dividend try going around trying to write insurance the next day. It's a business where the people are counting on you to pay. And when we take that 10 billion we don't agree to put it in 5-year bonds and 10-year bonds. We don't even think that way. And the people who do business with us know that they have somebody like nobody else on those. It's going to be able to pay 10 billion no matter what happens to the economy. So it's not only the presence of enormous strength in the insurance companies. It's the fact we got all these earnings that essentially come in every month. We don't have a lot of debt. We have debt at the railroad and the energy level. But in terms of the rest of the operation. And we don't guarantee that debt but it's point you would. There's just isn't another Berkshire and the Jeep recognizes that one. He's negotiating. And the other party if sums are big enough. There's all kinds of people that love to get 500 million or 300 million. And they can they may think in terms of lending it out because that's what their insurance companies can do with a somewhat higher rate. But that is not a game we play in. And we don't have any interest in playing in them.
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Okay. Station four. Hello. I'm Marvin Blum and a state planning lawyer from Fort Worth, Texas, home to many of your companies. In fact, Warren, I met you at the memorial for our beloved Paul Andrews who was manager of TTI. I'd like to get your thoughts on a widespread problem in the world of estate planning. And that's the failure of most parents to prepare the next generation for the inheritance coming their way. In particular, if the estate includes a family business, most parents fail to do business succession planning to plan for who will run the business on the day when not if the founder is no longer there to run it. The kids aren't prepared unlike King Charles, the other King Charles not King Charlie Munger, who has been preparing for his job as King of England now for more than 70 years. I sometimes describe the situation like this. Picture a football game. At one end of the field is a quarterback. He has great skills. He throws a beautiful pass to the other end of the field. And at the other end of the field are the receivers. They've never been to a practice. They don't know the rules of the game. They don't know how to work together as a team. They're clueless. So the quarterback is the patriarch and the matriarch. The football is the inheritance or the family business. And the receivers are the kids. What are the odds that they're going to catch the football and go score a touchdown? Probably only around 10%.
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I've got the picture on the corner. Just give me.
我有角落上的那张照片。把它给我。
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I probably observed as many as my age and to some extent as the giving push. I probably observed as many particularly wealthy families, the problems they get very particular to the family.
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And in my family, I do not sign a will until my three children have read it, understand it, and made suggestions. Now my children are in their 60s. And that would not have been a great success. If I done the same thing at their 20s, it depends on the family. It depends on how the kids feel about each other. There's all kinds of things. It depends on the kind of business you have. So there's a thousand variables.
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But I do think that it's if the children are growing and when the will is read to them, it's the first they've heard about what the deceased thought about things. The parents have made a terrible mistake. People, well, I've run into all kinds of situations. Some people don't tell their children anything. Some of them try and get them to vendor their will by using their own personal will. They make a million mistakes. And that's when you don't get to correct.
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Certainly, well Charlie's had a lot of experience too. At Berkshire, we have a simple problem of estate planning. Just hold the goddamn stock. But that doesn't fit everybody, Charlie. I mean, you know, I don't know if it's 95%. I don't think it necessarily. I don't know necessarily whether if you have billions of dollars, you want to leave it to your old, old, your children. That's another question. But if you're ever placing somewhere, I just assume it has Berkshire stock. You're solving the investment problem.
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But you've got the personal problem of the fact that when they were four, one of the kids pulled the other kids cats tail or something like that. I mean, you're dealing with human beings. And the biggest thing you want is you want your children to get along. And you want that all through your life. And the estate isn't the only place where you can mess that up.
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But it's a place where it's a very easy. I mean, I know a number of cases where the people did not know what was in the well, whether we're used to something involved. And you know, within about 15 minutes each one of metal layer. And you know, they don't get along since. It's important to handle it right. And it's important if you want your kids to have a certain value, certain values. It's important that you live those values. It's important that you talk about it too.
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And they're learning from you from the day they're born, what you're really like. And don't think that a cleverly drawn will substitute for your own behavior in teaching your kids the values you hope that they will have. And your will should be in conjunction with that. It should start expressing that they grow older than they learn to. They learn to pass along their values in connection with the size of the state. If there's family farms, it's one thing. If it's a bunch of marketable securities, it's something else.
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And I know one instance by particularly Rich fellow that once a year, he'd get his kids together and have a dinner and do all kinds of things to get them to sign their income tax returns in blank. Because he didn't want them to know how much money they had and everything. Well, if that, that isn't going to work. I don't know why necessarily will work with him.
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But if you want, you know, Charlie, I've said it. If you want to figure out how you want to live your life, you write your old bituary and rebirth engineer. Paul Andrews, incidentally, who you mentioned, the TTI lived his greater life as anybody I've known. And he thought about these problems. And he came to me.
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He was 61, I think. He had all the money, way beyond what he needed. He didn't care. I like to give it to people. He had all kinds of good things he wanted to do. And he said, for a year, I've been worried about my business, TTI. And he said, I've got all the money I need, the family's got all the money that I need. But what do I do with the business? These people have helped me drop my life. And he says, I can sell a token better. If I sold a token better, they'd fire my people and keep their people. When they put it together. And if I sell it to a private equity firm or something, they'll be figuring their access strategy as they sign the papers. And he said, I've been thinking about it a year. And he said, isn't it? You're such a great guy. He says, you're the only one left. And we bought it and we lived happily ever after. And that was a man that knew what life was about.
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So with that, let's go on to Becky. This question comes from Don Glickstein in Seattle. He says, warn his criticized Norfolk Southern's handling of its trained derailment, yet has been silent about BNSF's conduct. A federal judge ruled in March that BNSF intentionally and illegally violated an easement agreement on tribal land in Washington State by transporting long trains of crude oil. The same month the judge made his. ruling, a BNSF trained derailed on tribal lands spilling oil in an environmentally sensitive area. What is Warren doing to ensure that BNSF and other Berkshire subsidiaries fulfill their ethical responsibilities? He says he's been a Berkshire owner for more than two decades and he's concerned that Berkshire has no systems to identify and dress what he calls reprehensible behavior at BNSF and other subsidiaries.
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Sure. So the, it is a valid issue that our team obviously has been dealing with at BNSF. We did move crude across that tribal land. We had an agreement that allowed us to move X number of units per day and we did breach it. We went over it. There was some fundamental breakdowns there and that our team didn't understand the number of trains that they could move. We have had significant discussions with the tribe looking to resolve the issue recognizing we obviously benefited from moving those trains and those type of discussions will continue. I would say there's lessons learned there that we have to when we make a commitment understand what that commitment is and live by it or don't assume we can just move our trains as we wish or the car.
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We wish we have to respect those agreements. There's been a moment learned there but at the same time we've taken it very seriously and attempted to reach a resolution there. At some point I hope we do come to a true resolution that's fair both to the tribe and to BNSF. On the derailments side we did have an issue around the track derailed. We worked very closely with the tribe to mitigate that issue instantly or at least over a very reasonable period of time. They were very responsive. Our team was very responsive and there really no long-term environmental impacts to that spill.
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As our teams highlighted in other comments obviously derailments do occur in the industry. We take them incredibly serious. They're not all hazardous but irrespective of that. We're constantly looking at how do we prevent them? How do we detect them when we potentially have one that's going to occur and what do we do with our trains? Then ultimately it comes down to responding properly because they will occur and I think we have an incredibly dedicated team that's always ready to respond to the communities they're impacting. There are derailments.
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How many a year? Well there's a thousand plus in the industry. You start hauling and we're a common carrier. We take heavy, heavy freight and we take them at 100 degrees when it's weather and we take it at zero and we go around curves and we have grades. Even a 1% grade if you're going down downhill with how much weight behind you. There are a lot of railroading that is not an easy business and of course the systems were designed basically in the late 1800s. We have 22,000 miles of track and that doesn't count sightings and some other things. It is not an easy business.
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We'll make mistakes. We're not making a mistake because we have a derailment. We will have the derailment 10-20 years or 30 years from now. We have to carry certain products. We wish we didn't have to carry. We're a common carrier. Do we like carrying chlorine and ammonia? No. We are a common carrier. We load them and select our railroad. We are better than we used to be but we got a long way to go. That's absolutely.
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Station 5. I'm from China, China, and first of all I'm so excited and we're honored to be here today. My question is, with more and more people focusing on environmental protection and the government supporting the new energy industry as well, what are your thoughts on the continued development of new energy? How made the new energy firm achieve better development in future?
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I think it's the best answer because since we bought a company called Min American but now called Berkshire Hathaway Energy but he has been talking about it, yearly preparing reports, hoping that we can help solve a number of problems and we probably spent more money than any utility I would guess in the United States. We've just crashed the surface but it is not easy when you cross state lines.
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I mean it's different jurisdictions and this country should be ahead of word is in terms of transmission and we have been the biggest factor in helping that. Why don't you tell them a little bit about it?
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There's no question there's an energy transformation going on around the globe and as Warren touched on in the US and in some ways I would hope in here in the US it would be.
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We'd at least have a clear plan across the nation as to how to approach up the reality is it is state by state with some exceptions but so as a result when you think of Berkshire Hathaway Energy we own three US utilities there and they'll participate in multiple states but they're developing plans state by state and then trying to integrate them across the various states.
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The opportunities are significant because there is a transformation going on. We've outlined our goal on where we're going relative to carbon at VHE where they'll by 2030 reduce their carbon footprint by 50% relative to 2005 so that's the Paris Accord and the standard they want to hold the utility industry or the utility companies doing and we're well on that path but to achieve it is a true example.
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I've often talked to Warren when we bought Pacific corp back in the mid-2000s we immediately recognized to build a lot of renewable energy like we've been doing in the Midwest in Iowa but that was basically in a single state now Pacific corp were in six states. We started that back in the mid-2000s here we are and we laid out a great transmission plan here's how we're going to build it here's how we're going to effectuated and all the benefits for our customers over that period of time here we are in 2023 and we have a little more than a third of that at the time was a six billion dollar transmission project today we have a little more than a third of it built and we've spent probably closer to seven billion dollars and it's the right out of the way.
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It's the right outcome it's still a great outcome for our customers but that transmission you absolutely as part of the transformation you absolutely have to build it to remove to move all that renewable energy and that's sort of the complexity one was highlighting it is a you can't just wake up one day and solve this problem you start with transmission and then you build the resources but at that same same company if we look at what we're doing across B.H.E. energy and that energy transfer.
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In that energy transformation we have seventy billion dollars of known projects that are really required to properly serve our customers and achieve that type of energy transformation across those utilities and that's in the coming next in the coming ten years so we have a team that's absolutely up to the challenge they're delivering on their commitments and it's a very very good business opportunity for for each of our company and it's a very good business opportunity for each of our companies and for our shareholders because as we deploy that capital we obviously earn a return on equity of it so but it will be a long journey it it will happen over an extended period of time and and the further you get out there the more dependent it more dependent upon the evolution of a variety of technologies that are progressing but not there yet so you raised a question.
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I just want to take an extra minute out because it's so important and and I don't really know whether our form of government is ideal at all in terms of solving the problem you describe we have solved it one time in World War 2 we took a country that was semi limping along and we found ourselves in World War and what we did in World War is we brought a bunch of people to Washington at a dollar a year and whether it was Sydney Weinberg or Goldman Sachs you just name them and we gave them enormous power...
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... to reorient the resources of the United States to face the problem that they faced which was to create a war machine and what they did was they found Henry Kaiser you know and told him to build ships and they wanted the Ford Motor Company said you build tanks and some airplanes and they reordered the industrial enterprise of the United States in a way that was unbelievable because they had the power of the federal government and they had the ingenuity of American business and they had the facilities of American business and it led to very successful outcome but can we do that in a peace time where you've got 50 states and you have to get them to cooperate and you don't have anyone that you can you can issue orders but you can't you can't designate where the capital goes that's the other end and you know we try and do it with tax incentives and all that sort of thing but we haven't we haven't created the unity of purpose and the machinery that worked in World War II where essentially everybody felt their one job was to win the war and we figured out how to use our industrial capacity to in effect defeat the access powers and how do you recreate. that with you know the present democratic system I'm not sure I know the answer but I sure know the problem and I think that if if you can think of a if you've got an emergency on your hand you really need to re re-engineer the engineer energy system the United States I don't think I don't think you can do it without something resembling the machinery the urgency whatever the capital is there the people are there the objectiv is obvious and we just don't seem to be able to do it in a peace time where we're used to following a given set of procedure and you know China if you've got one country and we've got we've got 50 states and we've got a whole different system of government that we should be up to the test but so far it hasn't worked so thank you for the question Becky
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This question comes from Chris Fried in Philadelphia he says we know that Greg Able and a Jeet Jane are the next generation of Berkshire leaders who are currently behind Greg and a Jeet in their perspective roles respect well that will be the question that they give their well Greg will be have something extraordinary circumstances but he's going to succeed me and then he will have be sitting in a position where he needs his equivalent or something close to his equivalent because he's better than he thinks than I've been he will lead that a substitute and when the when the question comes where we know a Jeet's opinion on that and but Greg will probably be the one that will make make the final decision I mean it says we're being his responsibility and a Jeet will give him his best advice and I think the others are very very very high Greg would follow it so but it's not those are not easy easy questions
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it isn't like we've everybody talks about the executive bench and all of that sort of thing which is belonging I mean you know you don't have that many people that can run five the largest gap net worth company and all kinds of diverse businesses but you don't need five people either and you need a lot of good operating managers and you need somebody at the top that allocates capital and make sure that you've got the right operating manager and we've designed design something where we separate the insurance and the rest of the business and I think it's a very good design but they would not be smart we wouldn't be smart and name that decision now about the two different different areas of the business because a lot can change between now and then and the most likely changes at this job changes
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Charlie I've got nothing to add we have a lot of good people that have risen in the birchers of city areas and there's a reason why our operations have been large done better than other big conglomerate companies and one of the things that is that we change managers way less frequently than other people do and that's helped us when Paul Andrews died we know we know who he thought should take over there but there wasn't any reason to to announce that I mean Paul Andrews would we should lift up the 100 we have we have one of our managers died not longer going how old was he at the garden? Yeah mid 90s see more yeah see more to live from see and see more I wrote him a letter when he was 80 and I said you know I'm glad you're 80 and I'll write you again one year 90 and I wrote him again one year's 90 and he didn't make it to 100 but he had a terrific follow following him and he really managed to jointly to some extent as the years went by but it's case by case and the main thing to do is have the right person running the whole place
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okay next question yes hello mr. Buffett and mr. Munger my name is Jeffrey Gelber from Miami Florida I'm a shareholder a proud shareholder and I'd like to thank you for the foundation of knowledge that you've provided and helping me shape my career as an investor and I appreciate your emphasis on the importance of character integrity and patience in business and in life and my question is given your emphasis on these values and your investment Principles how would you recommend I or anyone else reconcile Ideological differences in particular with those that may not share the same values of ethics and morality and perhaps how would you advise us to interact with those individuals
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well I would say first of all that I don't think we have all the answers in terms of how to interact with people that we really really disagree with in some respects we at Berkshire Hathaway have an owner's manual nobody else does but we have one and it talks about how everybody that's part of Berkshire should behave and then a very important paragraph says we can afford to lose money even a lot of money but we can't afford to lose reputation even a shred of reputation and the second paragraph of that pretty short owner's manual just says we will be candid in all our communications with you and we will not have second-class shareholders at Berkshire in any respect but beyond that we have 3000 companies that are our investees and I've written 2000 letters to a quarter of a million people about investing and write about every conceivable situation the real test is whether people act the way they say they're going to act and to some extent you have to take a chance on that and if it doesn't work out you've got to be prepared to walk away from it but I don't think there's any perfect solution to that problem and I don't think we've got all the answers about everything in terms of living our own lives you need some principles you need a few big ideas and then you need to stay within them and implicitly reject everything else and that's true in investment management is true in everything else but it's not something that you know you can't put it on autopilot and you have to keep making those decisions day by day
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let's hope the politicians can eventually figure it out too
希望政治家们最终也能够解决这个问题。
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it does seem like the level of incivility generally in life has picked up some we have a world where everybody's got a printing press and you and so everybody's got their own blog and they can say anything they want and they can find enough people probably to read it to make them think that other people agree with them and you got that all over the world I mean we've got it in this country we've got it all over the world and it's it can make some very unpleasant situations and then you add to that the fact that because of social media and all that people see other people that have a lot more than they have and they say well why shouldn't I have that that guy's an idiot and why's he got it which you know might be true sometimes but it doesn't change your life to keep condemning other people because then you ultimately start condemning yourself and so it's kind of a very difficult problem and of course we get occasional riots and all of that sort of thing and it's it's not good for anybody we have to try to minimize it but I don't have any perfect answer what Berkshire's tried to do is stick with people we like and stick with principles we admire and and go from there
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okay station six good morning my name's Hach Okamotai from Miyazaki Japan I'm Mr. Buffett I was one of the 8000 employees at Salomon Brothers that you saved I was younger back then I was working at 7 Warwick Trey Center I always always wanted to thank you in person for saving the company it's in police including myself and my family so thank you Mr. Buffett Thank you and and and thank Derek thank Derek Maun who actually had been over in Japan before that and who I met for the first time the day before I put him in and he turned out to it wouldn't it wouldn't work if Derek hadn't come so whatever you taught him in Japan thank you Thank you sir now my question
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time to time you have reminded us to not bet against America what do you think are the most important things for us to remain strong and on the risk side if the strength of the country is undermined what could be the reasons well we've had we've had a lot of tests I mean we're such a young country you know when it's think about Japan and you think about the United States it's just incredible how new we are to the block I mean what are we 234 years old since we started that that's nothing I mean you know Charlie and I combined or two thirds of people have two thirds of the life of the country so and I mean it really has I mean we've been tested at 46 national elections but and we made some bad choices and we've had a civil war I mean so the country has had an enormous advantage just though in some way because we started with one half of 1% of the world's population in 1790 and we now have something close to 25% of the world's GDP and it wasn't because we had some incredible advantage in terms of it was nice to have two oceans on each side back when when people tried to rule the way rule the world by ruling the waves but you know and we had good neighbors in Canada and Mexico but it's a miracle and you say how do we keep the goods parts of the system while calling out our obvious defects and we do it in a very herky jerky matter
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but net the United States was a better place to live but almost when I was born by a huge factor I mean I just got a root canal a week ago and I was just thinking I don't know who even Vennett know the game but I'm for him you know I mean but in a million ways I mean you can roll you can romanticize about the past but forget it it is it is work but now we do have an atom bomb and we wish nuclear power you know we wish the atom had never been split but but it has been and you can't put it back in the model so the challenges are huge our government always looks you know my dad was in Congress back in the 1940s and it looked like a mess then you know I all was unified by the war to some degree but it was still very partisan now the problem we have I think that partisanship it seems to me as move toward tribalism and tribalism just doesn't work as well I mean when it gets tribalism you don't even hear the other side and tribalism can lead to mobs I made it just it it flows I mean you've seen it else but we've seen it to a degree here so we have to refine in a certain way our democracy as we go along we deal with the world we live in but if I sell out of choice of any post to be born in the in the world I'd want to be born in the United States and I want to be born today
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I mean it is it is a it is a better world than we've ever had and with present day communications we can all see so see see much more how terrible is in many ways and it's got problems when I was born in 1930 there were two billion people in the world and now there's maybe a hundred and point seven billion and growing and we went millennia with really no change in population so we and of course we've introduced energy into in an incredible way into something where we now have seven point seven billion people using way more than they did when I was born when there were two billion people so it's it's an exciting world it's a challenging world and I you know I don't know the solutions on things I do think that we do need to think about different solutions in terms of how we get important problems solved and we don't get ourselves that something magic will happen or that everybody will get together and we'll all just cheer and then go away by 2050 or any it and how well we adapt to that we will see I would say so far doesn't look very promising but then I'm sure that when Lincoln looks out of what was going on the Civil War didn't look very promising either so I think that the US is capable of doing remarkable things and I think I wouldn't surprise me if they do it again Charlotte Charlie me are you part of
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we're going to move to a more sustainable future but nobody knows how to get there yet I think the world will be a lot more prosperous a hundred years from now but whether it'll be happier then is a different question happiness in a sense comes from within and is a personal thing but I do think that access to the basics of life food shelter medical entertainment less drudgery being able to operate without fear these things will improve for a significant percentage of people in the world in the next hundred years I'd settle for that even if the GDP didn't go up very much in the century
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we know how to solve the problem with diesel vehicles we've had the catalytic converter is for years we know how to clean up coal plants we know how to make buildings more energy-efficient we know a lot of things and we've put some of those things to work but it takes policy action to get best practices applied on a very broad scale if you look at wind solar and batteries which are just part of a very broad energy mix in the future we've made tremendous progress in the last decade things are getting better much faster than people anticipated and they will continue to do so that is the good news
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I'm pretty sure that the American spirit the human spirit and the American economic system will get us to a better world in the future but how many problems we're going to have between now and then and how many retreats we have from a better world into a worse world because of mistaken policies or because of reactions to change I don't know
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a lot of people are coming into the stock market with the notion that they're going to get rich quick and I suspect that a few will but on balance the idea that you can take your spare change and put it into something and have it turn into a fortune in a few months I'm properly quite confident at that's not a good idea we tell people that we're not going to get rich selling them the secret of trading online we want them to do something that they've done since the cave man days which is buy a little bit of something that they think is a good business and hold it for a long time
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Good morning everyone. I'm Warren Buffett, you're watching Yahoo Finance. It's Becky Quick here in Omaha, Nebraska. And Warren, we have about a thousand people who are here with us in the CenturyLink Center that we're talking to, but also folks all around the world who are tuning in today. And I think one of the biggest questions everybody has is what we're looking at as we're here in this environment that just feels so different from what we've seen in the past. What's your take on where we are in this moment in time?
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It's been a really interesting year. It's been an amazing year for large American businesses on one hand. I mean, if you own an index fund and you just sit back, you've done better than if you bought stocks from any individual company. But on the other hand, the people that need to be remembered are people who have had crushing losses during this period.
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There have been a few people who have become very, very rich, but most people have had declines in income. Fortunately, Congress and the Federal Reserve have taken very, very strong action, particularly the Federal Reserve. They've shown they can buy the world without limit, and Congress has acted in a way that we never would have anticipated beforehand, but there have been a lot of people helped because of that.
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And all told, we have the prospect of an economy which really, in 2022, has nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It works very well. Inflation is a risk, but it's not necessary. It's a risk because of the money we've printed, but it's not a necessary consequence of this. It's a risk because five, ten years from now, people will look back and say, "Where did we put all those trillions of dollars we printed?" And that could do it, but it's not going to happen in the next year or so. But we'll see how it works out.
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Well, I'm slightly less optimistic than Warren. I think the best road ahead to human happiness is to expect less. I think it's going to get tougher and I think the solution of having a huge proportion of the young and brilliant people in wealth management is a crazy development in terms of its natural consequences for American civilization. We don't need as many wealth managers. If you were Charlie, born on January 1st, 1924, and you'd hate to go back to that, wouldn't you? Try yes, I would. And I like more wealth managers who were just merely reflecting, "There's more wealth, but we've got." I don't like everybody going into wealth management. My tea or something, it's I think the world's a little crazy now, take your choice. Okay, Becky, this question comes from Dennis DeGenero.
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As Warren stated in the 2022 annual report, Berkshire will always hold a boatload of cash in US treasury bills. It will also avoid behavior that could result in any uncomfortable cash needs at inconvenient times, including financial panics and unprecedented insurance losses. After Warren passes away, his A shares will be converted into B shares and distributed to various foundations. These foundations will then sell the shares to fund their causes, and estimates it will take 12 to 15 years for all his shares to be sold. I worry that a corporate raider like Carl Icahn or a group will buy up enough of these shares to take control of Berkshire and completely disregard Warren's philosophy of holding a lot of cash in US treasury bills, and instead be greedy, reckless, and highly speculative and ruin Berkshire's position as a rock-solid financial fortress. I also worry that changes might be made in how Berkshire's subsidiaries are run. Do Warren and Charlie worry that these things could happen?
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Well, I think it's fair to say we think about it plenty, but I don't worry enormously. If we don't panic dividends in 12 or 15 years, you're talking a trillion and a half that would take to take over, and I think if we can't, that limits the group. They like to think about how much they can borrow against it all. It doesn't work when you have nobody to come close to doing it themselves, and I think that the important thing is that Berkshire be regarded as a national asset rather than a national liability. We've got to be a plus to the country with our form of operation, and we certainly have got a record which will then be 12 or 15 years longer, done with much more capital, more companies, more things will have happened where our hundreds of billions can work its way into the economy in terms of lots of jobs, lots of products, lots of behavior, and it can be compared with other things. So, I think we went out if we deserve to went out, and I think the odds of that happening are very, very, very high.
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Well, we don't spend much time worrying about things like that. Having 50 years ago and ever and dead, I think you sort of take care of each day's responsibilities pretty well and think ahead as well as you can and you just take the results as they fall. So, I'm feel so old, but I'm not. I'm not. I'm not spreading unnecessary worry.
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Okay, neither one of us are worried basically, but we plan. We do plan, and you know, I've got a model in my mind of what Berkshire has been. That model has gotten, it's been modified plenty of times over 58 years. The one thing I know initially is, or very importantly was, it shouldn't be a textile company. That was an important decision. And every, we just played the hand as it come along, and we made a few really good decisions.
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We will never make a decision that kills us. The only things that are a threat to the planet, we don't have any answer for those. But we keep ourselves in better shape than anybody else that and we just aren't going to have big priorities of that that come along.
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We aren't going to have insurance bottles he said can be cashed in en masse, and we will sit with a lot what looks like a huge amount of capital, and with this huge amount of capital, but there's a huge amount of earning power, there's a huge amount of diversity, everything. So, our business model will be graded, and it'll be graded against a lot of people that we like to be graded against.
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So, I think we're handing something very secure over to the future, and I think we've got the shareholder base like nobody has. I mean, there isn't anybody in the country that I know of unless they've had a shareholder, they're employing company prior to going public or something of the sort, but this is the product of 58 years of regarding the shareholder.
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As the owner of the company but what does that mean that means having happy customers it means being it means being welcomed by your community rather than having them so it turns you away it means that the government feels better with you if there's a financial crisis because you're you can provide something that actually the company the country can't under some circumstances and you'll be there and the government and same time it'll be good for the business and we will have crises of one sort or another but if they aren't challenging the planet which words you in terms of some of the threats that we have we'll be a plus to the United States and if we're a plus to the United States we'll survive okay
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Station 7 Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger thank you for having us this weekend my name is Bo Clayton and I'm from Durham North Carolina one of the reasons that we are all here is that you're great storytellers and we carry those stories back home with us can you please share a couple stories that maybe we haven't heard before about Mr. Able and Mr. Jane that captured their character and their caliber as leaders well I'll start out with the G
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He walked into the office in 1986 and I've gotten the bright idea of going to the reinsurance business I think it may be 1969 so I'd stumble along for 17 years and a wonderful guy that didn't ran it but he also liked certain brokers and I mean he was running it the traditional way the top quality and everything else spoke but he fell into the he didn't try and change the system he tried to improve the system and to some degree and we just we won't we won't know where 17 years wandering around with the Woolworths and I thought I was I knew we could have something good and then the Jake came in on a Saturday and my goal was to work and stirred him in.
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I think and Mike deserves to be in shrine and perpetuity act and I talked with him and while I think maybe I was opening the mail on Saturday while I talked with him and he had absolutely zero experience with with insurance but he'd actually seen a good bit about corporate America operated because he'd been a management consoling and after talking with him I I knew I'd struck gold and so I hired him and gave him the backing of some money and we had a very good period in the market almost right away for him to act and and the G you know if I had the top pick of 10 insurance managers in the world I could take all 10 and they wouldn't you can't replace a G and we still enjoy talking we don't talk as frequently as he used to but we talk about every day.
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But he is he's one of a kind and you know if they're going to stick around long enough you only need one of a kind Paul Andrews stuck around at TTI had all the money in the world every time I talked to him about getting a raise or something of the sort he said we'll talk about that next year he was not what you get when you get the top draft picks from the leading business schools and I will say this I have never looked at where anybody went to school in terms of hiring I mean I just somebody mailed me a resume or something I don't get where they went to school and it just so happens that that she went to some pretty good schools.
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but he isn't a G because he went to the schools and Charlie didn't tell a story or two how do you find William and Sanny? Well he was there but you got to recognize him I asked Louis once how he managed to play first ring football I think Stanford when he only weighed a hundred and sixty five pounds and he said well he says I was pretty quick and he was pretty quick but we have found a lot of people within our companies who were pretty quick it's it's a we had one got the quid at fourth grade in Ben Rossner and am I wrong?
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I totally self educated Ben Rossner knew more about retailing and deal with neighborhoods and anybody and he watched everything in his business like a hawk and he was amazing now there was an example we never found anybody who could do what when Ben died that building he left us yeah and you want a story it's kind of interesting because Ben Rossner had a partner Leo Simon and least Leo Simon was Moana Burke Sonner Law and Leo therefore was very very very wealthy and and then started with nothing but they they liked each other and one time well before they got involved in the in the business of the business we bought but they got the idea of buying a submarine from World War I and taking it to the century of progress or the world's fair and effect in Chicago I think in 1933 so they bought the submarine for not probably nothing and they figured you know the average guy from Omaha was going to his first world's fair get into a submarine for a quarter or something that they'd pay it so they hauled it from Florida wherever they got they hauled it to Chicago and then they got into Chicago and they were hauling a submarine down the streets of Chicago and it was creating traffic problems like nobody could imagine so a cop came over and he said to Ben he says what do you think your guys are going with a submarine Ben says well I don't you say that you'll have to talk to my partner Mr. Cwoon the cop says gear on those just keep going and that was that was Ben Rossner and then Leo Simon died and when he died in 1967 or so Ben Rossner kept delivering half the profits to his widow who was incredibly rich of course being Moana Birch first born daughter
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I think I think Moana had nine girls in a role before Waller came along the 10th I may be lost by one but anyway I went to this fancy apartment and anyway Ben kept her in for half the deal and he had her sign the rent checks just so she would look like she was doing something in this business and she didn't need the money obviously but he just felt he was obligated once his partner Leo died and then she started criticizing him and at that point Ben went to her as lawyer or as her lawyer actually will fell sign her wherever happened to will but he gave me a call because Ben wanted to call me because he wanted me to buy it and he wanted me to buy bought it he'd be rid of the partner's ex-partners wife and he'd get he had me and.
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Charlie come back and we went to Will Falsetiner's office and Ben says I'll work till the end of the year and that's all but I'll show you this thing for six million bucks and I have two million they cash and a couple of million at real estate and a couple of million at operating earnings that this is just crazy but he followed he was getting a lousy prize she was taking a half a lousy prize for half the money so he looked at me at some point Charlie you described the rest of it he said I heard here the fastest drawing the West he says draw he's selling his baby and he told us he's leaving I got Charlie on the side I said if this guy leaves at the end of the year he can throw away every psychology book that's ever been written I mean it isn't gonna happen and so we bought it and we lived happily ever after with Ben and one time he was taking me over to see a property we had in Brooklyn and along the way I said Ben I you know I promised you I wouldn't interfere in the business when we started and he knew a butt was coming and he just said thank you Warren and they're shutting down he was a lot of fun we we have so many Ben Rosner stories but now you've heard one that hasn't been published before
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okay Becky this question comes from Chi Go Hill he writes this is for a G re insurance industry is going through one of the hardest pricing environments in the last 15 years Berkshire historically has participated during these stress times when economic returns are very attractive this year it appears Berkshire has not been interested in deploying its resources towards property cat re insurance despite such strong returns can you elaborate on reasons for not participating despite these returns and your broader view on how you're planning to shape your reinsurance business post acquisition of Allegheny okay
好的,贝基,这个问题来自Chi Go Hill,他写道,这是为了G再保险行业。过去15年中,再保险行业正在经历其中最困难的定价环境之一。伯克希尔历史上参与了这些压力时期,当经济回报非常有吸引力时。今年似乎伯克希尔没有对房产CAT再保险部署资源的兴趣,尽管这样的回报很强。你可以详细说明不参与的原因以及你的更广泛的观点,如何在Allegheny收购后塑造你的再保险业务。
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in terms of Allegheny that's an easy response we look we treat operating units independent of each other and as far as Allegheny is concerned they have a major presence in the reinsurance business under the brand name of Francis Land degree that company will operate the way it's been operating in the past there'll be no change in terms of strategy or management and they will keep doing what they're doing they've been very successful and hopefully they'll keep being successful
在Allegheny方面,这是一个简单的回答。我们将各个业务部门看作是独立的,就Allegheny而言,他们在再保险业务中拥有一个重要的品牌——Francis Land Degree。该公司将像以往一样运营,其战略和管理不会有任何变化,他们将继续做他们一直以来做得非常成功的事情,我们希望他们能够继续取得成功。
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now in terms of the property cat business that I have been active in over these last several years you're right that the last 15 years has been a difficult time prices have not been attractive and even though we have had some presence in the property cat business in the last 15 years it really is been minimal
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this December 31st which is a big renewal date for cat re insurance we were hoping that we would get a few days in the sun and we'd be able to deploy our capital and be able to write some fairly attractive business as it happened towards the end of December till about the third week of December I was very optimistic that we would get a chance to put several billion dollars on the books but in the last 10 days of December unfortunately a lot of capacity came out of the woodworks pricing that we were expecting to realize didn't really come and meet our pricing requirements as a result of which January 1 was a big disappointment we did not write as much as we were hoping to write now fast forward to April 1 which is another big renewal date we had a lot of powder dry and we were lucky that we kept the powder dry because April 1 suddenly prices zoomed up again a lot higher than what they were on January 1 and started to look attractive to us
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so now we have a portfolio that is very heavily exposed to property cat recipe to put that perspective our exposure today is almost 50% more than what it was 5, 6 months ago so we have written as much as our capacity will allow us to write we are very happy with what we've written the margins have been healthy the only thing that I want to mention to you is that while the margins have been healthy we have a very unbalanced portfolio what that means is if there's a big hurricane in Florida we will have a very substantial loss as opposed to that if we have a very big loss anyway other than Florida relative to our competition we will have a much smaller loss
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I'm very happy with the portfolio it's been a lot better than what it's been in the past I don't know how long it'll last and of course if the hurricane happens in Florida we could lose across all the units we could lose as much as 15 billion dollars and if there isn't a loss we'll make several billion dollars as profit and as you tell them how long when you call me and said you'd like to expose us to whatever was a couple billion more of exposure how long I took to say yes yeah so the way we think about our exposures you know in the property in the insurance operations collectively across the entire company given that we have about a little less than 300 billion of capital we think of that as a 55% exposure that you're willing to take on so to complete Warren's story a few weeks ago we had about 13 billion dollars of exposure all across the globe and I called up Warren I said we have to 13 it'll be nice if we can go up to 15 that's a good round number and that was less than a 30 second phone call I think Warren said yes without even listening to what the numbers were I hope he calls me again
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okay station eight hello my name is Adal Flores and I've been a shareholder for about 16 years and I'm coming from Guadalajara, Mexico my question is for Warren and Charlie companies have the eternal dilemma between brought building products that can make profits and increase their company competitive position in the best case you can build products that have both characteristics at the same time like Google did but most of the time companies need to choose between short-term profits and long-term defensibility for example Amazon was focused on building their famous Amazon flywheel with limited profits initially in order to obtain obtained stronger network effects with the hope of getting more defenseable profits in the future when you invest you constantly speak about the importance of building competitive modes what advice would you give to CEOs about how to balance this dilemma which is essentially short-term profits versus long-term defensibility thank you
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well the answer to control your destiny which we've been able to do it Berkshire so we have we feel no pressure from Wall Street you know we don't have investor calls we don't have to make promises we get a chance to make our own mistakes and occasionally find something that works well but we recognize that the people in this room and people like them are the ones that we're working for and we're not working for a bunch of people that care about whether we meet the core rest of the matter so we have a freedom that we get to use and we're interested in owning a wonderful business forever well there aren't very many wonderful businesses but we do learn a lot as we go along we Charlie and I have often mentioned how we learn so much when we bought C's candy which we did but we learned when we bought Ben Rogers chain of women's dress shops spread all over the eastern part of the country we learned when we tried getting into the department store business back in 1966 and as the ink was drawing on our purchase price we realized we'd done something dumb but we're learning all the time how consumers behave I'm not going to be able to learn the technical aspects of businesses but that you know that be nice if I knew it but it isn't essential.
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and you know we are obviously we've got a business at Apple which is larger than our energy business and we may only own 5.6 or 7% but our ownership goes up every year and I don't understand the phone law but I do understand consumer behavior and I know how people think about whether to buy a second car I know how they go out to different we own auto dealerships we're learning all the time from all of our businesses how people react to granables versus selling them something else and so C's was a sort of breakthrough but we just keep learning as to more about how people behave and how a good business can turn into a bad business and how some good businesses can maintain their competitive advantage over time and so we don't have some formula for people we just but we can also tell in 10 seconds whether it's something of interest.
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I mean when I get these calls and we want to send decks and all that sort of which is nonsense I mean it's a bunch of guys setting get paid for drawing up these projections of the future and everything like that if they knew the future we don't know the future but we do know certain kinds of businesses we know what the right price is and we know what we think we can project out in terms of consumer behavior and consumer and threats to a business and that's what we've been about and that's what we'll continue about we do get we don't get smarter over time we get we get a little wiser though following it over time and you can do it while sitting in the office with a telephone too which we like Charlie tell them the story of the Japanese investment that that should be told again that's a nice story.
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well it was pretty simple I mean I you know other back when I started other people were going through playboy and I was going through moody so I mean basically and there's a movie I'll call turn every page which I saw again for the second time a couple of days ago Lizzie got late but I recommend everybody in this world watch that because I turned every page in the past and I did it for thousands and thousands of pages and moody and I did it at the Department of Public Utilities in Boston I did it at the insurance department that you just kept turning pages well that that goes on for for a while but now we need big ideas in order to find things and and what was your question Charlie? Get down about the Japanese.
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Well, the Japanese thing was simple. I mean, it kind of makes sense. I like looking at companies- I mean, I like looking at figures about companies.
嗯,日本的事情很简单。我是说,有点能理解。我喜欢看公司的数据 - 我是说,我喜欢看有关公司的数字。
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Here were five very substantial, understandable companies, most of them, maybe all of them, we've done business within a dozen different ways.
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If you go a couple of miles from where this place is, our last cold-generating plant was built by one of the companies. So here they were, sitting as a group where they were earning, we'll say 14%, on what we were going to pay to buy them. They were paying decent dividends, they were going to repurchase shares. In some cases, they owned a whole bunch of businesses that we could understand as a group, although we didn't mean we had deep understanding on anything, but we saw them operating everything. There wasn't anything to it.
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At the same time, we could take out the currency risk by financing in the end, and that was going to cost us half a one percent. Well, if you get 14% on one side, a half percent on the other side, and you've got money that you know forever, and they're doing intelligent things and they're sizable, so we just started buying them. I didn't even probably tell Greg until maybe six months after we'd gotten going.
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Then we hit five percent in all of them. We announced on my birthday, and at nine days at the way owned over five percent. And recently went over for the first time to visit with them, and we were more than pleasantly surprised, delighted with what we find there. And now we own seven point four percent of it. We won't go over nine point nine without their agreeing, and we sold another 164, whatever it is, billion of a billion of what have done for us if we only had five billion dollars or something and it made ten billion dollars.
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Simply in that way, we would look at heroes now. Ten billion just sort of disappears as it's a little dot in Berser's reports, but it's fun and it's fun. And it's ten billion dollars, and Charlie says it keeps. And Charlie says it keeps me out of bars. I probably talked to Charlie about this at the year after he started. I don't know who knows.
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We tried to do every dollar we would do. We can only do about ten billion. Yeah, well, not even that quite that much, yeah, but you know, we are four or five billion they have plus dividends and we got a carry that's terrific, and they welcome us. And they should welcome us, but we love it the way they're operating. We're not there to tell them what to do in the least. So we did, and we did say we never go over at nine point nine, and we mean it, and they know that we'll be true to our word.
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I went over there partly to introduce Greg to those people because we're going to be with them ten, twenty, thirty, forty years from now, and they may occasionally find something that we can do jointly. And they look forward to doing that. We look forward to it. In addition, we have some other operating businesses in Japan, so Greg, you have anything?
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The only thing I would add is that when Warren went over there, it was to build the trust with these Japanese companies because we do hope there's long-term opportunities. But fundamentally, as you highlighted, they've been a very good investment. I'd also highlight the five meetings we had were really quite remarkable. I mean, these companies, the culture and the history around it, and how proud they are. You know, there's just moments of learning from them. So it was just a great experience to spend really two days with the five companies.
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And an issue that we intended to be 56 billion of yen that we were issuing and selling turned out to be 164.4, something like that. Everything works so well, and as Charlie says it, it doesn't move 500 billion of net worth that much, but this one is, you know, it will keep adding over the years to the Berkshire's value. It was very widespread, probably 4-500 million dollars a year, and you know, we'll just keep looking for more opportunities in Japan.
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We are Berkshire is the largest borrower outside of corporate borrowers outside of Japan that exists, and we didn't set out to be that, but it's turned out that way. And we're not done, I mean, in terms of what may come along there, and we have some direct operations there, as I mentioned, and we've got some really wonderful partners working for us. And I don't have to do anything.
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Okay, Becky. The next question comes from Ellie Amin Tibet, who asks, during an episode of investing the Templeton way podcast, professor Damodara, and who he respects almost as much as Warren and Charlie mentioned that he is not comfortable with positions becoming a large part of his portfolio, for example when they reach 25 to 35 percent.
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He mentioned that Apple is now 35 percent of Berkshire's portfolio and thinks that that is near a danger zone, wonders if... Warren and Charlie can comment.
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I'll leave you man one comment first but Charlie will come up with I think you thought there was one yeah I know that that's coming but Apple is not thirty five percent of Berkshire's portfolio Berkshire's portfolio includes the railroad, the energy business, the maradamals, you name it C's candy they're all businesses and you know the good thing about Apple is that we can go up they buy in their stock and instead of owning 5.6 percent you know they get down to they got about 15 billion seven hundred and some million shares outstanding they get down to 15 and a quarter billion without us doing anything we got six percent so we can't own more than a hundred percent of the world that be NSF we can't own more than a hundred percent of granables or C's candy and it'd be nice we'd love it on 200 percent but it's just isn't doable but they're all the same they're good businesses and to think that our criterion criteria for Apple is different than the other businesses we only just happens to be a better business than any we own and we put a firm on a money and we haven't got more money than we've gotten the railroad and Apple is a better business our railroad is a very good business but it's not remotely as good as Apple's business.
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Apple you know has a position with consumers where they're paying you know maybe the paid 1500 bucks or whatever it may be for a phone and these same people pay 35,000 for having a second car and if they had to give up a second car or give up their iPhone they give up their second car I mean it's an extraordinary probably we don't have anything like that that we own a hundred percent of but we're very very very happy to have 5.6 or whatever it may be percent and we're delighted every tenth of a percent that goes up that's like adding a hundred million dollars to our earnings our share of the earnings and they use their earnings to buy out our partners which we're glad to see them sell out till the index funds have to sell they bring the number shares down and you know I'm good we went up slightly last year and I made a mistake a couple of years ago and I sold some shares when I had certain certain reasons why gangs were useful to take that year from a tax standpoint but having heard having heard me say that it was a dumb decision and you've already given your comment about it but we do not have 35% of Berkshire's portfolio Berkshire's portfolio is the funds we have to work with and we want to own good businesses and we also want to have plenty of liquidity and beyond that you know the sky's the limiter or our mistakes who knows what the bottom is.
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I'm sure you want to add anything to your earlier comment well I think one of the and main things that's taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory and investing in common stocks that isn't the same idea it's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified and if you've only got three I'd rather read my best ideas instead of my worst and now some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst and the act of deciding that the investment already is good they get the thing it's better than it is I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people and that is a blessing to us we're not so smart but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness is that is a very important part of practical intelligence and a lot of people who are geniuses on IQ tests think they're a lot smarter than they are and what they are is dangerous and better but if you know the edge of your own ability pretty well you should ignore most of the notions of our experts about what I call de-worseification of portfolios.
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Okay, yeah, session 9 Hi Charlie and Warren, thank you for this superb shareholder meeting celebration my name is David Chung from Hong Kong and a proud graduate of Chicago Booth I'm also here with my two sons, Aiden and Ashen who's currently studying University of Chicago as a freshman and sophomore this is my second time attending the conference last being 2019 four years ago which I was only a guest shareholder of my friend Andrew so after the shareholder meeting I have decided to buy into Berger Halfaway which has given me a great return of 62% since 2019 so I want to thank you for that.
I have also taken one of your advice to give my children a share for each of their birthdays although they want a Berger Halfaway A shares they will do just fine with these. shares my question is how do you see the current US China Internet companies valuation and the price disparity given there has been many uncertainties such as geo political tensions, significant costs, optimizations with leaner US tech firms while China tech has been for all that already Charlie I want to...
Well, there's been some tension in the economic relationship of the United States and China. I think that that tension has been wrongly created on both sides. I think we're equally guilty of being stupid. There's one thing we should do, it's get along with China and we should have a lot of free trade with China in our mutual interest and I just can't imagine it's just so obvious there's so much safety and so much creativity that's possible. Think what Apple has done by engaging in a partnership with China as a big supplier, it's been good for Apple and good for China. That's the kind of business we'll be doing with China and more of everything that increases the tension between the two companies stupid stupid stupid.
All of these stop on each side, and each side ought to respond to the other side's stupidity with receivable kindness that's my view. It creates one enormous problem, of course, which is that you have the two superpowers of the world and they know they have to get along with each other. You either want to destroy the other and they're going to be competitive with each other, but part of it is trying always in a game like that is trying to judge how far you can push the other guy without them reacting wrong, and you know if either side is a bully and some way they can get away with it to an extent because the alternative is would drive them both into destruction, but if they push it too far they increase the probability that something really does go wrong, so it's you know, it's one of those game theory though I'm...
But you really need the leader of both countries, and you need the populist to understand at least the general situation in which these countries are going to operate over the next century and know that some leader of the promises too much can get you in a hell of a lot of trouble, and that like you know that you've got one kind of a system that gets this leader one way, and you've got another system that gets this leader another way, and keeping either side from trying to play the game too hard and thinking the other side will go along, you know, it's like playing chicken, you know, and driving toward a cliff. So it is if you've got any diplomacy skills, persuasive skills, or anything like that, you really want people that will convince the other country as well as their own country that this is what we're engaged in, we've got to do it right, we won't give away the store, but we won't try and take the whole story either, and we're just at the beginning of this unfortunately, and I mean we've learned what the situation was.
It used to be the Soviet and the mutually assured destruction was our policy then, and that kept a lot of things from happening, but it also came with a very, very, very close call with Cuba, and these are not, you know, these are different games that existed hundreds of years ago, you know, Britain might rule the seas or France or Spain, but but now you're playing with the game that you can't really make a huge mistake in. And I think that that should be the better that's understood in both countries, the more the leaders feel that their citizenry does understand that, the better off will be, and that a lot of democratic demography or the lot of inflammatory speaking, but a lot of authoritarian action. I mean, it all carries its dangers, and the world has stumbled through the years post-1945 with a lot of close calls from the in the nuclear arena and now we've got pandemics and we've got, we've got cyber and a whole bunch of other things, so we've got more tools of destruction than the world's ever had, and it's imperative that China and the United States both understand what the game is and understand that you can't push too hard but we're going but both places are going to be competitive and both can prosper. That's that's what really is that's that's the vision that is out there, that China will have a more wonderful country, you know, United States will have a more wonderful country, and and and the two are not just compatible they're almost imperative in terms of what's going to happen in the next 100 years or so, and I think that the leaders of both countries have got a important job in in having that understood, and not to do inflammatory things, and we'll see whether the law that has taken us from 1945 to present holds out, and I think we can affect to some extent that law, and without a sure message, we won't hold the back of you.
This question comes from Roheke Bellany Berkshire bought a substantial position in Taiwan semiconductor and contrary to its normal holding timelines sold almost the entire position within a few short months while you cited in a C&BC interview that geopolitical issues were the catalyst these issues were seemingly no different when you acquired that stock so what else have anything changed in those few months imprompted the firm to offload close to five billion dollars worth of Taiwan semiconductor shares.
Taiwan semiconductor is one of the best managed companies and important companies in the world and there is not and I think you'll be able to say the same thing five or ten or twenty years from now. I don't like its location and reevaluated that I mean I don't want these to be any place but Taiwan although they will be obviously opening up ship capacity in this country and actually one of our subsidiaries that we got in these is participating in their Arizona construction activities but it's it's a question of we would rather have the same kind of company and there's nobody in the ship company there's no in the ship industry that's in their league that are at least in my view and the man that is a 91 year old or so that connect with it that I think I play bridge with and and and Albuquerque and the marvelous people marvelous company but at whether find a marvelous people and I will find it in the ship industry but marvelous people and marvelous competitive position and everything at brother find it in the United States.
I feel better about the capital that we've got deployed in Japan than in the entire one I wish it weren't so but I think that's a real I love the and I reevaluated that in the light of certain things that we're going on try well my view is it worn out a feel comfortable if you want to put that in the minutes okay station 10.
First of all, thank you for making our lives better my name is Bogomil Baranowski I'm a founding partner of Sika's associates in New York we manage multi-generational family fortunes hence my question.
Mr. Buffett in 1976 in your tribute to Benjamin Graham you wrote Walter Lippmann spoke of men who planned trees that other men will sit under Ben Graham was such a man you're both such people could you share with us your 100 your vision for Berkshire it's a question to you both.
Yeah, I would like to add one thing about Ben Graham Ben Graham did all kinds of things for me I never expected one thing in return I made just you name it and he did it and there wasn't any hidden you know it's like a hint I should say of anything you expect in return and I checked well he wrote a book in 1949 that in a sense said to me in very persuasive terms that what I'd been spending the previous eight or nine years working at and loving was all wrong and that book has been I check it every now and then on Amazon to wear ranks and you know Amazon ranks hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books by sales and Ben Graham's book has been up there like number three hundred or three fifty or something like that forever and there isn't there isn't any book like I wrote Harper Collins and not the other day because they're bringing out another edition and I have some home they copies have been sold and they said the records can go back far enough but they they had seven point three million copies of this little book that changed my life and continues to outsell every investment book and investment go come along and you know their number four hundred or a thousand or something for a while and then all of a sudden their number twenty-five thousand or a two hundred thousand and this book you know in how many areas can you find any book that has had that sustained position you can't you go back and look at number one at nineteen fifty or number two or number three and you look at in fifty-one and fifty-two they don't continue I mean, they just don't continue cookbooks maybe one or two of them last for a while but there is nothing and this book lives on and everybody keeps bringing out new books and saying a lot of other things but they aren't saying anything it's as important as what he said in nineteen forty-nine in this relatively thin little book.
So our vision for Berkshire is exactly what we said today we wanted to be a company that is owned by shareholders and behaves in a way that society is happy that it exists and not unhappy and we will have unlimited capital we'll get lots of talent and we've got a base that can't be beaten and there's no reason why it can't be perpetuated just like Ben's book and it may be an example of other people and and if so we'll be very happy Charlie.
Yeah, one of the really interesting things about Ben and he was a really gifted teacher a very honorable profession and that is what has lasted however, an interesting fact that he was sheepish about it and his old age was that more than half of all the investment return that Ben and Graham made in his whole life came. from one stock one gross stock Geico purchase a subsidiary and he he at the time he operated there were a lot of sort of lousy companies that were too cheap and you can make a little money floating from one to another but the big money he made was one gross stock buying one under a value of great company is a very good thing his purchase found out again and again and again and and and Ben wrote a post script of the forty nine edition pointing out exactly that fact and acknowledging it but said but also took some good lessons from it you know he said that's the way life is that that you prepare and you you know you don't lose everything along the way and then something comes along and Geico came along because a banker and for it worth it a financial deal Davidson and I think the banker got three quarters of it and I don't mean Leo Davidson Leo good one who founded Geico then called government employees insurance company and you can figure out the acronym and the deal almost fell apart the deals as I remember from maybe a million and a half or something like a million a quarter and it almost fell apart because of a difference of twenty five thousand dollars in the net worth delivered this is a business is you know we're tens of billions I mean but he pointed out the irony in that too I mean it he was honest about it was totally intellectually honest on about us about his the the failings and also the strengths of his approach and the and that to some extent you know Charlie and I have seen that in our lives I mean that sort of the prepared mind the willingness to act when you need to act and the willingness to ignore every salesman in the world and the imperative to ignore him and it's one or two things that make the right decision if you make the right decision on a spouse I mean you won the game they you know and there's enormous important decision and got all the time I mean in the world you got more time now than you said when I was getting to make that decision and and you know I don't know whether a third or whatever percentage blow that when they know it is it is really interesting the thing to do is just keep trying to trying to think things through and not do too many stupid things and sooner or later you have a lot of blows
I was sure I would say okay Becky right this question comes from to rafter a shareholder in Sierra Vista Arizona who is asking a question of a G once to know about electric vehicles getting insurance from the manufacturer instead of car insurance companies a recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows that though EVs are small but growing percentage of sales Tesla and GM are offering their own electric vehicle insurance what will Geico do to combat this?
Yeah so Geico is talking to a number of original equipment manufacturers as well to try and see how best they can work with the auto manufacturer and offer insurance at the point of sale there haven't been very many success stories yet so we'll wait and see you know clearly it is a very convenient way to sell auto insurance at the point of sale but there's a fair amount of data that needs to be collected on the driver not just the car and that makes it a little more complicated so we are talking to some auto manufacturers ourselves we are hopeful to that we will strike a deal with some of them before not too long Tesla has made and GM they both have talked a lot in the press in terms of getting into the insurance business and in fact GM I think has projected they'll write three billion dollars of premium which you know it's hard to imagine where it will come from but they're all hard to try I think somebody will find the secret sauce before not too long and we ourselves are in that race.
I would point out that General Motors insurance for decades and I mean this is not a new idea and Uber no longer insurance for while they laid it off with somebody and that company got killed by it but I don't know the deal between Uber and forget the name of the company that took it on it's cheap we probably know but James River. There's nothing it is not it's not a new idea it's not magic in the lease I mean it is hard to come up with something that is better at misking max and matching risk to reward risk risk I'm sorry risk to price then then a bunch of very smart people are doing it a progressive and a bunch of smart people are doing it so great we're standing at Geico and I mean it is it just it was fascinating to me when Uber won into it you know and they were going to get their head handed to them but they laid it off a good bit of it very substantial percentage of it was somebody else who got their head handed to it and it was a story you know the Wall Street loves it we've got 80 car dealerships that do a lot of business and you know we've got the people buying the car and the place and we form an insurance company around the road for some reason that writes insured it's hard to improve on the present system I have no I wouldn't pay a penny I'd pay to avoid it actually I mean and go ahead of you yeah the only point I'd like to add is the margins on writing auto insurance are 4% which is a very small number and once there are more people that are trying to take a bite of the apple it just becomes very very difficult to keep all the mouths fed in a profitable manner.
Yeah you can say that there was one big new idea in insurance and proper in car insurance back in 1920 or so when state farm started and state farm and still has it next to Berkshire it's it's the leader in having net worth it's a mutual company but some guy just figured that there was a car tell running car insurance and he farmer from earners the name of the book I think and over Illinois and he created a system where you really took 20 points or so out of the business and surprise surprise areas you know and nobody's own stock and state farm it's it's an insult to capitalism actually everything you learn at the business school says it shouldn't work because nobody owns it nobody's going public with it no nothing but it's got more net worth it's almost probably double leaving Berkshire the picture it's probably doubled the next guy and nobody's really improved on their system that much so it's it's fascinating how people don't really look at the essence you know these are cases that should carry a message but the truth is in Wall Street anything gets the test is what you can sell it or not if you can sell it it'll get sold and a bunch of insurance companies came along got a soul and this is this can be a story about this stock or that stock and it sounded good when they talked about it over for a while it is it is really interesting the investing public does not learn much.
Okay station eleven hi my name is Jeff Merriam I'm from E. Dynaminisoda we’ve been coming for years to make that professor from the earlier question really nervous how far families wealth is in Berkshire hathaway my question has to go with voting control in the future there was a question earlier about corporate radar I was more wondering about who is actually going to own the voting control is it going to be institutions calpers black rock are they eventually going to get their way with the ESG check boxes that we're going to have to check and what should we be thinking about that well you're thinking very well and the interesting thing is the big aggregations look like of course they'd be an index funds but what index funds want is they want a world in which society doesn't get upset with them about the fact I've got all the voting power and then I was saying the last year or two it's looked like a better idea for them not quite together what was the praise the Charlie who's open but they backed off a lot yeah they backed off a lot and it's an interesting to back out off and interesting interestingly enough and looking at money management you know the game is not performance its assets under management and index funds produce a tiny tiny tiny fee on assets under management because it was pioneered by Vanguard and and it's when it became successful it was very easy to replicate not so easy but I mean it was in that little bit be copied but it came with a management fee of two basis points so what people that have offered index funds would really like is it to buy their other funds or let a management money in some other way so that they get a higher higher fee on assets under management which of course is exactly why the index fund was invented in the first place but so it's gotten it's not lost leader but it is a way to pull money and then you hope that people ignore what was said by by what's the name that you know John Bogle Jack Bogle ignore him and essentially they give up the idea and that will offer you a fund that does this in India and will offer you another fund that does that and of course those management fees are higher so they're really counter selling the idea the John Bogle came along with but in the process they have achieved a lot of votes and that was fun for a while but the last thing the world that I do is that Washington with the American public decide that they're going around their way too much so they're sending the back off now if you figure out where their self interest is you can judge where their behavior is going to go. Charlie yeah you want to defend them? No you can swear he just said you're totally right and everything well in that case I won't ask anybody else okay Becky.
All right this question comes from Almou Grinnell and it's about this is for Warren Ann Greg since 2019 Berkshire repurchased huge amounts of stock about approximately reducing 10% of the share count and increasing the intrinsic value per share for the continuing shareholders. Greg is expected to be the successor of Warren as CEO so will he be in charge of the main capital allocation decisions including future share buybacks. Greg has been key in the development of Berkshire Hathaway energy and I think a good capital allocator does he has he been involved in the share repurchases that have been executed over the past years and do you both Warren and Greg work together in the estimation of Berkshire's intrinsic value and the share buyback decisions?
Well the answer is that Greg I'm going to turn it over to him but the answer is Greg understands capital allocation as well as I do and that's looking for us and he will make those decisions I think very much in the same framework as I would make them and we've laid out that framework now for 30 years or something like that. People make a way more complicated than I mean particularly if you're working out a doctorate or something it's just a great subject to have lots of footnotes and you know 50 pages or bigger but it is it's no more complicated than if you and I and Charlie had a business and you want to sell your interest and we could buy it for less than we thought it was worth and without misleading you in any way about what was going on and we'd buy it but Greg you're on because you're going to be doing it in the future right?
Yeah well I think Warren you said it really well I mean the framework has been laid out we know how you approach it and how you and Charlie have approached it and really don't see that framework changing when the opportunity presents itself will want to be an active repurchaser of Berkshire shares we think it's a great outcome for Berkshire shareholders don't a larger piece of each of our operating businesses and the portfolio of the equity companies when the opportunity presents itself you can be the dumbest thing you can do or it can be the smartest thing you can do and to make it more complicated than that and start getting into all this but you obviously do what the business needs to do first the opportunities are there grow your present business buy additional business whatever it may be and then then you make a decision on dividends but that decision becomes pretty irrevocable because you don't cut dividends and without having major effects in your shareholder base and a lot of things and then a few got ample capital and you don't see that you're going to use it all and your stock is attractive and enhances the intrinsic value for the remaining shareholders it's an old brainer and if it's above the price of intrinsic value it's an old brainer that you don't even listen to anybody know my what investment banker comes in and tells you here's how to do a repurchase program
okay station one I'm Tom Nelson a podcaster from North Oaks Minnesota Charlie in 2022 you use phrases like really massively stupid massive kind of arguments and crazy to describe what you said was the 30% of Americans hesitant to submit themselves to untested mRNA COVID gene therapy do you stand behind those quotes today yeah sure well we got time for one more than before lunch Becky okay
I was out let's see how about I see I'm going to be a hob on lunch pretty soon but no okay I'm going for you this one comes from Drew Estes this is a question for Warren in your 1969 letter to partners you said in any company where the founder and chief driving force behind the enterprise is still active it's still very difficult to evaluate second men the only real way to see how someone is going to do when when running a company is to let them run it this wise statement now applies to Berkshire once the second man are running Berkshire what would you advise owners of Berkshire to watch for specifically what actions if taken should give us concern
Well, I think I would do I would have some comfort in the fact that 99% of my net worth is in that company so I probably got a stronger interest and perhaps a hundred billion or more philanthropy will be affected by it. But I would say that I don't have a second choice. I mean, it is that tough to find but I've also seen Greg in action that I feel 100% comfortable and like I say, I don't know something happened to Greg I would tell the directors.
You know, they have a problem, and they won't. I don't have anybody to name, and if they put somebody in, Berkshire on automatic pilot can work extremely well for a long time. I mean, it doesn't like the businesses go away or anything sort, and you can't. It's hard to judge successor management in a really good business because if they don't show up at the office, it'll keep working for a long time, and maybe that like a bent useful input may show itself in five years and it make a long, long, long time.
And how are the shareholders advised by a bunch of people that are concerned about whether you're meeting earnings projections or something telling them whether the management is any good. You know, it is very, very hard. It's very hard. I've been on the board of 20 companies, it's very hard to you guys, me to rank the management of each one.
It's very difficult to do because some are just better businesses and others, some would be better off not manage hardly at all, others really need to help but they got a lousy business. And Tom Murphy told me a long, long, long time ago, he said the secret of businesses to buy good business, and it's okay to inherit one too and Greg is inheriting a good business and I think I'll make it better.
But I don't think it's easy to put any one of the next 10 nominees in and try and judge three years later whether they've done a good job or not so it's gonna be that that'll be a very interesting job for the board, but it shouldn't listen to Wall Street on it. They've got the job. If they put somebody in there's surprised, we both go down on the plane that was somebody in, they've got a real job in assessing that person because it'll depend on how good he or she is a talker, it'll depend on, you know, them courting Wall Street to be supportive of all kinds of things, and we've got some very good people on the board, but they would be challenged in that position as would I where I've been in that position then other companies were a very great leader has left and on the way back from the funeral you know nobody knows what to do exactly.
So with that jury message, we will go to lunch and we will come back, we'll see it one o'clock. Thank you, and we're sure gonna try and get 60 questions and we've done 25 so fun 20. Yeah, 25, so keep the question short and try to give the answer short. Thanks.