
Warren Buffett: Here’s How I Would Solve the Trade Problem (2016) - mrep
https://fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/
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blacksqr
If the only asset the Squanders have is land (which they already own) and the
only thing the Squanders and Thrifts can produce is food (which the Squanders
are getting from the Thrifts in exchange for Squanderbonds), then why would
the Squanders give Squanderbucks to the Thrifts to buy Squanderbonds?

Better for the Squanders to let the Thrifts exhaust their soil from
overfarming, while the Squander soil regenerates. Then, when the Thrifts
realize they face starvation, the Squanders can hire them as indentured
servants to farm Squander Island land. The Squanders can keep the Thrifts on a
near-starvation diet so that Squander soil isn't exhausted until Thrift soil
regenerates.

While the Thrifts are toiling on Squander soil and serving the Squanders hand
and foot, the Squanders can annex Thrift Island and ensure total ownership of
all productive land forever.

The Thrifts could avoid this fate, of course, by eating their Squanderbonds.

As the old proverb says, if you owe the bank $1000, it's your problem. If you
owe the bank $10,000,000, it's the bank's problem.

