At one point as a young man and college economics major, I had a lot of respect for these types of people
20 years of living inside the grinder that is the financialization of everything, and it’s clear that none of these financialists create value.
They simply reallocate value to make wealth flywheels for the people who already have enough and continuing to be the mechanism which consolidates economic power.
You‘re points are fair. What I respect about Buffett and Munger is that they seem to do the best they can with the money they have made. They could have bought multiple yaughts, but instead spend their time reading and trying to make the world a better place. Munger, for example, has bought a ranch and donated it to a university so that students have cheap living for the next 100 years [1]. As far as I know, he doesn’t brag about this. Also, what I respect about Munger is that he was a flawed human, but he clearly did his best, pointed out fraud when he saw it, and didn’t spend his money on look-at-me-now purchases.
I don't doubt your expertise, but don't financial people bring predictability to the world by assigning a value to everything? I agree, rich get richer, but 99/100 of cases, rich always get richer. See the pandemic for example - Govt tried to help the poor, but the rich made a killing.
In anycase, I am interested to know why you think so, and would appreciate pointers to any reading.
They did not. Well a little bit with PPA loans, but that was more business targeted.
The main issue was causing inflation, which increased the values of assets, which rich people have the most (real estate, stock, cryptocurrency, luxury cars, etc...).
I think the governments wrong doing was shutting down work for low income earners (restaurants, gyms, etc...). And then trying to help with stimulus checks, but sending it income based rather then if you still had a good paying job. I got a stimulus check but absolutely did not need it. I used mine to book a flight to Texas in 2020 with my family and enjoy a nice week of water parks (we all had covid prior).
Targeting businesses…which are more often owned by richer people than poorer people. I know lots of business owners that made out very well from PPP (myself included).
The whole thing was an exercise in ensuring the social ordering remained in place. Otherwise, the government easily could have given people more cash, rather than go via their bosses.
> Almost all PPP loans are expected to be forgiven with 94% of eligible small businesses in the U.S. receiving one or more loans under the program. Roughly 25% of PPP loan funds went directly to workers who would have lost their jobs. The rest (75%) went to business owners, shareholders, creditors, and suppliers of companies receiving loans.
> Most of the negative outcome is blamed on the untargeted nature of the program due to the lack of administrative capacity in the U.S. to administer a program of this type.
>Ultimately some percentage of PPP loan funds that went to businesses reinforced the company's bottom line in the form of windfall profit.
Genuine question: why is there such an outpouring of love for him? I know he was a very successful investor, but what beyond that has garnered him the adulation of so many people?
I don't get it either. Over on Reddit I'm getting lambasted for saying that a Berkshire company's $6000 deductible for an employee's family health insurance is a raw deal in a memoriam thread (even with $0 premium). These people don't realize how they're getting ripped off by their boss.
But I guess they probably think I'm disobeying some Munger's Law like "Don't feel like you deserve better from your boss for your work. Just do better work for your boss. Trust me, it will pay off."
20 years of living inside the grinder that is the financialization of everything, and it’s clear that none of these financialists create value.
They simply reallocate value to make wealth flywheels for the people who already have enough and continuing to be the mechanism which consolidates economic power.
Good riddance