Thursday, September 7, 2017

"Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money..."

Source: wikipedia
Said: Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway 2000 shareholder letter. When asked for his views on bitcoin several years ago on CNBC, he adviced: "Stay away from it. It's a mirage, basically."

During the interview published on 14 Mach, 2014 on CNBC, Buffet said the following about the cryptocurrency.
"It's a method of transmitting money. It's a very effective way of transmitting money and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view."




You can watch him in the following video.


Some excerpts from his 2000 shareholder letter:
"Speculation - in which the focus is not on what an asset will produce but rather on what the next fellow will pay for it - is neither illegal, immoral nor un-American. But it is not a game in which we wish to play. We bring nothing to the party, so why should we expect to take anything home?

The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities - that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future - will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.

But a pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street - a community in which quality control is not prized - will sell investors anything they will buy. Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest."

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