Avenue-X--TonieX Fails to See Warren Buffett's Real Strategy

[quote]Originally posted by TonieX

I suppose Warren Buffett is a moron too. Here's what he has said recently about whether or not we're in a recession...

He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
"But the people are already feeling the effects," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "It will be deeper and last longer than many think."

http://news.yahoo.com/...h.WKs5GhZHq5NamyBhIF
http://www.cnbc.com/id/23446988/ [/quote]

Take it away Jenna Banks:

"When speaking of "truth" and "fact" in your posts and discussions....remember that your opinion is just that, an opinion." -- Jenna Banks

Actually, anybody that thinks that Warren Buffett believes that is a moron. He didn't say that because he honest to God felt that we were in a recession.

He made that comment to investors and business owners.

He said that to spook investors into taking a course of action he hopped they'd take. He wanted more people to start selling. If he scares the right people, and they stop expanding their business, and hiring, because of what he said, then he stands to gain.

People, taking "purchasing" and "banking" courses of action they'd normally take, to cushion against a recession, end up indirectly helping Warrant Buffet's investments.

There's a good chance that he held stocks that benefit when people try to cushion themselves against a recession.

There are investments that do well when the market goes up. There are also investments that go UP when the market goes down.

Warren Buffet stood to gain if people acted in mass to cause the market to go down... or acted in mass to shift their capital to businesses and companies that Warren Buffett had invested in.

He isn't stupid. He wouldn't say that if his assets and investments depended on the economy not going into a recession.

He said that we were in a recession, in the common sense term of the word. His justification was that people on the lower income bracket were already hurting.

Well, I was on the lower income bracket when he said that. I didn't feel like we were in a recession. Many of the people that I talked to, who were in the lower income bracket, didn't feel that way either.

So, if you want to use the common sense definition of the term, you're going to get conflicting arguments.

Notice that in that same report, he said that the US economy would do fine over the long run. He said that in 2008.

Guess what? It didn't. The only way our economy "recovered," since then was with the Government pumping more money into the economy. It wasn't long lasting. The "stellar" jobs number for August 2011, and increasing talks of a double dip recession, proved Warren Buffett wrong.

But again, he was more interested in spooking people to act in mass... to benefit his investments... than he was in making an honest to God accurate economic outlook.

The real deal is worse than that. When the dollar and government credit bubble busts, the whole world is going to sink into a mega depression.

It's a good thing that Jenna Banks agreed with this. If she didn't, she'd dismiss him as just making an opinion.

Avenue-X--Jenna Banks Changes Her Tune With Someone She Agrees with

"Thats what I am talking about girl. People can 'deny deny' all they want but the quicker we address the problem the sooner we can work towards resolving it. Many people are feeling it, and it hurts those who aren't filthy rich." -- ~Jenna Banks in response to TonieX

Take it away Jenna Banks:

"I say 'opinion' because it is well known that stats are open to interpetation, judegement, and we usually use information that we want to support our opinion and disregard info that dosen't support our position" -- Jenna Banks

First, not all businessmen, economists and investors are in agreement with each other.

Warren Buffett is a successful businessman. He's also an investor.

So, if you're willing to dismiss my assessment as "opinion," then you should be willing to dismiss Warren Buffett's comment as "opinion."

I made a statement of fact, based on factual information. I did so with the intention of presenting a realistic assessment to the audience. Warrant Buffett made his opinion in order to drive people to do something, in mass, that would've helped his bottom line.

Second, I agree that we should address the problem sooner so that we could start resolving it. However, embracing Warren Buffet's, TonieX', and your opinion doesn't help us solve the problem.

The solutions that you hinted would make things worse.

The first thing that you have to do is reject your biases. We have to start by looking at the facts.

We have plenty of those to look at. The trail begins during the 1970s. That's when laws got passed that'd make it easier for people to own homes. More laws were added, in the 1990s, that pushed banks to award bad loans.

We set the conditions, for decades, that'd lead to the popping of the housing bubble.

This is one reason to why the government should never meddle with the economy. They just make things worse.

That's just one of the problems.

The American people hold the lion share of the blame for our current predicament. Our population failed to live within its means. People went crazy on credit... both credit cards and traditional loans. This drove the consumer credit and consumer discretionary spending bubbles up.

All these bad loans the government had to "cover"? Those are loans most people wouldn't have taken out... if they were big on living within their means.

The above bubbles popped when the housing bubble popped.

People forgot that what goes up must come down, especially with investments. They forgot about that when the value of their homes kept going up. Now many of those same people are underwater. The value of their homes is far less than what they spent to purchase it.

I don't blame Washington for homeowner predicament. I blame homeowners for not getting out before prices went down. They could've sold their homes knowing that what goes up must always go down.

The government, with its deficit spending, didn't help the problem either.

Tax rate decrease is a brilliant financial policy. However, you should always have true spending cuts when you cut tax rates.

Progressive economic policies actually harm economic activity. They stifle or slow economic growth.

As long as people focus on just blaming one group of people... as long as people erroneously think that the Republicans caused this mess... we're never going to solve the problem.

As a side note, the Republicans tried to bring reign Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in and regulate them. They did this knowing that this organization was contributing to what would be an economic disaster. The Democrats insisted that nothing was wrong.

If people have their heads up their asses and blame Bush and the Republicans for this... you know that we'll never solve the problem.

Solving the problem requires getting to the bottom of things. If people did that, they'd know that "blaming the Republicans" is retarded at best, idiotic at worst.

Again, the first thing you have to do, to solve the problem, is to know what caused it.

I was in the lower income bracket, I didn't feel economically hurt the days we had this debate. Buy the time the recession settled in, I was on active duty again.