Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders [pdf]

Re:Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shar... by throw2016 on Saturday February 25, 2017 @12:13PM (#13732508)

Those who credit american ingenuity and exceptionalism must acknowledge land is by far the most precious commodity, an entire continent and a beautiful and rich one like North America is essentially priceless, and will enrich generations to come till the end of time. Much much more than $90 or $900 trillion. The economic value of this immense tract of free land and slave trade cannot be brushed aside.

But there is also credit to the courage and ingenuity of the early immigrants who took perilous journeys leaving everything behind, risking diseases and an unknown and uncertain future, and made something out of it.

One would like to think those who are proud are proud of this and not the usurpation of a continent or slave trade.

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Re:Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shar... by Shubley on Saturday February 25, 2017 @12:39PM (#13732675)

Land really isn't that valuable. You can build a great country without it. See Israel or Japan or SK or HK or Singapore.

Its the people and way of life that matter. Primary resources can be bought.

In fact land can be a hindrance when it induces Dutch Disease.

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Re:Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shar... by wtf_is_up on Saturday February 25, 2017 @01:03PM (#13732831)

You have to consider geographical advantages when considering the growth of a civilization. For instance, the Mississippi River has amazing properties for transportation which was obviously great for trade, manufacturing, and settling. Many rivers in Africa may seem similar on the surface but due to things like frequent waterfalls and variation of depth, they are not nearly as advantageous.

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Re:Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shar... by ftlio on Saturday February 25, 2017 @01:55PM (#13733104)

This stratfor article discusses the natural capital afforded to the US: https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-... both in terms of transportation networks and being removed by an ocean from the costly power struggles of Europe (which I'll add can be seen in the numbers of casualties for Americans in the first and second world war relative to our European counterparts and realized gains from those wars).

There is also an interesting observation by Nick Szabo about the value of a transportation network: ' Combine this with Metcalfe's Law and we reach a dramatic but solid mathematical conclusion: the potential value of a land transportation network is the inverse fourth power of the cost of that transportation. A reduction in transportation costs in a trade network by a factor of two increases the potential value of that network by a factor of sixteen.'

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2014/10/transportation-dive...

So yes, the actual land we occupy is worth booku bucks.

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Re:Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shar... by 112012123 on Saturday February 25, 2017 @04:18PM (#13733883)

Super minor (admittedly grammar nazi) thing, but the spelling is "beaucoup", from the French word for "much" :)

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