Warren Buffett won’t take the Reddit bait

“All that’s required is the passage of time, an inner calm,” began a sentence in Warren Buffett’s annual letter to his followers. He was talking about the essentials of investing in a farm or business, but it felt like a metaphor for the collectively lonely and despairing moment that the world found itself in during the past year. With his own 90-year perspective, Buffett reminded his readers that a moment is all this is.
The bar was high for Buffett this time, given all that’s happened since last year’s letter: a public-health crisis; lockdowns; social unrest; worsening wealth inequality; a new US president; extreme political divisiveness that led to insurrectionists storming the Capitol; climate disasters such as the tragic freezing conditions and blackouts in Texas last week; the resurgence of Bitcoin; and the recent market tumult brought on in part by a boiling over of frustrations with the state of the world.
Did he clear that bar? Perhaps that’s the wrong question. Anyone looking to hear his thoughts on today’s issues may feel let down — he didn’t directly address any of them — but I doubt his devotees were surprised by this or disappointed. Buffett met the occasion by doing what he always does: explain his decisions, take his lumps and victory laps, offer up his musings on investing. If you wanted something different, you didn’t get it, and you don’t know Buffett.
The last time the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc spoke publicly was at the virtual shareholder meeting in May, an uncharacteristically somber event at which he sat in an empty auditorium normally filled with his adoring fans and left listeners wondering whether he was still the Oracle of Omaha. New icons with investing philosophies arguably antithetical to the Buffett way have since filled the void, such as Tesla Inc billionaire Elon Musk, futuristic stock picker Cathie Wood and so-called SPAC king Chamath Palihapitiya — especially as Berkshire’s stock continues to lag the market.
But Buffett has his story and he’s sticking to it. And as if to remind readers of exactly that, the letter takes time to recount the history of Berkshire and how it came to be:
a state-by-state discovery of ordinary Americans building extraordinary businesses — See’s Candies, Nebraska Furniture Market, Clayton Homes, Pilot Travel Centers — that Buffett and his now-97-year-old partner, Charlie Munger, couldn’t help but acquire and continue to admire. Some are still run by descendants of the families that started them. If this were to be Buffett’s last letter, it would be a relatively eloquent signoff. Here’s a notable passage:
There has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America. Despite some severe
interruptions, our country’s
economic progress has been breathtaking.

—Bloomberg