Posted on 02/22/2010 1:13:43 PM PST by cycle of discernment
Buffett's Partner: 'It's Over' for U.S. Economy
Monday, 22 Feb 2010 11:42 AM By: Dan Weil
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner in Berkshire Hathaway, warns in a new column that the U.S. economic empire is crumbling before our eyes, thanks to federal debt and poor planning.
In an article penned for Slate.com, Munger uses the form of a parable to explain how Wall Street’s love affair with gambling has destroyed America’s Main Street.
The article leads with this headline: “Basically, It’s Over.”
The Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman describes the economic history of Basicland, which happens to match U.S. history.
Early in its history, debt is unknown except for home mortgages and some consumer loans, and people live within their means. Speculation is discouraged, and commodities markets are small and tightly regulated.
Under this rational system, economic growth skips merrily along at a steady 3 percent, Munger explains.
Taxes are limited and pay for only “essential services” like fire protection, courts, and defense. Most taxes are collected on imports, and government spending matches that tax income. Debt via government bonds is limited.
Then things take a turn for the worse.
“The extreme prosperity of Basicland had created a peculiar outcome: As their affluence and leisure time grew, Basicland's citizens more and more whiled away their time in the excitement of casino gambling,” Munger writes.
Financial services soon grow to account for too big a portion of the economy, Munger says.
“The winnings of the casinos eventually amounted to 25 percent of Basicland's GDP, while 22 percent of all employee earnings in Basicland were paid to persons employed by the casinos, many of whom were engineers needed elsewhere.”
Then, a shock: Imported energy costs rise, and low-cost labor competition from abroad appears, Munger writes.
“Suddenly Basicland had to come up with 30 percent of its GDP every year, in foreign currency, to pay its creditors,” Munger writes.
The U.S. deficit — just the gap between spending and income in one year — is projected to hit $1.6 trillion in 2010. Total debt is project to exceed 100 percent of GDP starting in 2011.
In the parable, Munger strongly suggests that the United States take seriously the campaign of Reagan-era Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who wants the big banks to cease pretending to be banks if they expect the freedom to trade securities on the side.
“He suggested that Basicland should strongly discourage casino gambling, partly through a complete ban on the trading in financial derivatives, and it should encourage former casino employees — and former casino patrons — to produce and sell items that foreigners were willing to buy,” Munger writes.
As the parable ends, none of the politicians listen, and Basicland turned into “Sorrowland,” Munger concludes.
I haven't heard about that yet, but if they do, my neighbor may be out of a job. He voted for zero, just for health insurance. I told him "one issue voters" were stupid.
Maybe most of the trucks and SUVs still are (albeit more and more of their componentry or assembly is from China and Mexico), but when you look at cars, it is not looking good.
And China is slavering at the gates to sell cars here...and as soon as someone teaches them how to make them up to our regulatory standards, look out.
[BTW: That is where a huge chunk of our "services exports" go...into teaching the enemies of our trade how to manufacture things to be importable into the U.S. Swell].
I dunno. Mebbe because they are a teeny weeny little country with cows and yodelers? Gee, you want to gut the Constitution and give the Articles another go?
parsy
Tell that to China which routinely prohibits U.S. exports to China.
And since the American mainland has been nothing but one big open market to the world, whether they cheat or not, with massive subsidies (such as slave wages enforced by the government police state in China's case) and trade barriers...we have lost our basic industries.
Let's look at electronics for example. We used to make everything. Resistors, capacitors, transformers, circuit boards, now transistors and integrated circuits, hard drives, LCDs, flat screens, cell phones etc. We either made them first or invented these all. But now? We have had virtually all the production sucked away by the black hole gravitational pull of the artificially low wages....maintained by a heavily subsidized currency peg...keeping the yuan or the yen low. This is also the true source of the Chinese and Japanese stash of U.S. debt.
So precisely where is the U.S. "excellence" for having allowed itself to be eviscerated this way in a no-turning back sensibility to their being no level playing field?
Excellent stupidity and Excellent welfare, I suppose.
The U.S. on the same path to global has-been status as "Great" Britain.
Of course. And Wall Street is still doing it.
parsy, who thinks this is unbelievable
“You pay 45%?”
Add up all the taxes embeded on everything you touch, and most people would be surprised.
Since we have slid backwards in industry it is time to put up selective tariffs to shelter our industry while it recovers. We also have to be energy independent by drilling here and offshore for oil and gas. There are new techniques to get the natural gas out of our shale formations. Dig up more coal to make electricity for electric automobiles which can fill some niches such as short hop vehicles and fleets
Henry Ford said that to produce wealth you have to grow it (farms), mine it or make it. Time to get back to basics and nuke all that Wall Street/Bankster stuff where they gin up bubbles and fake prosperity. Pass laws that force them to take their derivatives and their other crap to London or Dubai. Let them trade there. Get the f out parasites!
#147 for parsy who parses
Parsifal, the most mystical and hermetic of Wagner’s operas, has obvious affinities with Wilson’s early work. The tale of Parsifal, the “guileless fool” ......
**** The great Hermetic saying is “As above so below”.
I like to apply it to debt and our trade deficits. Just as you wouldn’t max out your credit cards, don’t demand that your country, state or the USA do that and go deep into hock. Arnold Schwarzenegger is worth $200 million. Do you think he would ever manage his own finances the way he does California’s?
Well of course not. But both parties are wastrels in their own way. Arnold (and even Obama) inherited bad situations. And our credit card has done been maxed out. And we have overdrawn the checking account to boot. And we ain’t got the money to make it good.
parsy, the realist
I simply pointed out a successful nation with a very weak central government. I dispute that the Articles of Confederation were a “failure”. They were not used long enough to succeed or fail. They were replaced by those people who wanted a stronger central government and were opposed by those who feared that a strong central government would do exactly what it is doing today.
So I take umbrage with your claim the Articles of Confederation “failed” and I pointed out a successful nation that is Confederate rather than Federal like the USA, which is seeing rapidly consolidating national power.
If I could wave a magic wand, converting us back to the Articles would be dandy. The central government would have no power over the states beyond what they could beg from them, and we could get back to some measure of sanity with 50 different experiments again, rather than one tyrannical body which is dictating terms to the states, bankrupting the nation, and plunging us toward irreversible socialism.
I would take a weak central government over that.
One can not help but note that there are successful monarchies in the world. Perhaps, if we had given King George III more time. . .
parsy, who says if a bullfrog had wings, he wouldn’t whomp his *ss every time he jumped
Well yeah...and those who are in bed with the sauds...and there people are everywhere...Islam is their political agenda...money is the control. Bo loves them.
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