So if Buffett is such a great investor, as the worlds believes, how come

[WCGreen]

he got the current Bear Market so wrong...

Granted, Buffet's simple philosophy to buy stock in companies that make "things", stuff you can use or is used to make stuff that you use, seemed quaint in the investor driven chase the next best thing during the 80's, 90's and 00's. But it proved to be that the slow and steady turned out, as it always does, to be the right path to sustained growth. Nothing genius, just sticking to the plan and keep that "swinging dick", the urge to touch it runs rampant on Wall Street, in your pants.

So he's not really a genius but a very patient man with common sense.

BTW, he lost about 60% in this market. So it turns out that the plain thinking Buffet may have been wasted away by Wall Street Ville...

So why should we believe what he has to say when all known parameters for guess about the future are out the window.

Who is Buffet to question Obama. No, actually chastise him on CNBC today.


And, as Frank James of the Chicago Tribune noted, Buffett said President Barack Obama needs to scale back his agenda, and congressional Democrats need to temporarily give up pet projects and stop actions that inflame the minority.

Get the whole story here.... http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/03/09/buffett-speaks-the-economy-has-fallen-off-a-cliff.aspx


Anyway, they are all wrong at least some of the time.

Buffet is only human. He later says this...

Not only has the economy slowed down. People have changed their behavior like nothing I have ever seen," Buffett said. "Luxury goods and that sort of thing have just sort of stopped. And that's why Wal-Mart is doing well."


So if it like nothing he has ever seen, why would anyone take heart in what a man who started out at the right time, at the beginning of the greatest bull market in history, and got it wrong when it really counted...

[Mike 03]

1. Thank you! The fact of the matter is he was wrong.

Normally, I wouldn't care that some investment advisor was wrong, but in this case, he wrote an infuential editorial back in November or December urging us to buy stocks.

He was wrong.

He terminated the wealth of a lot of (stupid) people who believe every word he says is gospel.

It is absolutely essential that we think for ourselves now.

[960]

2. Was he wrong or was he using his reputation (dubious by the way)

to keep the bubble going long enough to get out? ..... I would be very suspicious, but his financial disclosures look like he either believed what he said, or thought the bubble could stay inflated longer.

[sandnsea]

3. No Disposable Income

People do not have enough income to pay their bills, let alone by anything extra. No credit. No economy. I am shocked that these brilliant minds did not know that.

[WCGreen]

4. They are far from the goings on of the proletariat

[provis99]

5. investment is pretty much gambling with random odds

Of course, some investment gamblers are bound to be rich, just because they lucked out. A Cornell economics study pointed out that investment brokers who score big one year don't have any better luck the next year. The idea that anyone can predict the stockmarket is nonsense; you can't predict the future.

Buffet got his money simply by being lucky for awhile; he doesn't know a damned thing about why he got rich, and just chalks it up to his own presumed greatness.

[WCGreen]

6. That and the fact that so many people idolize him like he was

the second coming of Jesus Christ...

[TwilightZone]

7. Lucked out?

40 years of making the right decisions is some streak of luck.

I sure wish people around here would bother to look into things before they try to talk about them.

[GoesTo11]

8. It's a mistake to think anyone has all the answers

Some people act like they know exactly what's going to happen. When they turn out to have been right, they say they knew exactly what was going to happen. I don't know what they say when they turn out to be wrong. Buffet doesn't say he knows what's going to happen, and sometimes he's wrong and admits it. More credible that way, then we can just see whether his reasoning makes sense.

[WCGreen]

11. Well the problem I have is that he says emphatically that we are

basically going into the unknown country of our economy and yet he takes time to give Obama, whom he supported for president, a little talking down to...

That's what got my goat about this particular story.

[chill_wind]

14. You have to keep in mind the fact

that he wanted Obama to keep Hank Paulson on for another couple years. And that was after the bailout fiasco was all but ensured and already making the daily headlines. Kinda adds a little perspective right there..

[upi402]

9. from kings to bugs

all real Americans will feel the sting of the corporatist whip now.

Nobody listened to Jesse Jackson in 1988:

"We believe in a government that's a tool of our democracy in service to the public, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth. We believe in government with the consent of the governed, "of, for and by the people." We must now emerge into a new day with a new direction."

we didn't.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. People see what they want to...

And since they see him as "expert" then they believe what he says...

:shrug:


K&R

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Cause he's not prescient? n/t

[CoffeeCat]

13. Warren Buffet's crime...

...was believing in America.

Buffet always told his followers that you could always count on America. It would always grow. It was a sure
thing--and if you were a long-term investor--America and her companies would come through for you.

Buffet was bamboozled--just like the rest of us were.

I think Buffet is feeling a bit gobsmacked right now. And he's pissed. His entire strategy has gone up in smoke,
essentially--because America is crumbling. Some of the main premises in his books hinge on America being a "sure thing."
Buffet routinely castigated the perma-bears and the naysayers by mockingly pointing out that companies like Coca Cola or
Johnson & Johnson or General Mills aren't going to disappear or fail. Buffet maintained that there would always--at least--be
steady growth.

Well, it's all imploding and going to hell.

I think the man is in shock. I compare Buffet to the captain of the Titanic--who was enraged when the ship's architect
told him that the ship would sink. "This ship can't sink!" ...and then he grabbed the wheel, stood catatonic and went
down with the ship.

Someone needs to pry Buffet's hand off the wheel and tell him that it's time to board a new ship...one that isn't careening
toward the center of the Earth.

It sucks that he's blaming Obama. That angers me. Get over your shock, Warren and come join the rest of us who
knew that this thang wasn't sustainable.

Can you believe it--that many of us knew things that billionaire Warren Buffet didn't know! How in the hell did that happen???
I remember shouting at the tv when Buffet would prognosticate sunshine--last summer. I would scream at the television, "You're
wrong! You're just so wrong! It's all going down!" Many here knew what Buffet didn't. We live in nutty times!

We'll rise again--but not before a complete implosion--and we won't rise with the same system that went down.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Buffett is not blaming Barack Obama. Where did you get that from?

Oh yeah....the mediawhores, I would presume?

Read this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8253688

[WCGreen]

16. I got the feeling hewas lecturing him about what to do....

All I can say is that he didn't see it coming either...

I respect the man and all but he still is just an investor and not some great oracle as the media has, and I might add with his culpability, puffed him up to be...

[FrenchieCat]

17. Oh...I agree that the man is a mixed bag.....

But my point is that he didn't blame this President during his 3 hours on CNBC this morning. I watched it and was surprised how the media distorted what he said, and grabbed a couple of soundbytes and went running.

Don't let the media win this economic war. If we do, we lose.

[GoesTo11]

22. His sternest lecture was to the Republicans

'Meanwhile, congressional Republicans should stop opposing for the sake of opposing. "I think that the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and to realize we need one leader and (be) in general support of that," he said.'

That's pretty strong - knowing how Republicans feel about wartime presidents and all that. That isn't just advising them, that's calling them out.

[CoffeeCat]

18. I read it on the DU!

Don't hate me!

No seriously, I read it here. It was just a passing comment.

I guess the comment could have been wrong.

But Buffet was way off.

[Kat45]

29. Yeahl Isn't Buffet one of Obama's economic advisors? n/t

[Kansas Wyatt]

19. Buffett didn't foresee so many crooks in Wall Street & Corporate America...

Selling America out, and swindling every last dime they could along the way.

Buffet fails to understand now that the American People are broke and tapped out, due to years of outsourcing, downsizing, stagnate wages, and the oppression on the American Worker, and if he did, it's a lot worse than he realized.

These geniuses, in their effort to cash in on cheap labor overseas and cut-rate labor here at home, destroyed all the shoppers (American Workers) in their 'Shopping Economy.' When their smoke and mirrors credit scheme to keep the economy going, finally ran out, the game was over. Without all the credit the last several years to make up the difference in lost wages, we would have seen the real effects of what the BushCo & Republicans, Inc. policies were really doing to this country and it's economy all along.

[RB TexLa]

20. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

[paulsby]

21. buffett's strategies are positive expectancy

check out a chart of brk.a for example since its inception.

GIVEN that, NO investor is always right.

heck, i get stopped out on lots of my trades. iow, i was wrong. i know some successful traders that are only successful in about 30% of their trades. it's just that when they are right, they are right big for big moves, and when they are wrong, they take small losses.

buffett is different than most economists and talking heads in that he actually applies his wisdom to the market. people like krugman, who i respect as an academic, have not shown they can actually apply their "theory" to the real world. people need to keep that in mind.

you can get 3 different brilliant economists, give 3 different opinions. but when it comes to trading and investing, the p&l is the ultimate test of the trader's wisdom/discipline/money management. it is what it is.

buffett is the CLASSIC value investor. he basically took graham's schtick and expanded it.

who is buffett to question obama?

a person who has PROVED the validity of his investment theories over a VERY large # of investments for a sufficient period of time. iow, it's not luck.

and of course he is sometimes wrong. ALL investors and traders are.

last i checked, BRK.A has significantly outperformed the S&P 500, with less beta/risk, and considering the size of his portfolio, that is no mean feat.

[TexasObserver]

23. I liked him better when he was singing about Margaritaville.

[alstephenson]

24. Paper losses.

Mr. Buffett will be just fine. NO ONE could be financially unscathed in this market, but he is a relatively conservative investor whose investments will recover eventually.

All this talk about him "blaming Obama" - that's not what I heard, but that's certainly what the media is reporting. Sigh.

[Frank Booth]

25. This is like saying Michael Jordan wasn't a great basketball player because he sucked with

the Wizards.

Beating the odds for 40 years straight is a pretty good record. And, despite how this story was reported, Buffett's been much more critical of the Republicans than Obama.

[ThomWV]

26. This post and its responses really show a lack of understanding

You all - and I mean every response posted up to this time - sees Mr, Buffet as a guy who buys shares and owns millions of them, just lots of stocks to be bought and sold and traded and all used in all sorts of unknowable financial ways. That shows an utter lack of understanding of both what the market is and what Buffet is. He owns companies. The way he owns them is by having bought controlling interest in the companies. I am certain he does not know and does not care how many shares he has or what their day to day cost/value is - why would he care? He has not lost 60% of anything - every company he owns is still in his ownership and as far as I know not a single one of them has gone out of business. He has lost nothing but people who do not understand this - who do not understand what wealth is - can only see dollar figures that mean nothing. People here think the Stock Market is nothing but a rigged numbers game, as crooked as boxing. It is not - it is the way partial ownership of the wealth of the nation is traded. It is the means of production - not some horseshit gambling game as so many are proud to proclaim. For christ sakes, quit acting like children. Its bad enough to be clueless but you don't have to show it off.

[GeorgeGist]

27. Wally is greedy ,,,

which doesn't qualify as common sense.

[Canuckistanian]

28. There are no "experts" in this economy

There are just people who look beyond the "models" and try to make sense of it all.

Krugman is one such example, although he is just as confused at times.

Still, someone who "thinks outside the box" has a better chance of being right.

[Prometheus Bound]

30. He lost 25 billion in the past year. Not that smart.

World's richest not so rich, Gates regains top spot

Buffett, last year's richest man, fell to second place with $37 billion, down from $62 billion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52A78D20090311