Berky Meeting Nuggets 2021

Unfortunately again this year, only virtual attendance was allowed at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting.  It was still quite different than last year, when the meeting was held in an empty arena in Omaha.

This year, the meeting was held in a studio / ballroom in Los Angeles, to make it easier for Charlie Munger to attend and participate.  Everybody missed having him around to make his smart aleck comments last year, including Warren Buffett.

I watched the entire stream again, almost five hours of Buffett and Munger answering questions submitted by email.  Buffett first kicked off the meeting by noting that not one of the 20 top companies by market capitalization 30 years ago are still among the top 20 today.  The point being, no one knows how things are going to change in the coming years.

This year, more questions were directed or re-directed toward the co-COOs, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel, so we got to hear more from them.  Which leads to the biggest reveal from the meeting.....

Munger inadvertently mentioned that Greg, (not "Greg or Ajit") would maintain the Berky culture, implicitly admitting Abel would become the CEO.  Buffett confirmed this after the meeting, and while it was highly expected, it was the first public confirmation of something that has been a closely guarded secret for many years.

Aside from that slip of the tongue, the 97-year-old Munger didn't disappoint, sharing his disgust for things like cryptocurrencies, which he described as "contrary to the interests of civilization."  Both Buffett and Munger also held noted disdain for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), due to the self-interest of the participants over shareholders.  Same for new investing apps like Robinhood, which Buffett described as a "casino group that's joined the stock market."

Near the end, one of the best quotes came from Munger when he said about the past year, ""If you're not a little confused by what's going on, you don't understand it."

Buffett signed off by saying he hoped we could all get back together in person next year in Omaha.  I plan to be there.

Thinning The Herd Immunity

One of the more recent entries in the COVID-19 pandemic lexicon is 'vaccine hesitancy'.  This is the term for avoiding / refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccination for a variety of reasons -- more on that later.

Vaccine hesitancy / avoidance / refusal has become the latest politicized issue in a pandemic full of them.  Republicans are generally rejecting vaccines while Democrats generally can't get vaccinated soon enough.  Unfortunately for both groups, not getting the COVID-19 vaccine is bad for everyone, since there will be no way to achieve herd immunity without a near 90% vaccination rate.

The reasons given for this hesitancy range from the ridiculous (the government is injecting people with tracking software) to the sublime (afraid of needles).  Regardless, the vaccine hesitancy group is, among other things, selfish.  They constitute a group of societal free-riders, essentially getting the benefits of a world where others are sacrificing, without making any sacrifices of their own. 

More unfortunately for the Rs in that group, however, is they will suffer the majority of future hospitalizations and death.  Pre-vaccine, everyone generally shared the consequences of those idiots who chose to behave recklessly (although front-line health care workers suffered more).  Post-vaccine, the harms of the COVID-19 virus will increasingly fall on the vaccine hesitant.

So, the pandemic outcomes are now bifurcating.  Those willing and able to get vaccinated will be OK, while the unwilling, science-denying, free-riders will eventually get the virus, and a certain percentage of them will be hospitalized and/or die.

Maybe herd immunity actually means we have to thin the herd somehow.

Let It Hit The Fan

Money.  In America, it's the number one reason why most people will do most things.  If you want to understand why adults are motivated to do things, follow the money.

Attention.  In America, it's the runner-up reason why most people will do most things.  If you want to understand why adults are motivated to do things besides for money, it's for attention, which is often monetized.  (See reason one.)

Is there a way to combine these two powerful motivators to accomplish something larger?  Absolutely.  And one of the main vehicles for this has to be the major organized sports leagues.

We've seen professional sports leagues and players, most notably from the NBA / WNBA, use their platforms to drive political and social change.  Just last year, players in those leagues so far as to boycott games in response to social unrest over the treatment of blacks in America.  It had limited economic impact due to the pandemic, but it got people's attention.

There are much better, broader examples from the past.  In the 1990s, states that didn't recognize MLK Day were eliminated as hosts for crown jewel sporting events.  (The NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Arizona.)  Something similar happened later in North Carolina and Indiana when those states passed anti-LGBTQ laws, and the leagues (along with the NCAA) avoided or pulled out from those states as hosts for events like the NBA All-Star game or the NCAA basketball tournament.

These actions also had a domino effect of making corporations not host conventions in those states.  Suddenly, when states realized the loss of revenue, not to mention the embarrassing attention, they got rid of those laws.

Examples like these highlight why organized sports leagues could be doing more now, as republican-led states pass anti-voting laws, and/or anti-LGBTQ laws.  If the NFL, NBA, NCAA, or Major League Baseball had their act together, they'd simply tell these states that they won't do business there, at least not outside of regular franchise operations.  An even more effective approach would be the players associations of the pro leagues boycotting games, ending the public's great desire to watch them.  Then things would hit the fan (pun intended!) although it would be a monetary sacrifice some players would not want to make.

This year, the Major League Baseball All-Star game is supposed to be in Atlanta, Georgia, the state most actively passing voter suppression laws.  They should move that game, and let the money and attention flow to states with smarter elected officials.  Then let's see what happens -- if the past is prologue, things will change fast.

Irony Is Wasted On The Stupid

Since the start of the year, states have been grappling with the procurement and end-user delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.  (States are doing this because there was no national plan, thanks to the incredible collection of dumbasses in the prior presidential administration.)  It's very similar to how the entire pandemic has been handled, which I've compared to the Wild West.  There are no laws, only unenforced guidelines that many people simply choose not to follow.

Most states / governors have tried to establish sensible vaccine distribution guidelines that seek to inoculate frontline healthcare workers and older-aged Americans.  However, some states have now decided to open vaccine eligibility to those under age 65 if they have an underlying health condition that heightens the risk of severe illness from COVID-19.  This seems benign enough until you look at what is considered (by our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to be a qualifying health condition.....

The most objectionable condition has to be those who currently or previously smoked cigarettes.  Those who choose to pollute their lungs, not not mention the air that we all breathe, get bumped up in this line.  What a travesty, spending a life-saving vaccine on people who are willingly shortening their lives every day of the week -- plus increasing everyone's health care costs while they're at it.  Bravo, CDC.

Another questionable condition has to be obesity.  Yes, I realize there are illness-based and genetically-based reasons why some people may become clinically obese. Even conceding that, this means many others who became obese simply by eating too much of the wrong things and not exercising, will be able to get a vaccination before others who made healthier choices.

Leave it to the government to nudge people away from living a healthy lifestyle by rewarding those who don't.  They should call it the 'anti-survival of the fittest' policy.

The bigger irony is, this pandemic would have hospitalized and killed many fewer Americans to begin with if its citizens had healthier diets / lifestyles. Now to add insult to injury, anyone who has spent a lifetime staying fit by eating right, not smoking, and being active, is going to pay a price for that by being made to wait to be vaccinated against a deadly virus.  Who knew that being healthy could be such a vice?

In the words of the great playwright Oscar Wilde, “Irony is wasted on the stupid.”

We're Not All Experts

I've been working in the retirement / investment planning world for a long time now.  I don't recall anyone I've ever talked to about retirement, meaning hundreds of people, expressing much confidence in their retirement planning.  There are just too many variables, and too many programs like social security and Medicare they don't understand.

However, when it comes to talking to many of those same people about investing, there is not only confidence, but more recently overconfidence about how to do things.  Why is that?  Consider a few macro-reasons:

1) Thanks to American innovation and capitalism, the stock market goes up over long periods of time.  It also goes down, sometimes sharply, for short periods of time, but people eventually forget about that short-term pain.  So, over long periods of time, they see their money grow, and they assume this means they're great investors.  In fact, all they've really done is to stumble into one of the greatest passive investment strategies there is -- put money in stocks, and do nothing.  This works fine, until retirement, when you no longer want too much invested in stocks.

2) The proliferation of financial media outlets in the past two decades has given people many opportunities to be 'enlightened' by so-called investing experts.  Watch enough TV or read enough on the internet, and soon people are convinced that they too, are experts by simply following the unsolicited advice of these other so-called experts.  If anyone actually tracked their results, they'd be disappointed, but rarely does anyone track the performance of a media-expert.  Also, no one wants to be inconvenienced by the truth.

3) A perfect pandemic storm that includes the introduction of no-fee securities trading, a massive surge in technology stocks, and social media platforms and influencers.  Many in the new 'work-from anywhere'  crowd have only been able to do this investing thing for a short time, during a prolonged market upswing.  At this point, they think the stock market and their investments only go up.  Their confirmation bias will ultimately lead them into one of the inevitable sharp short-term market corrections.  Unlike others, this millennial-heavy group isn't likely to have the patience or discipline to keep from exiting their positions.

Investing doesn't have to be complicated, but it decidedly isn't a simple thing.  The only sure thing is, being overconfident in one's ability to do it will lead to a bad outcome.

Apple Watch Watch

I bought myself an Apple Watch for Christmas.  At least that's what I told myself and others, I really didn't need a reason other than I've wanted one for a while.

When wear-able technology first became available to consumers, I wasn't a fan.  I couldn't get past what people were doing with their Fitbits, something I thought was a fad (mostly correctly) and an intrusion on others' lives, namely mine.

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed how my kids have used their Apple Watches.  There did seem to be a definite convenience to getting a digital notification by a simple vibration on the arm, and being able to disseminate its importance with a quick turn of the wrist.  Plus, it was so much more than a Fitbit, since it integrates with Apple Store apps.

Of course, for those who feel they must use it for health reasons, it includes a fitness monitor that lets the wearer know if they're being active enough.  While I don't use that feature, it's fine for others who need the motivation.  More importantly, it lets the the owner share that information with other Apple Watch users upon request and acceptance, which lessens the chance anyone will share that unneeded info with me!

One of the more recent concerns I had about the Apple Watch was the unusual feeling of having something on my wrist.  I hadn't worn a watch regularly for a couple of years, and saw little future reason to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Turns out that wearing a watch is like riding a bike, and I picked it up again without even thinking about it.

So thumbs up for the Apple Watch.....another technology product I didn't know I needed until Apple invented it and told me I needed it.

No More F**** To Give About T****

Over the years, I've made fun of people who consistently make, and make public, their New Year's resolutions.  I've probably even made fun of them in some previous blog post.  I'm all for improvement via positive self-talk, but the vast majority of these resolutions are forgotten within a couple of months, even though the initial self-affirmations remain on social media accounts forever.

That said, this year I'm going to join the crowd, and publicize my own resolution.  It's very simple: I'm not going to remain silent or try to change / avoid the subject the next time I hear anyone, speaking to me in person or in a group, tries to defend the worst, narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, grifting, criminal, fascist president in U.S. history, Donald T****.

In retrospect, it's a shame I put so much effort into not confronting people on that topic before now.  It seemed like such a waste of time and energy, trying to use truth and facts to explain something to the unwilling and unknowing.  Changing the subject was a more rational approach than trying to change a mind warped by far right-wing media platforms, which supported / support  T**** and the republican party (small caps on purpose) at all costs.

It was also a function of my professional life, to try to maintain neutrality.  I have clients from all walks of life, although they are overwhelmingly white Iowans.  It sort of reminds me of the famous Michael Jordan quote from a simpler time, when he was asked why he didn't use his platform for social change.  "Republicans buy shoes, too," was his reply.

During the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer, it started to dawn on me that silence wasn't the correct option.  That's the 'white privilege' way of doing things.  Silence can be taken as complicity.

So coming into this year, I decided I wasn't going down that path anymore.  After last week's crazed insurrection movement that killed people at the U.S. Capitol on 1/6/2021, I have extra motivation to not be silent when others are saying and doing ignorant, deranged things.  Put less politely, I don't have anymore fucks to give about those people.

I'm not going out on a limb by putting this in writing on my little unknown blog.  But if anyone reads it and disagrees, or anyone is offended by my verbal pushback someday, I'm ready to move on without them as clients or friends.

I decided long ago I'd reached the point where I really only want to be around people who improve me personally and professionally.  T****-lickers don't do that, and after last week, it's embarrassing to even be around them.