It turns out I have at least two things in common with Warren Buffett, the shrewd billionaire. We’ve both disliked Bush for some time, and now it seems that we’ve both been investing in beer in this lousy economy. Of course, my investment has been a pint at a time, while Buffett “has become a significant shareholder” in Anheuser-Busch.
In my role as a trustee for the American Socialist Foundation, I’ve recently been focusing a lot of attention on some of the inherent weaknesses in the US economy. In our quest to responsibly invest a $100,000 bequest, ASF Chair Barbara Garson and I have been meeting with economists and investment advisors to pick the safest strategy. The outlook is bleak. Bush’s huge deficits, these stupid wars, the declining dollar and oil uncertainty all point to an economic crash. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now. We’re doing what Warren Buffett’s been doing. We’re holding cash. (Actually, Barbara wants to convert her personal savings to Euros and keep them in a safe deposit box; the ASF is probably going to buy short-term Treasury bonds, US and foreign.)
In last year’s annual report to his stockholders in Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett stated that he declined to make many large investments due to uncertainty in the economy, and instead had billions of dollars sitting in the bank (ordinarily, a cardinal sin in the investment world). The announcement that he has begun investing in US companies again has been taken as a sign that the economy may be in for a rebound, and has sent Anheuser-Busch’s stock soaring. What it really looks like is that Buffett is digging in for a prolonged freeze. People are always gonna buy beer, and if the economy crashes, we’ll probably drink a lot more.