Generally, we have translated greater output in the few hours of work per week over the last century. And that's a good trend of the future. But we do have to have a system that, as output of goods and services keeps increasing per capita, that it takes care of the people who are willing to work and really are not getting by very well with a family on a 40-hour week.
Many stock options in the corporate world have worked in exactly that fashion: they have gained in value simply because management retained earnings, not because it did well with the capital in its hands.
There's not many businesses where someone can come in and offer to cut the price in half and somebody doesn't think about shifting. But that's the nature of the ratings business.
I just don't see anything available that gives any reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope around, hoping to 'get lucky' with other people's money. I am not attuned to this market environment, and I don't want to spoil a decent record by trying to play a game I don't understand just so I can go out a hero.
Every day that goes by, I mean, if you don't react to Pearl Harbor for a week or two weeks or three weeks, you're behind in the war that you otherwise would have fought.
I have no idea on timing. It’s easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I would say that what is going on in terms of trade policy is going to have very important consequences.
In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.
None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."