Warren Buffett shares his investment philosophy, emphasizing that true success comes from understanding and owning businesses for the long term, rather than speculating on stock price fluctuations, and highlights the remarkable, sustained growth and improved quality of life in the United States.
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in 1942 80 years ago I took
$14.75 every penny I'd say and I bought
three shares of City service preferred
and City service is a pretty wellknown
name now and then waren Buffett the man
with a net worth of over $100 billion
has a story to share here's what he did
when I was when I was 11 I picked stocks
I had the whole wrong idea I I
I was interested in watching stocks and
I thought stocks were things that went
up and down and I charted them I read
books on technical analysis I read I I
read Edwards and McGee I think that was
the classic then I hundreds and hundred
hundreds of pages and I read that whole
thing over and over again I read
Garfield RW I read everything and I
thought the first eight years I thought
the important thing was to predict what
a stock would do and predict the stock
market and then I read Ben Graham you
know when I was 19 or 20 and I realized
that that I was doing it exactly the
wrong way and but didn't hurt that I had
that background and everything I I
rejiggered my mind in when I read the
book The intelligent investor and at
from that point I never bought another
stock I bought businesses that happen to
be be publicly traded but I became an
owner of a business and I did not I did
not care whether a stock went up or down
the next day or the next week or the
next month or the next year and I didn't
have any idea what it would do I didn't
know what the stock market would do but
I knew businesses to have success in the
long run you've got to love what you do
Buffett believes that finding your
passion and sticking to it is the key to
success by doing what you love you'll
have the motivation to keep going even
when things get tough
I'm a bright guy who's terribly
interested in what he does so I've spent
a lifetime doing it I've surrounded my
PE myself with people that bring out the
best in me and you don't need to be a
genesus in what I do that's the good
thing about it if I went into physics or
I a whole lot of other subjects I'm
being also R but I am in a
game that you don't need you probably
need 120 points of IQ you know but you
but 170 doesn't do any better than 120
it may do worse probably do worse but
but uh you don't really need brains you
need the right
orientation you know 90% of the people
prob to figure out the ER but 90% of the
people that buy stocks don't think of
them the right way they think about
something they hope goes up next
week and they think about the market as
something they hope goes up and if it's
down they feel worse I feel better and I
hope it goes down when I buy it because
I'll buy more I try to keep my
competitive exp in a game where I can
win I do know this when I want to do
something I always want to do it big I
put my whole net worth in City service
preferred you know March 11th
1942 I have never had less than 80% of
my money in America business you can
call them stocks but I see him as
American Business Buffett's success
Speaks For Itself by investing in strong
stable businesses over the long term he
became one of the richest people in the
world I I've owned a piece of American Business
Business
for at least
80% at all times in you know I I just I
don't want to own anything else I I want
to own a home and you know things my
family wants and all that but owning
five homes doesn't mean anything to me
because I'm be happy in one home and
there's a certain amount of things that
go wrong with everything and if I got
two homes i' I know I've got more
problems and I don't have more happiness
I would have to be honestly say that the
that what makes me happiest is what I'm
doing what I'm doing I enjoy two things
about it
one I know I'll win over time doesn't
mean I'll beat everybody else or
anything like that but I I I mean the
game is very very very easy if you have
the right lessons in your mind about
what you're buying I'm not buying stocks
I'm this is a overwhelmingly American
Business uh and I'm happy when that's
happy when that's uh when I'm doing it
I'm happy when stocks are going down I'm
happier when stocks are going down
because I I can buy more of them with
the same amount of money I'd be happy if
I was a farmer I'd want Farmland to go
down uh so I could buy more acreage you
know if I was I me it just makes sense
and I'll tell you the second thing I
really like I like being I like being
trusted by people and you know I like I
would rather do what I
do with Partners than do it sitting in a
room myself even though I might make
more money that way I need to know that
I think the birchway is going to be
worth more
money someday down the road not tomorrow
I want it to go down if I'm buying
something uh you know and uh I would say
this uh the world has changed a
lot since that report was written but
the world changed a lot in
2002 years ago Let's Pretend there is no
stock market let's say I had to buy
these privately like could buy a farm
privately like could buy an apartment
house private they're Investments so
you're looking to say what can I I do
with money I've
saved to put it away so I feel good
about getting it back later under any
circumstances but not necessarily on a
given moment but if I have a farm it's
going to take me a while but I I it
is people would be so much better if
they if they actually didn't have a
stock market in terms of buying
businesses but you know and when you're
buying businesses don't don't call them
stocks when you're buying businesses
when you're buying apartment houses
sometimes when you're buying raw land
you know all kinds of things there are
times there are times when you get a
chance to act and do something really
intelligent may may happen once every 10
years or once every 20 years depends on
what field you're in where you live what
you know all of that
but most of the important
things there's a lot of foundational
work United States economy
and it's very easy to look at the
statistics on it I
mean more people a greater percentage of
the American
population is is
uh wealthy now or having more income now
than they've ever had and if you look at
whether Bank of America give you their
average deposit I mean you you just look
at the wealth and that uh and uh that
doesn't mean everybody's wealthy but it
does mean relative to any other period
of time U people have more money now
they have they have they get mortgages
at lower rates than they've ever gotten
so if they want to buy
buy
where the bottom 2% in terms of income
in the United States
5% and for sure the top 1%
all live
better than John de rockerfeller was
living when I was six years old johy
rockerfeller was the richest man in the
world and
today you can get better medicine better
education better entertainment better
transportation you can do everything
better than he could you can I mean it
it's astounding that's in my lifetime
that there if if you want to if you
wanted to watch a football game you
still had to go
there and I can sit there with this big
screen and they keep showing me the
replay so that explaining to me what
happened and everything and maybe
everybody doesn't have a screen as big
as mine but damn near everybody has a
screen or an iPhone or a computer or
access to one and they have access I
mean when I was
born you know the dentist didn't use
novade there's no country that's done
what our country's done in
seven if you go back three of my
lifetimes you're
looking are looking at less than
1% of the world's population closer to
half of 1% half a 1% of the people in
the world are sitting in this land
they don't work harder than people in
all the rest of the world I mean you in
terms of hours of unpleasant labor
everybody's got hours of pleasant labor
in those days practically they don't
have they don't come Laden with gold and
you know they are half of
1% and they work the same hours they got
the same IQs they may be a little self-
selected in terms of Enterprise in terms
of going across oceans and
things and fast forward a couple of
lifetimes and they've
got 20%
plus of all the bounty in the world I
mean that is that is something that has
worked like nothing just imagine that if
you gone to anybody constitutional
Congress and you know in 1789 if you go
to any one of the representatives there
there and you said I want to tell you
what this place is going to look like
you know in three more of your lifetimes
you're great great grandchildren great
great grandchildren yeah are going to be
flying in the skies they're going to be
watching sports all over the world
they're going to be entertained and
medicine they they'd have hold you off
to a Lunatic Society when Thomas Edison
did all the things he did you know he
made some money but look we better I
mean we're using it yeah it belongs to
us and it doesn't if you take what an
hour of
Labor delivered to you a 100 years ago
and what an hour of Labor delivers to
you now for you and your
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