The 2020 Berkshire Hathaway report as far as the “Letter to Shareholders” was short, boring, and not very funny. One plausible answer is that the idea originator/writer and the writer/editor are 90 and 81 respectively, but then again thinking and writing are indoor activities that don’t involve a lot of lifting or the operation of heavy machinery, so I don’t think that is the issue.

It might be entirely plausible that the lack of “novel” information and thinking in the Letter was because..there isn’t much to say that he hasn’t said ad nauseam. Bonds are a looming disaster, and we like what we own for the long run – check.

What we infer is that…there isn’t a LOT to do in the size required by Berkshire – which is sizable and in itself a problem.  in the recent words of Paul Singer of Elliott Management, “Trouble ahead’ is signaled by a rare combination of low-quality securities, staggering valuation metrics, overleveraged capital structures, a scarcity of honest profits, a desperate dearth of understanding evinced by the most active traders, and economic macro prospects that are not as thrilling as the mobs braying ‘Buy! Buy!’ seem to think.”

So buy back stock tactically. Ride a giant insurance wave. Enjoy the sublime freedom of permanent capital that really doesn’t have to do a damn thing until something very smart is in front of your face.  This might be a while as there simply remains mountains of capital willing to do something stupid at a drop of a SPAC.

We are about 14 months into our latest ownership phase of Berkshire for non-Smallcap accounts. It’s big, cheap, safe….and will be broken up in its next phase for well north of its present quote in our opinion.