Warren Buffett is bullish on the United States. "It is not a smart thing to sell the United States short," he told an audience in Canada.
We do not like to contradict the greatest investor who ever lived. But selling the U.S. short has been a pretty good investment for the last eight years. Against the euro, the American I.O.U. dollar has gone from about 90 cents to $1.45 - a loss of about 60%.
Against gold... well, you know the numbers... the U.S. money has lost about 15% per year. And U.S. companies, in real, inflation-adjusted terms, are down about 25%.
Since George W. Bush entered the White House, an investor would have been much better off in almost any other country - Brazil, for example... or Europe... or China.
But maybe the Sage of Omaha knows something we don't know. Maybe he knows that the trend of the last eight years has now come to an end. Maybe the United States is oversold... and ready for a remarkable comeback.
Anything is possible, dear reader, anything is possible.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by John on 14 February 2008:
Warren Buffet lost a lot of money a few years ago betting against the dollar, I think he's bitter now
Comment by doom'n'gloom on 14 February 2008:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=291469
That's got more of Buffett's quotes.
Unfortunately Buffett has become somewhat of a figurehead and has to watch what he says these days. People hang on every word he says, and that has implications, both for himself and his powerful friends.
If you want to read something a lot closer to his actual thoughts on things when he was on the way up and still a nobody, his letters to shareholders from 1977 or so are excellent. They are available on his site.
"Just think about how silly it would have been to be anything other than a bull on the United States since 1790," Mr. Buffett said. "It is not a smart thing to sell the United States short over the years -- or Canada for that matter. The world does get better. People get more productive. More human capacity is unleashed over time."
I'm a bull on the US too, but only at the right price. As long as there are US bases guarding most of the energy supplies around the world, the US dollar will have value. P/E ratios have to drop though.
And we must remember that since 1790, there have been some large corrections along the way.