Berkshire’s past rates of gain in both book value and business value were achieved under circumstances far different from those that now exist. Anyone ignoring these differences makes the same mistake that a baseball…
Berkshire’s past rates of gain in both book value and business value were achieved under circumstances far different from those that now exist. Anyone ignoring these differences makes the same mistake that a baseball…
Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and cultivated countries, the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to market. Whether it is or is not such, depends upon different circumstances.
Important negatives affecting our prospects today are: (1) a less attractive stock market than generally existed over the past 24 years; (2) higher corporate tax rates on most forms of investment income; (3) a far…
Berkshire’s past rates of gain in both book value and business value were achieved under circumstances far different from those that now exist. Anyone ignoring these differences makes the same mistake that a baseball…
He found eventually that it was a French steel and that there was vanadium in it. We tried every steel maker in America--not one could make vanadium steel. I sent to England for a man who understood how to make the steel commercially. The next thing was to get a plant to turn it out. That was another problem. Vanadium requires 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The ordinary furnace could not go beyond 2,700 degrees. I found a small steel company in Canton, Ohio. I offered to guarantee them against loss if they would run a heat for us. They agreed. The first heat was a failure. Very little vanadium remained in the steel. I had them try again, and the second time the steel came through. Until then we had been forced to be satisfied with steel running between 60,000 and 70,000 pounds tensile strength. With vanadium, the strength went up to 170,000 pounds.
Berkshire’s past rates of gain in both book value and business value were achieved under circumstances far different from those that now exist. Anyone ignoring these differences makes the same mistake that a baseball…