No new lessons

When asked by Guy Rolnik of The Marker what new lessons he takes from the recent financial crisis, Warren Buffet opined while in Asia recently as follows:

They are not new lessons. Never owe any money you can’t pay tomorrow morning. Never let the markets dictate your actions. Always be in a position to play your own game. Never take on more risks than you can handle. But all of those were old lessons, unfortunately. Even though I didn’t see it coming, those lessons which are timeless allowed us to in effect profit from it rather than suffer from it. Good businesses, good management, plenty of liquidity, always having a loaded gun; if you play by those principles you will do fine no matter what happens. And you don’t ever know what’s going to happen.

I could never say it better.

These well know and often overlooked lessons should be the opening prayer, a new Buffet Brief recited in unison after the Pledge of Allegiance everytime the left and the right actually sit down to talk to each other in the current seriously over worked political chasm. Why?  Only because of the votes that will follow or not.

Getting reelected and accumulating power is the true reason for a majority of the ostensibly necessary costs of any political body. Not for legitimate reasearch and support of constituents as the bilateral hypocrisy goes.

Cutting entrenched costs with true progressive ideas, not the regressive ideas Democrats and other strands of the left tend to cling to labeled as Progressive, AND raising revenues must accompany the cuts. The perennial Republican mantra of no new taxes is as anathema to rebalancing our deficit addicted economy as Democrats “stay the course” strategy to reelection on those things the voter understands. It also makes them easy to parody, further enhancing their Unfeeling Scrooge reputation with our entertainment celebrity worshiping society and encouraging larger government. Both parties contribute in their own unique ways to guarantee unproductive growth of government.

The majority of voters understands and likes subsidized medical care, government guaranteed defined benefit social security income, growing government jobs with benefits and a legal system that purports to protect the citizenry.

Get your desired super majority status Democrats, fulfill your promises and be responsible for the decline of our economy and thus our lifestyle and security.

Get your desired super majority status Republicans, fulfill your promises and be responsible for the decline of our economy and thus our lifestyle and security.