2000: Why does Buffett ignore predictions?
WARREN BUFFETT: And I would say this: in terms of the predictions, and I know the spirit in which you asked the question, but in terms — there’s a market out there all the time.
And people love to hear predictions. If I said I was going to offer a bunch of predictions today, we would have a million people here. I mean, they’re dying to have predictions and speeches at rotary clubs or trade associations or whatever. That’s — they just plain love it.
And that’s what a whole industry is built upon, you know, the people coming out of Washington to talk about political predictions and the — I don’t read those in the paper at all. Because it’s just — it’s space fillers, basically.
And, you mentioned Edgar Cayce. Ben Graham knew Edgar Cayce pretty well. But I just have never seen any utility to any of that at all.
There will be some huge surprises in the world. There’s no question about that. But I don’t think that betting on any specific one is a very smart policy.
In fact, our — we usually bet against them, in terms of super catastrophes. We know there will be a 7.0 or greater quake in California in the next 50 years. We don’t know where it’ll be or when it’ll be or anything like that. We are willing to pay out a lot of money if it happens tomorrow.
And because people do worry about catastrophes. And in this case, it’s perfectly proper, with insured values. But it just isn’t any way, in our view, to get through economic life.
Charlie?
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I suppose the one time when a single mother might want to own gold compared to anything else is if she faced conditions like a Jew in Vienna in 1939, or —
I mean, there are conditions you can imagine where some form of transportable wealth would be useful, compared to anything else.
But absent those extreme conditions, I think it’s for the birds. Now, silver… (Laughter)
WARREN BUFFETT: It’s hard to think of anything other than fleeing the country. And Charlie and I don’t give a lot of thought to fleeing the country.