Zerohedge

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

It’s poetic that Warren Buffett is now stepping down at Berkshire Hathaway after one of the most extraordinary investing careers in modern history.

I’ll save you the adulation for his investing acumen and commitment to high-quality American companies, as the financial news will be replete with these testimonials for the foreseeable future.

I’ve occasionally tried to shine a slightly different light on Buffett because, in addition to being a savvy investor, he was also a tremendous beneficiary of monetary policy that simply kept markets moving higher over time. But don’t get me wrong: Buffett’s knack for outperforming the overall market undoubtedly solidifies him as legend.

He’s also far more of a shark than most people believe him to be. Some of the stories that get passed around in the financial underworld paint a very different picture of Warren Buffett than the jolly old man happy to sit and laugh with Becky Quick. His patience was unmatched, and his ability to leverage his brand into extraordinarily favorable transactions with companies who desperately needed capital became the best self-fulfilling prophecy investment tool there ever was.

Because Buffett had all the capital and all the brand equity in the world—and because his cheery demeanor belied his ruthless style—companies sought him out not only when they needed capital, but also a vote of confidence.

As I reflect on it now, Buffett was the perfect balance of cutthroat investor and public relations polish. And whether his “never bet against America” shtick was honestly how he felt or not, it was instrumental in driving decades of goodwill toward the American financial system. He was the cornerstone of the list of reasons people globally wanted to invest in American exceptionalism.

Buffett put an investing face to many of the greatest American companies in history. Names like Bank of America, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, American Express, and Apple all became widely accepted as “blue chips,” with some measure of Warren Buffett’s help, as his image and likeness acted as liaison between major corporations and Main Street investors.

But while many people will spend today celebrating his legendary career and speculating about the future of Berkshire Hathaway, to me the timing really does make it feel like sweet sorrow.

As everybody knows, Berkshire is flush with almost $350 billion in cash. Media has harped on how large its cash position has gotten and everyone has speculated about how and when it said cash may be deployed. Ergo, one way to look at Berkshire today is that the company is waiting to pounce on the next great opportunity. But another way to look at it is that, sadly, there’s nothing worth buying. Buffett’s legacy will not be a couple of major parting investments in America, or in up-and-coming U.S. companies as he has preached, but rather a declaration that there simply isn’t anything out there that deserves his capital right now.

At the same time, a broader debate is raging in the country about whether or not our productive capacity and manufacturing ethos have been stripped from our nation. There’s no more hotly contested topic right now than our nation’s major trade imbalance and our fiscal policy of exporting printed U.S. dollars while importing an unsustainably high quality of life—fueled by a growing debt pile and major fiscal deficits.

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The country that helped make Berkshire Hathaway early on was a country rooted in manufacturing and production. Early on, Buffett acquired Nebraska Furniture Mart, a family-run business, and See’s Candies, an American manufacturer and distributor of candies founded in California in 1921 — quintessential American manufacturing and sales.

Before quantitative easing distorted markets to the point where they are expected to trade at 30x earnings at all times—for no reason other than “unlimited” fiat liquidity from lax central bank policy—companies actually needed to generate a profit and produce goods in order to be successful. And Buffett’s knack was identifying these fairly priced, cash-generative companies with great growth potential.

Nowadays, all companies need to be successful is to get a semi-unvetted listing anywhere on any U.S. stock market through a SPAC, burn through tons of cash while lying about their future prospects, and sell as much equity as possible to financial institutions that will eventually be bailed out for their poor decisions. In the year 2025, the Fed is the rising liquidity tide lifting all dogshit company boats.

When Berkshire was making the meaningful investments that turned it into the monolith it is today, money was sounder, markets were less distorted, and investing required far more calibration toward value and actual analysis. Now, the stock market has simply become an out-of-control casino where valuations, prices, and financial metrics don’t matter—and liquidity is, to quote Fed Governor Neel Kashkari, “infinite.”

Austrian-focused market analysts like myself have argued that there will be a large price to pay for how distorted our public markets have become. I’ve also argued that the gutting of our nation’s productive capacity and manufacturing base, as well as our commitment to borrowing, can’t and won’t last forever.

But as everybody has sat around waiting for us “broken clocks” to eventually be proven right by some exogenous, catastrophic financial unknown, the market has slowly been mutating into an entity that may never be “cheap” again—because all semblance of value investing and active management have been replaced in favor of bullshit CEO storytelling, a relentless passive bid and 0DTE option gamma acting as the tail that wags the market dog.

Whether intentional or not, Buffett’s retirement personifies just how distorted our markets have become and how different the playing field is now than it was 50 years ago. Maybe it’s nothing more than a coincidence that Buffett is going out with a large cash pile and no new major investments at a time when manufacturing in our country has never been more on the ropes. But for me, I’m equal parts in a state of reverence for all Buffett accomplished, and saddened by the “between the lines” commentary his retirement makes about the state of the country and the market today.

It’s easy to crown Buffett as the best that’s ever done it—I don’t think anybody will argue that. But there is an underlying Shakespearean-style tragic element to the timing of his stepping down — one that silently tugs at me in the background, suggesting that the days of investing exceptionalism and of true grit, promise, productivity, and manufacturing in America—are behind us.

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Last week’s GLP-1 headlines included Novo Nordisk partnering with telehealth platforms Hims & Hers, LifeMD, and Ro to offer its weight-loss drug Wegovy directly to consumers at substantial discounts, aiming to improve affordability and access. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly reported robust demand for its rival anti-obesity medication, Mounjaro.

We’ve occasionally highlighted key trends in the GLP-1 space and consumer sentiment around these drugs. The latest consumer pulse comes from a new survey conducted by financial website FinanceBuzz.

FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults earlier this year and asked whether they have used GLP-1 drugs and for what purpose. What they found is that more than half of the GLP-1 users (52%) dialed back their spending at restaurants. About 37% reduced spending on alcohol, and about 29% reduced supermarket spending. 

The survey provided a snapshot of top concerns about GLP-1 drugs from users and potential users…

About 20% of Americans have tried GLP-1s.

Most Americans don’t plan on starting GLP-1s. However, many are considering the need to lose weight. 

In a separate survey, a KFF Health Tracking Poll of 1,500 adult participants in late April found that about 6% of U.S. adults, or over 15 million people, were taking GLP-1s. 

One key finding of the KFF poll was that 43% were diagnosed with diabetes by a doctor, 25% were diagnosed with heart disease, and a doctor told 22% that they were overweight or obese. 

The big news of affordability this past week—since that’s on everyone’s minds who wants to take GLP-1s—is the Wegovy addition to Hims & Hers at a very affordable price. 

What’s also affordable is eating healthy and exercising. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced Thursday that the Trump administration considers it “child abuse” to be change the gender of a minor and that health professionals carrying out the procedures are opening themselves up to charges of medical malpractice.

Speaking to the press, Miller stated “The Department of Justice is coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight child abuse in our school systems.”

“It is child abuse to change a child’s gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents,” Miller further emphasised, adding “So, if a five-year-old or a six-year-old or a seven-year-old goes to school and the teacher tries to turn the boy into a girl or the girl into a boy, that is child abuse, and this administration is treating that as child abuse, and it is a gross violation of parental rights.”

Stephen Miller (@StephenM): “It is child abuse to change a change a child’s gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents.”

Also: “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values…” pic.twitter.com/tC8hIMT3Q7

— CSPAN (@cspan) May 1, 2025

“This also includes the administration’s message to our hospital systems that they cannot and will not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to perform chemical castrations and sexual mutilations of children,” Miller noted.

He added that “Castration surgeries, castration drugs, sterilization treatments of children are barbaric. They violate all sound medical ethics. They are completely unwarranted. They harm children for life, irreversibly. It is child torture. It is child abuse. It is medical malpractice.”

Democrats and feminists used to protest female genital mutilation in Islamic culture.

Now they celebrate it, encourage it by confusing children, and fund it. Even worse than FGM, the children are rendered sterile and completely a-sexual for the remainder of their lives.

— EdelAxelsen (@OlaussenEdel) May 1, 2025

“So the Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Bobby Kennedy, as well as the Department of Justice and other departments of this government, are making clear to our medical providers and our hospital systems that you cannot use taxpayer dollars to perform these barbaric procedures on America’s children,” Miller urged.

He further outlined that “HHS has systematically updated all and eliminated all of the junk, fake science that was produced under the Biden administration promoting sex changes on children, promoting the idea of sterilizing children.”

Democrats love mutilating the genitals of children and feeding them castration drugs. Sick people.

Below are examples from the United States where a child’s gender identity was changed or socially transitioned at school without one or both parents being informed, based on…

— Bongo (@GeorgeFrogger) May 1, 2025

“That’s been cleaned out, that’s been removed, and new guidance is being issued to doctors and hospitals advising them that they cannot perform these horrifying procedures, these irreversible procedures, on our nation’s children,” he added.

Leftists in the comments of the post are claiming en mass that there are no cases of this happening anywhere in the US, and that Miller is making it all up. Yet, there have been accounts in the news, and a deep dive suggests this is happening in places.

Miller also noted that “This administration ended the Biden administration’s policy and the Democrat Party’s policy of allowing men into women’s sports, men into women’s spaces.”

“We are using every single legal and financial tool we have, at President Trump’s direction, to make it clear that schools and universities are—and will—lose federal funds, as you’ve seen in Maine, if you allow men to invade women’s sports and women’s spaces. And this applies to our whole K-12 system,” Miller added.

*  *  *

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Throughout over three years of the Russia-Ukraine war, there has been a sad and tragic trend of churches being struck by missiles, drones, or bombs on both sides of the conflict.

But attacks on religious sites have gone all the way back to 2014, and the start of the conflict in the Donbass, which saw pro-Kiev forces frequently shelling Russia-aligned areas, including attacks on Orthodox churches.

And of course, since then the Ukraine government has actively and openly persecuted Ukraine’s largest Orthodox church for simply maintaining spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Famous, historic monasteries have been shut down or seized by authorities, monks expelled, and churches have been raided by far-right nationalist militant groups. As for the other side, Russian aerial raids have often devastated whole Ukrainian neighborhoods, including destruction of local churches.

In a fresh incident, Russian government and media sources say a Ukrainian drone was sent across the border and struck an iconic, historic church in Belgorord region, which set the church on fire.

Local Belgorod governor Vyacheslav issued a statement on Telegram Saturday saying “the enemy is striking our holy sites again – an enemy drone has attacked Saint George Church in the village of Tolokonnoye.”

Emergency crews were able to extinguish the blaze, but not before the church’s domes caught on fire…

Earlier, Russia claimed a church was hit by FPV drones in Belgorod region.

The St. George the Victorious Church in the village of Tolokonnoe caught fire. The flames were quickly put out and no-one was injured. pic.twitter.com/jDlSCWZmOA

— Tim White (@TWMCLtd) May 3, 2025

Friday into early Saturday saw Ukrainian forces launch over 40 drones and some 150 artillery shells in Russia’s southern Belgorod region. Along with neighboring Kursk, Belgorod has seen repeat incursions by Ukraine’s military over the course of the war.

While it’s impossible to confirm whether all these attacks on churches were ‘deliberate’ and targeted, Russian authorities believe this is the case, given an even more well-known church was just recently destroyed:

Last Thursday, the iconic New Jerusalem Orthodox church complex in the region burned down following a Ukrainian drone strike. Commenting on the incident at the time, Gladkov described it as a “deliberate” attack and also accused the Ukrainian military of subsequently targeting the firefighters who were trying to contain the blaze.

The New Jerusalem Church complex in the village of Sukharevo was entirely made of wood and so went up in flames quickly. That did clearly seem a targeted attack given Ukrainian drones dropped explosives directly on it.

❗️‘New Jerusalem’ orthodox church attacked by Ukraine UAV burnt to the ground in Russia’s Belgorod region.

⚠️The Ukrainian Armed Forces reportedly attacked the temple at least twice, preventing local residents and firefighters from putting it out. At the time of the attack, four… pic.twitter.com/GB8hunxt49

— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) April 25, 2025

Currently, Moscow and Kiev are still far from agreeing on a ceasefire. President Zelensky has accused his Russian counterpart Putin of playing a “game” with offers of very limited, 3-day ceasefires. Kiev instead wants to start with a month-long truce, but Russia has described this as a pretext for Ukraine forces rearming and replenishing along the front lines.

“This is more of a theatrical performance on his part. Because in two or three days, it is impossible to develop a plan for the next steps to end the war,” Zelensky has said in his latest statement.

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Arabia has executed two people on terrorism-related charges, bringing the total number of executions in the kingdom this year to at least 100, according to an AFP tally.

The Ministry of Interior said the two Saudis were executed for their involvement in acts of “terrorism”, including joining a “terrorist organization” and attending training camps abroad, where they learned to make explosives.

“After being referred to the competent court, a decision was issued confirming the charges against them and ordering their execution as punishment,” it added.

Of the 100 people executed this year, 59 were convicted of drug-related offences, including 43 foreigners, according to AFP.

“While Saudi Arabia positions itself as a positive diplomatic actor, its international partners are showing they are willing to turn a blind eye to its flagrant human rights violations,” Jeed Basyouni of the rights group Reprieve US said in a statement.

“The result? 100+ executions since January, more than half of them for non-lethal drug offenses.”

After a moratorium of approximately three years, Saudi authorities resumed executions for drug-related crimes at the end of 2022.

According to a previous AFP tally, at least 338 people were executed last year, compared to 170 in 2023 – far higher than the previous record of 196 in 2022.

Saudi human rights defenders and lawyers have accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of overseeing a crackdown on freedom of expression since he came to power.

This includes the introduction of a counterterrorism law that Human Rights Watch has criticized for its broad definition of terrorism.

At least 1,115 executions have been carried out under the crown prince’s rule between June 21, 2017 and October 9, 2024.

Additionally, according to Reprieve, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly lied to the UN about its use of the death penalty.

In July of 2024, the Labour Party and Kier Starmer won general elections with the British public seeking to punish conservatives for not following through on their Brexit promises and stopping mass open immigration.  One of the primary reasons why the Brexit movement was a success was because it attempted to address growing concerns among UK natives that their ties to the European Union had trapped them in a prison of progressive politics including carbon taxation, declining personal freedom, economic crisis and mass immigration from the third world. 

Starmer would take his narrow win and go on to expand the very same policies that UK citizens voted against.  He helped to flood Britain with migrants, primarily from Islamic regions, and as the public took to the internet and the streets to complain, he enforced draconian censorship laws to silence them. 

It’s amazing how quickly things can change in less than a year. In 2024, the Reform Party won around 14% of the vote share.  This week in local elections they won 30% of the vote share, crushing Labour and the Conservatives and winning 677 council seats.

Labour lost 187 seats and Conservatives were stunned with a 674 seat loss. Nigel Farage has hailed Reform UK’s gains in Thursday’s elections as “unprecedented” and “the end of two-party politics”.  The party also won two mayoral races and added a fifth MP to its ranks in the Runcorn. 

UK voters are sending a clear message to the political elites that their progressive agenda will no longer be tolerated.

Local council elections are held every four years (though not all seats come up for a vote at the same time), and are designed to fill local government posts dealing with issues from housing to potholes.  The Reform Party upset in council seats is a sign that Farage is on his way to becoming Prime Minister. 

Conservatives and Labour, long considered a “Uniparty” alliance that never actually changes the system while they pretend to be opposed, has consistently referred to Reform as an “extremist” or “far-right” organization (much like MAGA in the US).  Writing in The Times, Keir Starmer argued that the lesson learned from the elections was not that the country needed “ideological zealotry”, but that the government needs to “crank up the pace on giving people the country they are crying out for…”

Labour members claim that their losses are due to the sluggish economy and cuts to social welfare policies, such as cuts in winter fuel payments to pensioners.  In other words, their solution is to buy off voters with more benefits.  They continue to pretend as if the mass immigration problem, high taxes and censorship are not factors.

Nigel Farage, though opposed to mass immigration programs, has not come out to fully endorse deportations, which is what helped give Donald Trump his landslide White House win in the US.  Some critics say Farage does not go far enough in his solutions for saving the country.  Only time will tell, but there are certainly visible cracks in the armor of the uniparty system and this may portend much needed changes in the UK and perhaps the rest of Europe in the near future. 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Failure to do so risks another “forever war”, an Afghan-like debacle for the US, or World War III.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent reaffirmation of his country’s goals in the Ukrainian Conflict signal that the Kremlin regards the US’ reportedly finalized peace plan as unacceptable. Ukraine must withdraw from the entirety of the disputed territories, at least partially demilitarize and denazify, and Western troops mustn’t deploy there afterwards for Russia to agree to a ceasefire. 

Here are the five benefits that the US would reap from coercing Ukraine into these and other concessions to Russia:

1. Swiftly & Sustainably End The Ukrainian Conflict

Another “forever war” or Afghan-like debacle would be averted upon swiftly ending the conflict via these means, which would lead to a sustainable peace since Russia’s security interests would be ensured. The Trump Administration thus wouldn’t have to worry about getting dragged into another quagmire via mission creep if peace talks collapse or having its reputation tarnished by a defeat. Coercing Ukraine into the required compromises for ending the conflict would be an effective and face-saving way to move on.

2. Shock NATO Into Spending 5% Of GDP On Defense

NATO’s Western European members are expected to procrastinate on Trump’s demand that they spend 5% of GDP on defense unless they’re shocked by the proposed US-coerced Ukrainian concessions. They’d jolt them into prioritizing this without further delay due to their paranoid fear of a Russian invasion. This would in turn lead to Western Europe finally shouldering more burdens for its own security and correspondingly complementing its Central European members’ existing efforts in this regard.

3. Turn Central Europe Into The EU’s Center Of Gravity

In that scenario, the Central European countries’ role as NATO’s frontline states would be reinforced, which could lead to them becoming the EU’s center of gravity if the US helps the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative” implement its dual military-economic integration projects. These anti-Russian countries are expected to cling even closer to the US after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, thus enabling the US to drive a wedge between Western Europe and Russia afterwards, thereby perpetuating US influence over the EU.

4. Enter Into A “No-Limits” Resource Partnership With Russia

Expanding the nascent Russian–US “New Détente” into a “no-limits” resource partnership in the post-conflict era would lead to them jointly managing the global oil and gas industries while also unlocking valuable rare earth opportunities. Potential US ownership of Russia’s Nord Stream and trans-Ukrainian gas pipelines to Europe could further perpetuate US influence over the bloc as well as deter Russia from violating the Ukrainian peace deal. The economic and strategic benefits would truly be unprecedented.

5. Accelerate The “Pivot (Back) To Asia” For Containing China

Quickly extricating the US from the financial and military commitments that the Ukrainian Conflict entails would accelerate its “Pivot (back) to Asia” for containing China and comprehensively add to the pressure being put upon the People’s Republic by Trump’s global trade war/“economic revolution”. This outcome would advance the US’ grand strategic goal of reshaping the emerging Multipolar World Order more to its liking within the realistic limits posed by the global systemic transition.

These five benefits would be lost if the US doesn’t soon coerce Ukraine into more concessions to Russia. 

The conflict could continue indefinitely in that event, during which time the US might either largely abandon Ukraine and thus cede its influence over the EU while accepting an historic defeat or punish Russia by “escalating to de-escalate” at the risk of World War III, neither of which is preferable.

The best way to end what Trump rightly described as “Biden’s war” is therefore through the proposed means.

It’s the end of an era at America’s largest hedge fund/private equity/insurance float-cum-rollup conglomerate, whatever you want to call it: Warren Buffett just announced during the Berkshire annual pilgrimage to Omaha that he is stepping down as CEO of Berkshire at the end of the year, and that Greg Abel, the vice chairman for non-insurance operations who has been groomed over the past decade for just this moment, will take over the conglomerate. The news was greeted with a standing ovation by the thousands of Berkshire shareholders who were present at Omaha’s Convention Center.

I’m not crying; you’re crying.

No standing ovation has ever been more well-earned… pic.twitter.com/9xfgoLezKZ

— Compound248 💰 (@compound248) May 3, 2025

Buffett – whose track record cemented him, along his long-time sidesick Charlie Munger, into a celebrity billionaire renowned for his investing acumen and witticisms – built Berkshire Hathaway into a business valued at more than $1.16 trillion, generating compounded annual returns to shareholders at double the rate of the S&P (19.9% vs 10.4%), since 1965, and a staggering 5,502,482% overall gain on BRK stocks since 1964, vs “only” 39,054% for the S&P. His investing success gave him the power to move stocks and helped him strike lucrative deals with Goldman Sachs and General Electric during times of crisis.

The announcement stunned the board and even Abel, who, while long signaled as Buffett’s successor, was unaware that the news was coming as the annual meeting drew to a close.

“That’s the news hook for the day,” Buffett said. “Thanks for coming.”

Berkshire grew aggressively over the decades with Buffett as chairman and CEO, as he chose acquisitions and stocks for the company portfolio alongside trusted adviser and vice chairman, Charlie Munger, who died in 2023 at 99. As Bloomberg notes, “the conglomerate acquired a bewildering assortment of businesses, which Buffett often said mirrored the US economy as a whole. A bet on Berkshire, he said, was a bet on America.”

Buffett started managing money when he was young, a disciple of Benjamin Graham’s investing style. He moved more into the corporate world when his Buffett Partnership Ltd. bought shares of Berkshire. In 1965, he took control of the rest of the business.

Composed mostly of struggling textile operations that would eventually fade away, Berkshire became the foundation for Buffett’s modern-day giant. Piece by piece, he built and acquired operations into a varied set of industries, including insurance — which gave him cash, or “float” — to help his investing strategy. 

Now, Berkshire owns businesses ranging from railroad BNSF to auto insurer Geico, sprawling energy operations, and even retailers such as Dairy Queen and See’s Candies. Its collection of companies generated $47.4 billion of annual operating earnings in 2024. Buffett also built up the stock portfolio — populating it with giant bets on the likes of Apple Inc. and American Express — and offering Berkshire another way to participate in the gains of businesses that it didn’t fully own.

* * *

Ahead of today’s annual meeting with Berkshire’s faithful, the company reported Q1 results that showed a steep drop in operating earnings from the year-earlier period: operating earnings, which include the conglomerate’s fully owned insurance and railroad businesses, fell 14% to $9.64 billion during the first three months of the year. In the first quarter of 2024, they totaled $11.22 billion. On per share basis, operating earnings were $4.47 last quarter, down from $5.20 a year ago, and below the $4.72 consensus forecast.  

Much of the company’s decline was driven by a 48.6% plunge in insurance-underwriting profit, which came in at $1.34 billion for the first quarter, down from $2.60 billion a year prior, and was mostly due to the Southern California wildfires which led to a $1.1 billion loss in Q1.

Berkshire’s bottom line also took a hit from the dollar losing value in the first quarter. The company said it suffered an approximate $713 million loss related to foreign exchange. This time last year, it benefited from a $597 million forex gain. The dollar index fell nearly 4% in the first quarter. Against the Japanese yen, it lost 4.6%.

The company’s overall earnings plunged nearly 64% year over year, as Buffett’s portfolio of publicly traded names took a hit to start the year. As is well-known, Berkshire always advises investors to look past these quarterly changes: “The amount of investment gains (losses) in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules,” Berkshire’s release said.

Berkshire said Donald Trump’s tariffs and other geopolitical risks created an uncertain environment for the conglomerate, owner of BNSF railway, Brooks Running and Geico insurance. While the firm said it’s not able to predict any potential impact from tariffs at this time, it warned that tariffs may further hit profits.

“Our periodic operating results may be affected in future periods by impacts of ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical events, as well as changes in industry or company-specific factors or events,” Berkshire said in the earnings report. “The pace of changes in these events, including international trade policies and tariffs, has accelerated in 2025. Considerable uncertainty remains as to the ultimate outcome of these events. We are currently unable to reliably predict the potential impact on our businesses, whether through changes in product costs, supply chain costs and efficiency, and customer demand for our products and services” it said.

During the annual meeting, Buffett also addressed Trump’s tariff policies at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha, saying trade “should not be a weapon.” 

“You can make some very good arguments for the fact that balanced trade is good for the world,” Buffett said in response to a question about trade barriers. “There is no question that trade can be an act of war.” He added that the US “should be looking to trade with the rest of the world.” Which, obviously is what Trump is trying to do, just on far better terms than effete US leadership had accepted gradually over the past few decades.

“Balanced trade is good for the world. And the more balanced that trade is, the better.”

– Warren Buffett…

…distinguishing between his idea for Import Certificates vs standard Tariffs, which he believes can be destabilizing and war-like antagonism. pic.twitter.com/DFWPPGoORz

— Compound248 💰 (@compound248) May 3, 2025

Continuing a familiar trend, in the first quarter, Berkshire’s cash hoard ballooned to a fresh record, rising to more than $347 billion from around $334 billion at the end of 2024, as the company now holds a record $305.5 billion in Treasury Bills, which to CNBC showed “that Buffett did not use the first-quarter drop in the stock market to deploy the money.” Which, of course, was to be expected since the stock market dropped sharply only at the start of the second quarter.

Buffett on markets, cash, portfolio management, and opportunism.

“ I wouldn’t do anything nearly so noble as to withhold investing myself just so Greg can look good later on.”

– Warren Buffett…

…on the conspiracy that he’s built $330 billion of cash to give a blank sheet… pic.twitter.com/Bty6OdP5Qs

— Compound248 💰 (@compound248) May 3, 2025

During the pandemic, Buffett was stymied on the dealmaking front due to high valuations for good businesses, leaving a swollen cash pile and few attractive opportunities to put money to work. Instead of deals, Buffett aggressively leaned into share buybacks to deploy capital, though he broke with that trend by completing a $11.6 billion acquisition of Alleghany Corp. in 2022.

Last year, he decried a lack of meaningful deals that would give the firm a shot at “eye-popping performance” as Berkshire’s cash pile hit yet another record. The few US companies capable of moving the needle at Berkshire had already been “endlessly picked over by us and by others,” he said. Since then, as the billionaire cut his stakes in Apple and Bank of America while refraining from making major deals, Berkshire’s cash pile kept piling up, reaching $347.7 billion as of March 31.

Meanwhile, Berkshire continued to be a net seller of stocks for a 10th quarter in a row, although at a far slower pace, selling just a net $1.5BN in stocks, down sharply from the $6.7BN in Q4 and from the record $75.5BN in Q2 2024.

The report comes as Berkshire enjoys a stellar year-to-date performance, while the broader market languishes. In 2025, Class A shares of Berkshire are up nearly 19%, while the S&P 500 is down 3.3% as uncertainty from tariffs pressures tech and other sectors. Not surprisingly, with the stock surging to a new all time high, for the third quarter in a row, Berkshire did not repurchase any of its  own stock.

Despite Buffett’s large following, his day-to-day management of Berkshire was simple. He long favored a decentralized management approach, allowing the heads of Berkshire’s various businesses to run the operations how they deemed fit and checking in on the operations every now and then.

Buffett considered one of his more important roles to be a capital allocator for Berkshire, figuring out where the money should go, and reportedly spent a lot of time reading in his corporate office in Omaha. That office had just 27 employees as of last year.

“Buffett’s decision to limit his activities to a few kinds and to maximize his attention to them, and to keep doing so for 50 years, was a lollapalooza,” Munger said in an annual letter. “Buffett succeeded for the same reason Roger Federer became good at tennis.”

Amid all the distractions offered by smartphones, social media and the constant stream of information we’re all inundated with these days, it’s sometimes hard to focus on the truly important things in life. 

But what are those things? 

While the answer to that question is highly individual, Statista’s Felix Richter reports that there are some core values that unite many people.

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to Statista Consumer Insights, Americans largely agree on family and health being among the most important things in life, while making money, personal growth and a career are also high on the list of thing Americans value most in life.

Via Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities

Over the next decade, the US government plans to spend nearly $1 trillion on its nuclear arsenal — with the actual cost certain to run even higher than that. The huge outlay is driven in part by the sheer size of America’s doomsday-weapon collection, which comprises an estimated 3,700 deployed or stockpiled nuclear warheads, not counting another 1,500 that are purportedly “retired” and awaiting dismantlement.

Though Americans have been conditioned to think it’s reasonable to maintain such a large arsenal, the idea that thousands of warheads are required to deter nuclear aggression rests on flawed thinking about the nature of deterrence. While defense contractors and military bureaucracies enriched by the status quo will tell you otherwise, the truth is that an adequate arsenal of nuclear warheads can be measured not in thousands, but mere dozens.

During the Cold War, two successive doctrines guided nuclear war strategy. First came Massive Retaliation, which rested on the threat of a disproportionate, devastating nuclear response to either conventional or nuclear aggression. That gave way to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), in which any nuclear attack was guaranteed to escalate to the point where both countries are completely destroyed.

Both doctrines shared a cornerstone premise — that effective, credible deterrence requires the capability to completely destroy the opposing country. That’s the wrong yardstick. Deterrence is achieved by the ability to impose an intolerable level of retaliatory destruction on a country that’s contemplating a nuclear first-strike — a threshold far lower than border-to-border annihilation.

For perspective, in World War II, Russia and China each suffered roughly 20 million total civilian and military deaths. The same unfathomable fatality counts that spanned several years in World War II can be achieved in mere minutes with only 20 modern nuclear warheads — 15 striking Russian cities and only five hitting the more densely-populated cities of China, according to calculations by University of Maryland professor Steve Fetter.

If the United States chose to opt against the morally-repugnant targeting of population centers with little military significance (that is, cities similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki), a second-strike could instead vaporize the enemy’s economy, targeting power generation, refinery complexes and vital ports (though even these nuclear attacks would inflict civilian death on a huge scale, not only from the blasts but also the economic destruction). Here, Fetter calculates 100 detonations would suffice.

The fatalities and destruction associated with either of those two targeting scenarios that pursue some level of societal devastation — so-called “countervalue targeting” — are well beyond what any foreign ruler would consider tolerable, suggesting that the anticipation of even one or two second-strike warheads would be sufficient to deter an adversary from striking first.

Note, this approach to deterrence, which focuses on the power to retaliate and inflict “intolerable” destruction, does not require adversaries with high moral character. It matters little whether an opposing ruler regards his citizens with loving empathy or depraved indifference. Rulers are ultimately driven by self-interest — and no leader can expect his hold on power to survive a nuclear gamble that brings about the vaporization of cities or irreplaceable economic assets in his own country. (Indeed, there may be no “power” to hold on to.) As political scientist Kenneth Waltz wrote in a milestone 1990 paper that promoted the peacekeeping value of nuclear weapons while making the case that small arsenals are sufficient, “Rulers like to continue to rule.”

Given these realities of deterrence, the size of an adversary’s nuclear arsenal has no bearing on the appropriate size of America’s. “So long as two or more countries have second-strike forces, to compare them is pointless,” wrote Waltz. “If no state can launch a disarming attack with high confidence, force comparisons become irrelevant…beyond a certain level of capability, additional forces provide no additional coverage for one party and pose no additional threat to others.”

In contrast to countervalue targeting, “counterforce targeting” aims to inflict military defeat by destroying a large, diverse array of military targets, such as missile silos, bomber and submarine bases, command and control facilities, and conventional forces.

Counterforce-targeting is what led both America and Russia to amass far larger arsenals than that of any other nuclear-armed country. Beyond the elevated general risk associated with securing, transporting, maintaining and training with these large volumes of warheads, the mutual targeting of nuclear weapon delivery platforms pursuant to counterforce doctrine encourages first strikes — launched out fear that an opponent’s first strike would render one’s own weapons unusable.

Aside from the heightened risk of miscalculations during crises and accidental explosions during peace, America’s outsized nuclear arsenal threatens national security in a way that has nothing to do with mushroom clouds — by nudging the United States further along its path to financial catastrophe. As then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen warned in 2010, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.” His statement came when the national debt was only about a third of its current $36.8 trillion.

Of the trillion dollars to be spent on nuclear weapons through 2034, $460 billion will be spent on a “modernization” program that encompasses warheads, missiles and silos and submarines. Of that, the Pentagon expects to spend $120 billion to replace the current generation of land-based, Minuteman III ICBMs with Sentinel ICBMs made by Northrop Grumman. Last year, the Air Force notified Congress that the Sentinel program would cost 37% more than the previous estimate, and take two years longer to implement. If the history of Pentagon weapon procurement is any guide, we can count on more such announcements in the coming years.

Considered in the context of second-strike deterrence, the Sentinel program is particularly exasperating. Given their fixed locations in satellite-observable silos, land-based ICBMs represent the most vulnerable leg in the nuclear-arms triad, which also includes bombers and submarine-launched missiles. Put another way, it’s the leg that does the least to convince a nuclear adversary that the United States has a guaranteed second-strike capacity — which is the only strike capacity that matters. At the same time, land-based ICBMs are a magnet for enemy missiles, with one study suggesting nuclear strikes on US ICBMs could kill 300 million people across North America. 

In February, President Trump expressed dismay at the ongoing development of new nukes:

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”

Trump’s remarks came as he expressed interest in opening new arms control negotiations with Russia and China. That’s a noble pursuit, but when a second-strike capability is all the United States needs for defense, a case can be made for blazing a unilateral path toward rational and frugal nuclear deterrence — particularly when you consider the dangerously destabilizing nature of a huge arsenal built for counterforce targeting.

“There is no compelling military or strategic rationale for linking the size of U.S. nuclear forces to those of other nuclear weapon states,” wrote Fetter. “As long as the United States has enough survivable warheads to deter and respond to nuclear attacks, it should not matter how many weapons other countries have.” That’s not to discount the risk-reducing value of a far smaller Russian arsenal.

Alas, any move toward a dramatically slimmer US nuclear warhead inventory will face fierce opposition from those who benefit from today’s emphasis on numerical superiority. The status quo is a prime example of the principle of “concentrated benefits and diffused costs.” Via both taxation and inflation, the $1 trillion cost of sustaining and upgrading the arsenal over the next 10 years will be spread across hundreds of millions of Americans, including many who haven’t been born yet. Shuffled into the $90 trillion the US government is projected to spend over that same period, the cost flies under the radar of everyday Americans, precluding major political opposition.

The financial benefits, on the other hand, accrue to a relatively small number of stakeholders, from arms manufacturers to Pentagon and Department of Energy bureaucracies. The enjoyment of concentrated benefits incentivizes these stakeholders to fiercely defend the status quo, deploying a formidable influence arsenal that includes lobbyists, campaign contributions, the promises of jobs in 50 states and hundreds of congressional districts, and financial sponsorship of national security think tanks that steer policy.

While those who are enriched by America’s excessive nuclear arsenal have the upper hand, the status quo is so dangerous and wasteful that Americans of all political leanings should unite in challenging it.

Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe for free at starkrealities.substack.com  

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge

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