Buffett Says Avoid Long-Term Bonds
Moderator: Global Moderator
Re: Buffett Says Avoid Long-Term Bonds
Interesting, MT... thanks for the input.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
- Thomas Paine
- Thomas Paine
Re: Buffett Says Avoid Long-Term Bonds
The immigration today is not comparable to the past for a variety of reasons. I'm not necessarily anti-immigrant (although I do think we should cut off all legal and illegal immigration immediately with a moratorium as we did from the 1920s-1960s for a while). But I do think we should be far more selective ala. Switzerland about granting easy citizenship and who we are letting in.moda0306 wrote:One exception I'll make is that our reaction to immigrants today could maybe be compared to the reaction to poor, uneducated Irish and Italian immigrants of years ago.
America has had several waves of immigration followed by strictly controlled flows in between. But in these earlier waves there were no massive social support welfare services in place. The last great wave of immigration in the early 1900s for instance saw almost half of all Italian immigrants return home because they couldn't hack it here. With no welfare and public assistance to fall back on they just couldn't afford to be here and left. This weeded out the people we didn't want here and ensured those that had the abilities stayed. This probably happened with other groups as well.
But today that is not the case. We have very generous welfare benefits available to everyone. So there is this huge magnet to come here and stay because chances are it's better than what you have at home. So instead of weeding out those that can't hack it, we are subsidizing them and this encourages the problem.
Finally, national unemployment is at 10-15% and wages at stagnant inflation adjusted levels for decades (or even falling?) especially in low-skilled sectors. Do we really need all these people coming in attacking that sector of the workforce?