söndag 5 april 2009

History never repeat itself, but it rhymes

Signaturen "Chihuahua" har lagt in följande högintressanta inlägg på Börssnack som jag tar mig friheten att sno rakt av. Visar att visserligen så upprepar sig inte historien men den rimmar:

"Jag läser för närvarande boken "The Snowball" som handlar om Warren Buffett. Även om man inte är intresserad av Buffett så ger boken en bra grundkurs i ekonomisk historia. Exempelvis så handlar en del av boken om Howard Buffett, Warrens far, som tydligen var en gold-bug:

That November in 1932, with the country in crisis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President. Howard Buffett was certain this man of privilege who knew nothing of the common people would pollute the country´s currency and drive it to ruination. He stuck a big sack of sugar in the attic to prepare for the worst. Howard often used the term “socialism.”Howard Buffett also came to believe that in a desperate gamble, Roosevelt and his army´s chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, had decided that “the only way to get us into the European war was to get the Japanese to attack us,” ways Warren, “and not tip off the people at Pearl Harbor.” This belief was common among conservatives at the time.

Moreover, with the country at war and the government running at a deficit, Howard Buffett was obsessed with the quixotic goal of trying to return the country to the “gold standard.” The United States had dropped the gold standard in 1933.

Ever since, the Treasury had been printing money freely to finance first the New Deal and now the war. Howard feared that someday the United States might wind up like Germany in the 1930s. Certain that the government was going to spend the country into ruination, Howard bought a farm back in Nebraska to serve as a refuge for the family when everybody else starved. Howard also distrusted government bonds.

Howard started buying gold chain bracelets for his daughters so they could feed themselves when the day came that the dollar was worthless. He dreaded inflation and believed that government bonds could turn into worthless paper.

Nebraska was sliding into lawlessness. Out in the countryside, farmers faced with foreclosure on mortgages backed by nearly worthless farmland rose up in civil disobedience. Five thousand farmers marched on the state capitol in Lincoln until panicked lawmakers hastily passed a mortgage moratorium bill.

Detta är väl ungefär samma sak som vissa tror på och som händer idag?"

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Hardcover)by Alice Schroeder (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Snowball-Warren-Buffett-Business-Life/dp/0553805096

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