Although they deny it, religious freedom is constantly under attack from the left, and these days they win more battles than they lose, successfully fighting against crosses, commandments and cakes. Even though I'm not religious I find it disheartening to see so much of our history and culture being tossed into the memory hole on the orders of people who worship the government as their personal savior.
Therefore my day was momentarily brightened when I saw this little bit of news about freedom from vaccines:
I can't even begin to express my shock. The government (in the form of the EEOC) fined Saint Vincent Health $330,000 for insisting that their employees either get flu shots or bring notes from either clergy or MDs validating a religious or medical exemption. Anybody not getting an exemption request approved was fired.
Here's where it gets sticky: While all 14 medical exemptions were approved, all 6 religious exemptions were denied and all 6 employees who filed them were fired.
According to the decision, the hospital has no right to insist that their employees prove their religious beliefs, and thus the requirement that the exemption be "approved" by clergy was illegal.
Remember when I said my day was momentarily brightened? Well, here's the thing: I believe people have the right to refuse vaccines, but I also believe that employers, even hospitals should have a right to hire and fire at will. Unless I miss my guess, Saint Vincent is a Catholic hospital, and there's nothing in Catholicism that prohibits vaccines. So while they should have the right not to dispense birth control, they are perfectly within their rights to insist that their employees get vaccines.
Which put the government in the position of either defending the rights of workers (even the religious workers) or defending the rights of private employers. And since the federal government consistently fights against the rights of employers, it appears it had to pick religion as the winner in this instance.
Nebraska's name is derived from transliteration of the archaic Otoe words Ñí Brásge, or the Omaha Ní Btháska, meaning "flat water", after the Platte River that flows through the state.
[Platt in German means flat - so, are we behind this, too?]
Nebraska is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. Its state capital is Lincoln. Its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. The state is crossed by many historic trails and was explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The California Gold Rush brought the first large numbers of non-indigenous settlers to the area. Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the United States in 1867.
Check out these stunning color pictures ... and see what life of Nebraska looked like in the 1960s.
Matthew Parris tells the story about devouring the book that made him become a Tory at the age of ten.
Older readers may remember this series. Younger readers should know that Pookie was a small winged rabbit with blue trousers, rescued in distress by a loving, poor but honest girl called Belinda, who lived alone in the wood, made Pookie a padded bed in a sort of shoebox, and helped him grow wings. The pair became the greatest friends.
One late autumn day, Winter — drawn as a scary giant with icicle fingers — arrives. There’s a great storm. Trees blow down. Burrows flood. All the animals in the wood (Pookie’s friends) are devastated; homes destroyed, food stores ruined, wings and paws wounded. Pookie and Belinda take in the casualties, warm them by the fire and feed and tend to them. But Pookie (with whom I identified) strides out into the storm in a rage and, shaking his little paw at Winter, tells him to stop being so cruel, go back to the North Pole and never return.
And to Pookie’s shock, Winter withdraws. Pookie is briefly feted. Autumn is followed by spring. Then all nature is thrown into confusion. Flowers have no time to prepare to flower again; dead leaves and branches have not been cleared, nor animals refreshed by hibernation. Now all the woodland folk protest, and Pookie becomes a figure of hate.
So, in the biggest adventure of his life, Pookie flies all the way to the North Pole, nearly perishing in the attempt. He confronts Winter a second time (this full-page picture was so frightening I kept it under my pillow to sneak glances in the night). Pookie confesses he had been wrong, apologises, and begs Winter to return. The little rabbit now realises that the seasons have a purpose, that lazy or foolish animals with ill-sited burrows or nests have to be shown their folly, and every creature given an incentive to work hard, prepare and store.
Admiring Pookie’s courage, Winter relents, agrees to return, and wafts the exhausted bunny home on a storm cloud.
Being a confirmed enemy of winter as we all know it and a believer in directing human ingenuity toward a tightening of winter to the length of one month and a radical reduction of the shortened winter event to immaculate winter wonderland conditions, I would tend to extend the lesson to be learned from the above story to approximate more of a conservative-progressive compromise: let us respect personal responsibility as a pivotal means for changing the world in unheard-of ways. Let us not just brave what is, but achieve what is not yet. And let us not be too shy to do it collectively.
What a great experience: this morning, I was privileged to witness the flying visit of the Nebraska Supreme Court to US Air Force base Ramstein, Germany, expertly organised by Senator Laura Ebke. The Court was holding oral arguments at the newly inaugurated Kearnsey Poisson d'Avril Law School over here in Landstuhl, Germany, an institution founded to encourage the harmonisation of US and European law with a long-term view to a gradual replacement of US law by the musical scores of German composers.
A "poisson d'avril" (april's fish) is a joke made on April 1st. In France, children try to stick a fish picture on their friends' back. When the joke is discovered, they shout "poisson d'avril !"
Image credit. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly celebrated his first holiday back on Earth after his #YearInSpace by sharing a photo of a bunny rabbit plush toy in space, taken inside the ISS. In the background you can see the blue marble we all call home.
...from space.
In the meantime, down here we are enjoying the cheapest Easter "since Lehman".
Paul Solman: But how are negative interest rates supposed to work?
Mohamed El-Erian: Let me tell you the theory, and let me tell you what happened in reality. The theory is that if you take interest rates negative, people like you and me are going to say, “That’s a silly game! I’m not going to lend my money to governments who want me to pay them. I am going to go into the stock market where I can get positive returns!”
Paul Solman: Or if I’m a company, “I’m going to invest in some new technology or factory or something.”
Mohamed El-Erian: Correct. The idea is to push households and push companies to take on more risk. In one case, financial risk — the stock market — in the other case, economic risk. Economic risk is investing in, say, plants and equipment. So let’s look at the first one. You take financial risk, you push up the price of stocks.
Paul Solman: Of which has certainly happened.
Mohamed El-Erian: Which has happened. You and I then open a 401(k), and we say, “Wow, we’re richer!” In theory, we trigger what economics call the wealth effect. Because we feel we’re wealthier, we go out and spend more.
As we spend more, and as companies are pushed to invest, they say, “Hey wait a minute! There’s more demand in the system. Let’s invest more.”
And then the third element is that if you happen to be the only one with negative interest rates, you also weaken your currency, which means you make your exports more competitive.
Quite a useful survey. Continue to read at the source. For another Q&A on negative interest rates see here.
“The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.” – Ben Graham
Optimism always struck me as the quintessential American quality. To be sure, I have in mind an optimism that is accompanied by many other welcome qualities, such as open-mindedness, industry, a knack for uncomplicated handling and cooperativeness, non-nonsense vigour and so on. Of course, these are idealisations, but they are not figments, as an optimist from Nebraska reminds us:
Berkshire as a corporation, and we as individuals, have prospered in America as we would have in no other country. Indeed, if we lived in some other part of the world and completely escaped taxes, I’m sure we would be worse off financially (and in many other ways as well). Overall, we feel extraordinarily lucky to have been dealt a hand in life that enables us to write large checks to the government rather than one requiring the government to regularly write checks to us — say, because we are disabled or unemployed.
1998 Shareholder Letter
Our country’s dynamism and resiliency have repeatedly made fools of naysayers.
2003 Shareholder Letter
In no way does our thinking about currencies rest on doubts about America. We live in an extraordinarily rich country, the product of a system that values market economics, the rule of law and equality of opportunity. Our economy is far and away the strongest in the world and will continue to be. We are lucky to live here.
2004 Shareholder Letter
The U.S., it should be emphasized, is extraordinarily rich and will get richer.
2005 Shareholder Letter
I want to emphasize that even though our course is unwise, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now than they do today. Per-capita wealth will increase.
2006 Shareholder Letter
Without fail, however, we’ve overcome [challenges to our country’s future]. In the face of those obstacles – and many others – the real standard of living for Americans improved nearly seven-fold during the 1900s, while the Dow Jones Industrials rose from 66 to 11,497. Compare the record of this period with the dozens of centuries during which humans secured only tiny gains, if any, in how they lived. Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time. It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America’s best days lie ahead.
2008 Shareholder Letter
Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America. Commentators today often talk of “great uncertainty.” But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain.
Don’t let that reality spook you. Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War – remains alive and effective. We are not natively smarter than we were when our country was founded nor do we work harder. But look around you and see a world beyond the dreams of any colonial citizen. Now, as in 1776, 1861, 1932 and 1941, America’s best days lie ahead.
2010 Shareholder Letter
Wise monetary and fiscal policies play an important role in tempering recessions, but these tools don’t create households nor eliminate excess housing units. Fortunately, demographics and our market system will restore the needed balance – probably before long. When that day comes, we will again build one million or more residential units annually. I believe pundits will be surprised at how far unemployment drops once that happens. They will then reawake to what has been true since 1776: America’s best days lie ahead.
2011 Shareholder Letter
A thought for my fellow CEOs: Of course, the immediate future is uncertain; America has faced the unknown since 1776. It’s just that sometimes people focus on the myriad of uncertainties that always exist while at other times they ignore them (usually because the recent past has been uneventful).
American business will do fine over time. And stocks will do well just as certainly, since their fate is tied to business performance. Periodic setbacks will occur, yes, but investors and managers are in a game that is heavily stacked in their favor.
2012 Shareholder Letter
Indeed, who has ever benefited during the past 237 years by betting against America? If you compare our country’s present condition to that existing in 1776, you have to rub your eyes in wonder. And the dynamism embedded in our market economy will continue to work its magic. America’s best days lie ahead.
2013 Shareholder Letter
Indeed, who has ever benefited during the past 238 years by betting against America? If you compare our country’s present condition to that existing in 1776, you have to rub your eyes in wonder. In my lifetime alone, real per-capita U.S. output has sextupled. My parents could not have dreamed in 1930 of the world their son would see. Though the preachers of pessimism prattle endlessly about America’s problems, I’ve never seen one who wishes to emigrate (though I can think of a few for whom I would happily buy a one-way ticket). The dynamism embedded in our market economy will continue to work its magic. Gains won’t come in a smooth or uninterrupted manner; they never have. And we will regularly grumble about our government. But, most assuredly, America’s best days lie ahead.
2014 Shareholder Letter
It's an election year, and candidates can’t stop speaking about our country’s problems (which, of course, only they can solve). As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do.
That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.
American GDP per capita is now about $56,000. As I mentioned last year that – in real terms – is a staggering six times the amount in 1930, the year I was born, a leap far beyond the wildest dreams of my parents or their contemporaries. U.S. citizens are not intrinsically more intelligent today, nor do they work harder than did Americans in 1930. Rather, they work far more efficiently and thereby produce far more. This all-powerful trend is certain to continue: America’s economic magic remains alive and well.
Some commentators bemoan our current 2% per year growth in real GDP – and, yes, we would all like to see a higher rate. But let’s do some simple math using the much-lamented 2% figure. That rate, we will see, delivers astounding gains.
America’s population is growing about .8% per year (.5% from births minus deaths and .3% from net migration). Thus 2% of overall growth produces about 1.2% of per capita growth. That may not sound impressive. But in a single generation of, say, 25 years, that rate of growth leads to a gain of 34.4% in real GDP per capita. (Compounding’s effects produce the excess over the percentage that would result by simply multiplying 25 x 1.2%.) In turn, that 34.4% gain will produce a staggering $19,000 increase in real GDP per capita for the next generation. Were that to be distributed equally, the gain would be $76,000 annually for a family of four. Today’s politicians need not shed tears for tomorrow’s children.
Indeed, most of today’s children are doing well. All families in my upper middle-class neighborhood regularly enjoy a living standard better than that achieved by John D. Rockefeller Sr. at the time of my birth. His unparalleled fortune couldn’t buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is – to name just a few – transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services. Rockefeller certainly had power and fame; he could not, however, live as well as my neighbors now do.
Is this true? In Nebraska, it is illegal for a mother to give her daughter a perm without a state license? How do "crazy" laws come about? I suppose, they all have their own story. Mind you, like every other country, the US may have some "crazy" laws, but it certainly is not a nation of crazy laws.
And even among the "crazy" laws below not all are quite that crazy: in Ohio it is illegal to get a fish drunk, and in Oregon it is illegal to go hunting in a cemetery.
Yesterday, in an autumn of uncommonly mild temperatures, I had lunch at the restaurant Au Pont M. in Wissembourg (France), right at the German border, where most of our friendly neighbours speak German and French, often changing language in the middle of the sentence. At 29 € the "cheapest" menu, I thoroughly enjoyed along with a wonderful pinot gris:
Velouté de potimarron, accras de crevettes et chantilly au curry Cream of pumpkin soup with shrimp crullers and curry flavoured whipped cream **** Paleron de veau confit 8h, blinis de pomme de terre et embeurrée de chou vert aux noisettes Braised piece of veal shoulder, potato blinis, kale with hazel nut **** Tiramisu aux poires bio pochées et pain d'épices, sorbet chocolat Nut'Alsace Tiramisu with poached pears and honey bread with Alsatian chocolate-and-nut sorbet
I had not realised that it was armistice day (11 November) in France, a holiday. Not so in Germany, where the day has not made it into the schedule of holidays, presumably because it took Germans longer to see in the armistice the advantages of peace rather than feel the pain of defeat.
Wissembourg is a small city full of thrilling beauty. We continued to the Rhine watching birds of passage preparing for departure in the nature park of Northern Alsace. Back via Lauterbourg, the town in France the farthest from the coastline (once defiantly home to one of the best fish restaurants of France), where we watched the Martin's parade, which I so enjoyed as a child. Further on to Schweigen at the southern end of the German wine route. And then in no time back home.
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