Buffet Buffets ‘Other’ Wall Street Gamblers

Warren Buffet says Wall Street is now run by “gamblers” but has the 91-yr-old “Oracle of Omaha” forgotten his crystal ball’s not sure fire either…or, that central banks are playing Russian Roulette with world’s money supply?

The WSJ’s editorial board thinks Mr. Buffet may have “nailed a symptom” of Wall Street delusion “but not the underlying malady.” They opine: “Warren Buffet is apparently shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in financial markets” and as if HE doesn’t make “educated” guesses himself. Speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha he said quite candidly: “It’s a gambling parlor” that’s encouraged by the financial industry’s penchant for “risky and speculative behavior.”

Fair enough perhaps. But, as the editors also noted: Such “gambling” by others “is providing opportunity for Berkshire as it puts some of its $106 billion in cash to work. That’s the way markets work: One man’s gamble is another man’s chance to spot a mispriced asset.” Rather than blame old-fashioned “greed” for today’s market volatility, the editors advise, look to “the extraordinary monetary intervention by central banks … that have flooded the world with [printed] money…”

Davd Soul