Subject: Re: Brk annual meeting questions,
Say you're thinking about buying a nice big farm. If the northern field of a farm gets more water and has been more productive than the southern field for the last century, you don't make a huge wager that this will remain true just because it has always been true. First you check to see if there are new problems in the northern field's water supply that weren't there before, and you assess how likely it is that the water supply will last forever at its previous level.

Not a very good metaphor IMO. If the nice big farm is the whole world, and the U.S. is the north field, then I would say the question is not whether the water supply to the north field will remain, but whether the whole farm is facing a biblical seven year drought. The U.S. economy is 25% of the world economy. As goes the U.S. economy so will go the world, to a very significant extent. We may be leery of U.S. governance at this point, but there will be nowhere to hide from the financial fallout.

Elan