Subject: Re: How far will it fall?
And, to the penalty box. I truly cannot understand the hatred behind such discourse.

I'd encourage you not to, unless you need to for personal reaons.

I have studied the America right wing for more than a decade. Much like China, they are aware of their limitations and prefer to operate in the shadows because open conflict doesn't favor them. I've also studied similar, emergent dynamics in left wing groups that appear to be cleavage attacks by adversaries of the US. I believe they are a deliberate strategy by various allied domestic and foreign adversaries of a robust and strong American global presence.

I have blocked CrankyCharlie for obvious reasons before. NB CrankyCharlie: "retard" is a vulgar word that nice people don't use any more; it doesn't offend delicate minds, it is just repellant and makes others not want to associate with you. If you associate with people that use it freely and poison your thoughts enough to use it in anger, choose new and better associations. I've blocked a few other posters here from time to time. This is not because of their political beliefs. I enjoy sincere political discussion with divergent viewpoints of intelligent people, it is more because of the nature of rhetorical patterns certain groups ubiquitously employ.

I am currently not blocking a single poster here. I understand why one would - we are all human and need to manage and replenish our executive mental capacity. But "sunlight is the best disinfectant" has some validity and pushing back against shameful conduct is not wasted time. As I noted in a prior post - addiction to being angry is a critical pillar of the Trumpist movement. Look at another poster's angry list of grievances about transgendered people. This is cultivated hate in right wing media circles, exploiting very deep fears and biases in the human psyche. Good people can differ on this topic, but it can also easily be used to turn off critical thinking like a light switch, along with a number of other carefully cultivated wedge issues with careful framing that connects them to deep and fundamental human cognitive biases.

Berkshire Hathaway has flourished in America. It is American as apple pie, and our investments will not flourish if America doesn't. Anatomically, the healthiest heart in the world will die with the entire body if the liver fails.

We end up talking about politics here as Berkshire growth has compounded for so long that, as Buffett has repeatedly mentioned, BRK decoupled growth from the US economy is becoming increasingly difficult. BRK revenue is on its way to 2% of the US GDP.

I agree with other posters that we have experienced a fundamental societal disruption in the last 20 years. Unfortunately, the flip side of US productivity gains is that we are moving money from structurally poorer spenders to producers faster and more efficiently than ever. Financial policy changes have slowed the redistribution of that money from the powerful and wealthy, and the rate of concentration is accelerating with more cognitive power modeled in software. While not everyone observe it directly, they understand their pocketbooks and it is objectively harder to be optimistic about the future than it was in the past.

I have no real point in mentioning this than to get it off my chest. A small number of wealthy and powerful interests have allied with a small number of bigoted and hateful interests domestically, and they have decided to coordinate with the power structures of Russia and China rather than solve our differences in the existing American political process. Some of those groups believe they maintain advantages over they others, but most are incorrect about it. These are times that try people's souls...