No. of Recommendations: 16
Thank you BenGrahamCracker for that interview involving Bruce Flatt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGnYQUplOOoIt was fairly rushed because of so many speakers, but a good quality/quantity ratio by each of them. Flatt was espousing long-term thinking as usual and the importance of avoiding the noise. I'm perfectly happy with anyone - be it Flatt or Buffett - repeating that message, because we cannot get enough reminders to cut through the ever-present noise. Our lens gravitates towards the short-term, with new-stories almost by definition bringing a bias towards the present (for they can hardly report about the future), and then combine that with our lack of patience - what would ordinarily be a healthy lack of patience but detrimental in the strange domain of investing - for making decisions upon 10-year and 20-year outcomes. In our megaannum past, it made rather less sense to find some advantage that will be realised only 7 years away, with largely on randomness in the middle. Psychologists present scientific psychology-games with children selecting between one lolly now or two in 15 minutes and scorn the children's irrationality at not waiting. In fact, it is the psychologist here who is irrational, for in the real world both the personal trust and the future promise, particularly as the two lollies are not even shown, are highly unreliable. The child is acting upon instinct, where some built-in impatience from our distant past on average brings the better result. But investing, as I wrote, is an odd domain.
Whilst we are on the subject of interviews related to Brookfield, I found this one hidden away, also very recently recorded, by Howard Marks. He is not only a good investor but also a wonderful person. I have had the pleasure of numerous exchanges with Howard Marks and frankly he is even more patient and kind (and intellectually honest), than he already deservedly appears in public. The subject is value investing broadly and not just his credit markets speciality. Interestingly, he is skeptical that interest rates will return to the 0-2% range but more likely to remain the 2-4% range. Yet, he is smart enough to know - and makes this very point - to never optimise investment decisions upon meeting one's macroeconomic predictions, and instead ensure one's actions are not harmed but the wide range of possible unexpected macroeconomic conditions. Buffett frames this in another way in that investors should define (1) what is important and (2) what is knowable, and only act upon ideas that meet both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzwNdxnEUQQ- Manlobbi
