저자: Finance Lab · 외국인
다듬은 글
China is uninvestable in my opinion at this point. I've never invested in China long or short. Why is that? I don't trust the data. I don't trust the relationship between the United States and China anymore. I think that investments in China could be confiscated. I think there's a risk of that. End quote.
Obviously, with a significant percentage of the Daily Journal's marketable securities invested in BYD and Alibaba, you feel differently. Please explain why you are right. Of course, only the future knows who's going to be right. But China is a big modern nation. It's got this huge population and this huge modernity that's come in the last 30 years.
We invested some money in China because we could get more value in terms of the strength of the enterprise and the price of the security than we could get in the United States. Other people, including Sequoia, the leading venture capital firm in the United States, have made the same decision we have.
But I'm sympathetic to Gunlike. He if he's nervous, he doesn't have to join us. I feel about Russia the way he feels about China. I don't invest in Russia. So I I can't criticize Gunlock's point of view. It's just I reached a different conclusion. Charlie, you and Warren have been making concentrated investments since the 1950s.
Many of these investments have led to gains. But even more impressively, none of them have led to significant losses. As far as I can tell, neither one of you has lost more than a few percentage points of equity on any single investment. Daily Journal has recently bet a large amount of its capital on Alibaba and foreign traded stock.
It's also taken on an additional $40 million in margin debt to make these investments. What makes you so sure that these investments won't lead to a substantial impairment of Daily Journal's equity capital, which would impact the company's ability to reinvest the resources needed to develop the company's software operating business?
Well, of course, if you invest in marketable securities, you have the risk that they'll go down. You'll lose money instead of make it. But the if you hold a depreciating currency, that's losing purchasing power. On balance, we prefer the risks we have to those who are avoiding. And we don't mind a tiny little bit of margin debt.
That as a Daily Journal owner, do we own local shares of Alibaba? Does that actually give us legal ownership of that business or do we have a variable interest? Is that the same net net? What do we own? When you buy Alibaba, you do get a sort of a derivative, assuming there's a reasonable honor among civilized nations.
That risk doesn't seem all that big to me. It's becoming quite evident that Chinese companies could be banned from doing business in the Western world or maybe some of the eastern countries too because of the number of the following reasons. One, the security threat issues. Two, the potential conflict over Taiwan.
Three, inability to meet western accounting standards. And number four, human rights issues. Considering all of the risks mentioned above, why would anyone as smart as Munger or Buffett consider investing in China or any of the Chinese companies? Well, we did it for a very simple reason. We got more strength per dollar invested in China.
This the companies we invest in are stronger relative to their competition and priced lower. That's why we're in China. Although the financials seem strong, do the political pressures from the Chinese government worry you? Well, the Chinese government is worrying all the capitalists in the world way more than it used to.
Of course, we don't like that. We wish that China and the United States got along better. If you stop to think about it, think of how massively stupid both China and the United States have been to allow the existing tensions to arise. What bad is ever going to happen to China or the United States if we make good friends out of the Chinese and vice versa?
Who in the hell is ever going to bother us? Of course, we should learn to get along with people who have a different system of government. We like our government because we're used to it and it has advantages of personal freedom. China could never have handled its life with a government like ours. They had to prevent 500 million or 600 million people from born in China.
They just measured the women's menstrual periods when they came to work and aborted those who who weren't allowed to have children. You can't do that in the United States. And it really needed doing in China. And so they did what they had to do using their methods. And I don't think we should be criticizing China, which which has terrible problems because they're not just like the United States.
They do some things better than we do. They should like us and we should like them. I think nothing is crazier than people who fment resentments on either side of that one. You said that we should partner up with with China. Does it concern you to see Russia partnering up with China and that relationship getting a little closier?
It's hardly think of anything that's more stupid. The political leaders on each side are trying to make points with their own constituencies by showing how tough they are. That is massively stupid on both sides. Oh, and and considering the fortune Bergkshire made on your BYD suggestion, why doesn't Buffer buy Alibaba?
Warren, like many other intelligent people, likes to invest where he's personally comfortable. For some reason, I'm more comfortable with the Chinese than he is. But I have all kinds of places where I'm just like war and I have all kinds of things where I'm not comfortable and I just don't go near them.
I think an old guy is entitled to invest where he wants to invest in. What makes you uncomfortable? Well, what do you not? It's okay to have some things that you just don't want to bother with. I don't think Alibaba is as entrenched as something like Apple and Alphabet. I think the internet is going to be a very competitive place even if you're a big internet retailer.
Comments 0