IT’S NOT CALESTHENICS II — BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY January 2, 2024 If you’d plunked down $9,125 for a share of Berkshire Hathaway in 1992 on Warren Buffett’s 62nd birthday and sold it 20 years later, you’d have hit a home run. The stock was $126,183. But had you held four more years, selling on his 86th birthday, you’d have been $100,000 better off. (Four more years! Four more years!) Even then, selling when he was 86, you’d have left $322,498 on the table by not trusting his judgment. On his 93rd birthday this year, the stock was $547,348. For some jobs, wisdom and experience — and the team you’ve assembled beneath you — count more than vitality of gait. Also worth noting, since this post is obviously not about Warren Buffett . . . Joe has America finally beginning to revitalize itself with the massive bi-partisan infrastructure bill now beginning to roll out . . . the massive climate investment now just beginning to take hold . . . and the all-important CHIPs Act. Most Republicans voted against all three (but will try to take credit for the projects in their districts anyway). Meanwhile, the stock market, despite the drag of high interest rates, is at record highs. Unemployment, despite the welcome “drag” of higher wages, is at record lows. And we are producing more oil than any other country in the history of the world. That last one, while it would have Republicans cheering if they were willing to acknowledge it, needs context not to horrify those — like me — who see the climate crisis as urgent. Here’s that context: until world demand for fossil fuels can be lowered by means of efficiency and met by means of renewables, someone needs to meet it . . . the profits from which will flow somewhere . . . enriching someone. It doesn’t matter to the climate crisis whether it’s Iran or Russia or the U.S. But as long as fossil fuels are needed, I’d rather it be us than them, not least so that we can use the tax revenue from those profits, and some of the profits themselves, to fund and expand the massive climate-change initiative Joe has launched. Trump will of course tell us this is all fake news. Climate change is not real. Oil production has slowed to a trickle. His Inaugural crowd was the largest in history. He won reelection by a landslide. Obama’s 5.1% unemployment rate was really 20% to 42%. The man has been lying and scamming all his life. The examples are endless. (Here’s yet another, set to go to trial later this month: “The lawsuit, filed in 2018, alleges Trump received millions of dollars in secret payments [promoting a since-failed maker of video phones, telling investors] “he had ‘experienced the opportunity’ and ‘done a lot of research,’ and that his endorsement was ‘not for any money.'” . . . “Not a word of this was true,” according to the plaintiffs.) Trump is, according to one of his biggest Fox backers, “the undisputed world champion of destroying things.” Biden, by contrast, has a team of 4,000 appointees, 1,200 of them Senate-confirmed, who have hit their stride. They have restored dignity, civility, and competence; regained the respect of our allies; and set us on a course toward a brighter future. I cede the balance of my time to Lindsey Graham (60 seconds). Happy New Year!