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There's one particular passage I'd like to point out, on page 5: Our efforts to materially increase the normalized earnings of Berkshire will be aided – as the

by dsacco 10y ago

There's one particular passage I'd like to point out, on page 5: Our efforts to materially increase the normalized earnings of Berkshire will be aided – as they have been throughout our managerial tenure – by America’s economic dynamism. One word sums up our country’s achievements: miraculous. From a standing start 240 years ago – a span of time less than triple my days on earth – Americans have combined human ingenuity, a market system, a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants, and the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers. You need not be an economist to understand how well our system has worked. Just look around you. See the 75 million owner-occupied homes, the bountiful farmland, the 260 million vehicles, the hyper-productive factories, the great medical centers, the talent-filled universities, you name it – they all represent a net gain for Americans from the barren lands, primitive structures and meager output of 1776. Starting from scratch, America has amassed wealth totaling $90 trillion. I don't often see this sort of pride in America. Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado, while the tone here is lauding yet reserved. There's a sense of authenticity delivered in the way Warren Buffett - an extremely humble, yet successful man - talks about the way his country has helped him succeed. It's austere. This isn't part of the regularly scheduled programming for threads about his letters (mostly we like to champion index funds or debate the utility of active investing), but it's what really struck me this time around. Juxtapose his words here with the same category of conversation about America in many other contexts and contrast the integrity involved. In a time when America appears to be experiencing quite a bit of social and political volatility, it is refreshing to hear optimism from a source that does not appear to use it as an instrument of control. EDIT: Well this has since ignited a debate about America's cultural identity and history of imperialism...not really the spirit of what I was going for but here we are I guess...

jdavis703 10y ago
they all represent a net gain for Americans from the barren lands, primitive structures and meager output of 1776. Starting from scratch, America has amassed wealth totaling $90 trillion. This was a gain that was achieved not by starting from scratch but by stealing lands from indigenous people and forcing Africans to work that land. I'm not sure if you can describe the kidnapping, murder, rape and ultimately genocide of multiple people groups as miraculous, unless one subscribes to the idealogy of manifest destiny.
- davidw 10y ago
  The gains weren't just from those things - there was a lot of hard work involved. However, your point that it wasn't "from scratch" is a valid one and that jumped out at me too.
  - hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
    I am going to give Buffett the benefit of the doubt in terms of what he meant. Not that it was a completely clean slate and no one was here beforehand, but that the economic productive output that existed here before (beyond bare resource value) was not assimilated and did not contribute much to present day economic output. For all intents and purposes, it was "starting from scratch". Contrast this with, say, the Roman conquest of the Greeks, which was almost a kind of cultural conquest of the losers over the winners. This is not to minimize the genocide of the Native Americans that occurred, or the horrors of slavery. But in an economic report looking at compounded returns over the history of the US, starting from scratch is a fairly reasonable assessment.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  The areas that used slaves the most are now some of the poorest areas of the USA. Maybe slavery didn't have that big of an impact?
  - amalag 10y ago
    Yes I believe in Ken Burn's documentary he mentioned that even at the time the North's economy far dwarfed the South's. Especially in terms of technological advancement.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - chiaro 10y ago
    Actually the opposite. Social and political institutions of the slave owning South had developed an entrenched extractive hierarchy not unlike the aristocracies of Eastern Europe at the time. The legacy of these oppressive institutions has lead enterprising Americans to seek their fortunes elsewhere throughout history.
logicallee 10y ago
America is worth way more than $90 trillion. He's valuing it like a buyer :) As a quick back-of-envelope check: American GDP in 2016 was $18.86 tn. The son of a bitch wants it at a 4.7 trailing multiple, after a relatively slow-growth year. All that praise - and then a 4.8x multiple. Now I know how he butters up his acquisition targets :) EDIT: I am getting downvoted, but I am keeping this. You guys don't realize that valuing companies is what he does all day, every day. That's literally his job. When he throws a figure like $90 trillion out for America, that is not casual or haphazard - it took him a few seconds to come up with that, and he did it on some basis. We get real insight into his thinking, especially when it comes following such lavish praise. In my opinion I am making a good contribution in pointing this out. We've just learned something.
- purple-again 10y ago
  You are probably getting downvoted because it seems unlikely that a multiple of GDP had to anything to do with Mr. Buffets analysis of American Wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States
  - logicallee 10y ago
    I think my metric is fine. The link you just quoted says "Including human capital such as skills, the United Nations estimated the total wealth of the United States in 2008 to be $118 trillion" - up to you if it's higher or lower 8 years later. His estimation is still low. Anyway value is not usually priced in terms of wealth, though - but on the future.
    - purple-again 10y ago
      "U.S. household and non-profit organization net worth rose from $44.2 trillion in Q1 2000 to a pre-recession peak of $67.7 trillion in Q3 2007. It then fell $13.1 trillion to $54.6 trillion in Q1 2009 due to the subprime mortgage crisis. It then recovered, rising consistently to $86.8 trillion by Q4 2015"
- 10y ago
falsestprophet 10y ago
hyper-nationalistic, filled with bravado, lauding yet reserved, sense of authenticity, extremely humble, it's austere, category of conversation in many other contexts, optimism from a source that does not appear to use it as an instrument of control Sorry English is not my first language and it is not easy for me to understand such advanced writing. Is it that you like the sort of pride that quantifies the material wealth of the nation and attributes it to a market based economy and furthermore there are other sorts of pride that do you not like?
- beaconstudios 10y ago
  I'm not the author, but I think they were alluding to the type of pride that results in negative forms of nationalism, especially when it's tied into ideas about ethnic states. Various nationalist parties (e.g. the British National Party in my country) are actually thinly veiled parties for racial supremacy, and the Nazi regime was born out of a myth of German natural supremacy. Not to say that all nationalism is like this, but there is a certain strain of national identity that cares much more about race or religion than culture or values.
  - Shubley 10y ago
    You're mind reading the worst possible intentions. This is the exact opposite of the principle of charity. Why insist on mind reading evil from people who vehemently state other ideals? By your mindset, you'd mind read Churchill and FDR - the defeaters of Nazis - as Nazis themselves. Similarly, we could mind read leftist parties as a having the real goal of dissolving and erasing the white race. And your political mirrors do this. Or you'd see BLM as a black supremacist movement. Double standards.
    - beaconstudios 10y ago
      What are you on about? I'm intentionally laying out the worst extreme of "nationalism" as an example. Would you prefer that I responded to someone asking about what excessive nationalistic pride could do, with "well some people in the UK leer at the french a bit"? Also, what do you mean by my "political mirrors"? I'm a libertarian, I don't particularly identify with the left or the right. I'm also a nationalist in the sense that I love my country and the values it supports. You're being hyperbolic.
gigatexal 10y ago
Note the positive ton towards immigration. I too found this part interesting.
- gigatexal 10y ago
  *tone
wokky 10y ago
I don't often see this sort of pride in America. Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado... I'd go even further: our current presidential administration spends a lot of energy telling us that America sucks because the people in it suck, the government they built sucks, and the ideals they aspire to suck, and that the solution is to deal out cruelty to the right kinds of people. I don't understand how anyone can listen to that bilge and interpret it as any kind of patriotism at all, but they do. The hyper-nationalism and bravado are a natural result of an underlying emotional condition apparently shared by about a quarter of the populace: an inability to feel pride in anything but the capacity to dominate. This is why a few sentences by Warren Buffet feel like such a breath of fresh air. It wasn't always like this, Buffet's far more constructive and positive sentiment is perfectly normal.
- anjc 10y ago
  > I'd go even further: our current presidential administration spends a lot of energy telling us that America sucks because the people in it suck Wtf are you talking about? This has never happened.
  - BatFastard 10y ago
    While he didn't use the words "suck", he did say it was a "mess". http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/01/10/donald-trump-the-state-of-the-union-is-a-mess/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/01/10/donald-trump-the-st...
    - wire9 10y ago
      That is magnitudes different than saying the american people suck. Lets try not to put words in peoples mouth, thats how we divide people.
      - lostlogin 10y ago
        I don't think you could cause more division than the current administration has.
roymurdock 10y ago
This is classic Warren Buffett. He leads almost all of his annual shareholder letters with something similar. While he may be talking his book, he does it in a wry and genuine way that makes it a pleasure to read regardless.
throw2016 10y ago
Those who credit american ingenuity and exceptionalism must acknowledge land is by far the most precious commodity, an entire continent and a beautiful and rich one like North America is essentially priceless, and will enrich generations to come till the end of time. Much much more than $90 or $900 trillion. The economic value of this immense tract of free land and slave trade cannot be brushed aside. But there is also credit to the courage and ingenuity of the early immigrants who took perilous journeys leaving everything behind, risking diseases and an unknown and uncertain future, and made something out of it. One would like to think those who are proud are proud of this and not the usurpation of a continent or slave trade.
- Shubley 10y ago
  Land really isn't that valuable. You can build a great country without it. See Israel or Japan or SK or HK or Singapore. Its the people and way of life that matter. Primary resources can be bought. In fact land can be a hindrance when it induces Dutch Disease.
  - wtf_is_up 10y ago
    You have to consider geographical advantages when considering the growth of a civilization. For instance, the Mississippi River has amazing properties for transportation which was obviously great for trade, manufacturing, and settling. Many rivers in Africa may seem similar on the surface but due to things like frequent waterfalls and variation of depth, they are not nearly as advantageous.
    - ftlio 10y ago
      This stratfor article discusses the natural capital afforded to the US: https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-... both in terms of transportation networks and being removed by an ocean from the costly power struggles of Europe (which I'll add can be seen in the numbers of casualties for Americans in the first and second world war relative to our European counterparts and realized gains from those wars). There is also an interesting observation by Nick Szabo about the value of a transportation network: ' Combine this with Metcalfe's Law and we reach a dramatic but solid mathematical conclusion: the potential value of a land transportation network is the inverse fourth power of the cost of that transportation. A reduction in transportation costs in a trade network by a factor of two increases the potential value of that network by a factor of sixteen.' http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2014/10/transportation-divergence-and.html?m=1 http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2014/10/transportation-dive... So yes, the actual land we occupy is worth booku bucks.
kordless 10y ago
Austerity or not, assuming infinite growth is a fallacy.
- theptip 10y ago
  Who's doing that?
  - kordless 10y ago
    > Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman and my partner, and I expect Berkshire’s normalized earning power per share to increase every year.
vkreso 10y ago
I must say that I also feel proud and I'm not even American!
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Every country can be proud of their achievements. The success is powered by science, human ingenuity and risk taking, all over the world.
losteverything 10y ago
>It is refreshing to hear from a source... I agree and thanks for sharing. The biggest challenge now for me with free time is read from those types of sources. Or to just stay off my phone!!!!! The joy of reading is under attack. When my parent got near death s/he also framed a very patriotic life full of optimism.
throwaway5752 10y ago
Look, it's great and all but 1) it was not a standing start (NY and VA have colonial histories starting over 400 years ago) 2) even at a low rate of return of 4% wealth should have compounded over 12,200% over 240 years (or: assuming a 4% IRR and current $90T valuation, ignoring inflation were the colonies worth $750M?) 3) this spanned the industrial and computer revolutions and all nations benefited. If you don't read this much, then go back and read prior ones, WEB writes this way all the time. I like the guy a lot, but he does.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I agree with the main thrust of your statement. My understanding from my synthesis of reading the experts is that the U.S.' current economic success and international power comes down to: 1) Political stability and the rule of law: No point in investing much in a farm, factory, or infrastructure (fiber!) if it will be burnt down the next day by bandits or seized by someone more powerful (government, the rich family in town, etc.). The same applies to human capital (education): No point in studying computer science if there is no electricity and your life will be a fight for survival with guns and knives. 2) Free people and free markets (as a general principle, not taken to logical extremes): The system that produces the most aggregate wealth from the same labor and capital inputs. 3) Scale: Of developed nations, the U.S. has by far the largest internal market. ~325 million in the US, second is Japan at ~125 million. The UK market is 60 million, for example; that's why the Beatles sang with American accents (AFAIK - and also because the UK and Europe probably were still recovering from two massive wars). Note that Europeans are roughly as productive per capita as Americans. Scale by itself isn't sufficient; China and India have probably always been larger, for example. 4) Geographic security: Protected from enemies by two oceans, and with neighbors too weak to do anything but be friendly. To get a sense of what those oceans mean, look at how hard it was to attack across the English channel in WWII. If the U.S. was in continental Europe, WWI and WWII would have devastated the U.S., twice, just like the rest of Europe - and who would have provided a Marshall Plan to bail out the US along with the Europeans? Instead, thanks to geography, it's only a slight exaggeration to say that not a foreign shot was fired on US soil - and hasn't been since 1812. 5) Geographic economics: According to one geopolitical analyst I read, the U.S. has the largest navigable river system and the largest contiguous area of farmland in the world, and they are in the same place, the Mississippi River basin. Remember that most of the world economy was agricultural for much of U.S. history; imagine the impact of that geography, an almost guaranteed economic engine. Consider how critical controlling New Orleans and the Louisiana Purchase were and are.
simonh 10y ago
Completely agree. But cue endless comments of lazy nitpicking whatabout-ism that completely miss your point.
y_u_no_rust 10y ago
I don't understand what he's talking about, this place is hell most would have been better off without the american revolution
akhilcacharya 10y ago
>Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado, while the tone here is lauding yet reserved. He used this same logic when endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq_0un5CPSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq_0un5CPSo

by dsacco 10y ago

jdavis703 10y ago

they all represent a net gain for Americans from the barren lands, primitive structures and meager output of 1776. Starting from scratch, America has amassed wealth totaling $90 trillion. This was a gain that was achieved not by starting from scratch but by stealing lands from indigenous people and forcing Africans to work that land. I'm not sure if you can describe the kidnapping, murder, rape and ultimately genocide of multiple people groups as miraculous, unless one subscribes to the idealogy of manifest destiny.

davidw 10y ago
The gains weren't just from those things - there was a lot of hard work involved. However, your point that it wasn't "from scratch" is a valid one and that jumped out at me too.
- hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
  I am going to give Buffett the benefit of the doubt in terms of what he meant. Not that it was a completely clean slate and no one was here beforehand, but that the economic productive output that existed here before (beyond bare resource value) was not assimilated and did not contribute much to present day economic output. For all intents and purposes, it was "starting from scratch". Contrast this with, say, the Roman conquest of the Greeks, which was almost a kind of cultural conquest of the losers over the winners. This is not to minimize the genocide of the Native Americans that occurred, or the horrors of slavery. But in an economic report looking at compounded returns over the history of the US, starting from scratch is a fairly reasonable assessment.
oh_sigh 10y ago
The areas that used slaves the most are now some of the poorest areas of the USA. Maybe slavery didn't have that big of an impact?
- amalag 10y ago
  Yes I believe in Ken Burn's documentary he mentioned that even at the time the North's economy far dwarfed the South's. Especially in terms of technological advancement.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- chiaro 10y ago
  Actually the opposite. Social and political institutions of the slave owning South had developed an entrenched extractive hierarchy not unlike the aristocracies of Eastern Europe at the time. The legacy of these oppressive institutions has lead enterprising Americans to seek their fortunes elsewhere throughout history.

logicallee 10y ago

America is worth way more than $90 trillion. He's valuing it like a buyer :) As a quick back-of-envelope check: American GDP in 2016 was $18.86 tn. The son of a bitch wants it at a 4.7 trailing multiple, after a relatively slow-growth year. All that praise - and then a 4.8x multiple. Now I know how he butters up his acquisition targets :) EDIT: I am getting downvoted, but I am keeping this. You guys don't realize that valuing companies is what he does all day, every day. That's literally his job. When he throws a figure like $90 trillion out for America, that is not casual or haphazard - it took him a few seconds to come up with that, and he did it on some basis. We get real insight into his thinking, especially when it comes following such lavish praise. In my opinion I am making a good contribution in pointing this out. We've just learned something.

purple-again 10y ago
You are probably getting downvoted because it seems unlikely that a multiple of GDP had to anything to do with Mr. Buffets analysis of American Wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States
- logicallee 10y ago
  I think my metric is fine. The link you just quoted says "Including human capital such as skills, the United Nations estimated the total wealth of the United States in 2008 to be $118 trillion" - up to you if it's higher or lower 8 years later. His estimation is still low. Anyway value is not usually priced in terms of wealth, though - but on the future.
  - purple-again 10y ago
    "U.S. household and non-profit organization net worth rose from $44.2 trillion in Q1 2000 to a pre-recession peak of $67.7 trillion in Q3 2007. It then fell $13.1 trillion to $54.6 trillion in Q1 2009 due to the subprime mortgage crisis. It then recovered, rising consistently to $86.8 trillion by Q4 2015"
10y ago

falsestprophet 10y ago

hyper-nationalistic, filled with bravado, lauding yet reserved, sense of authenticity, extremely humble, it's austere, category of conversation in many other contexts, optimism from a source that does not appear to use it as an instrument of control Sorry English is not my first language and it is not easy for me to understand such advanced writing. Is it that you like the sort of pride that quantifies the material wealth of the nation and attributes it to a market based economy and furthermore there are other sorts of pride that do you not like?

beaconstudios 10y ago
I'm not the author, but I think they were alluding to the type of pride that results in negative forms of nationalism, especially when it's tied into ideas about ethnic states. Various nationalist parties (e.g. the British National Party in my country) are actually thinly veiled parties for racial supremacy, and the Nazi regime was born out of a myth of German natural supremacy. Not to say that all nationalism is like this, but there is a certain strain of national identity that cares much more about race or religion than culture or values.
- Shubley 10y ago
  You're mind reading the worst possible intentions. This is the exact opposite of the principle of charity. Why insist on mind reading evil from people who vehemently state other ideals? By your mindset, you'd mind read Churchill and FDR - the defeaters of Nazis - as Nazis themselves. Similarly, we could mind read leftist parties as a having the real goal of dissolving and erasing the white race. And your political mirrors do this. Or you'd see BLM as a black supremacist movement. Double standards.
  - beaconstudios 10y ago
    What are you on about? I'm intentionally laying out the worst extreme of "nationalism" as an example. Would you prefer that I responded to someone asking about what excessive nationalistic pride could do, with "well some people in the UK leer at the french a bit"? Also, what do you mean by my "political mirrors"? I'm a libertarian, I don't particularly identify with the left or the right. I'm also a nationalist in the sense that I love my country and the values it supports. You're being hyperbolic.

gigatexal 10y ago

Note the positive ton towards immigration. I too found this part interesting.

gigatexal 10y ago
*tone

wokky 10y ago

I don't often see this sort of pride in America. Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado... I'd go even further: our current presidential administration spends a lot of energy telling us that America sucks because the people in it suck, the government they built sucks, and the ideals they aspire to suck, and that the solution is to deal out cruelty to the right kinds of people. I don't understand how anyone can listen to that bilge and interpret it as any kind of patriotism at all, but they do. The hyper-nationalism and bravado are a natural result of an underlying emotional condition apparently shared by about a quarter of the populace: an inability to feel pride in anything but the capacity to dominate. This is why a few sentences by Warren Buffet feel like such a breath of fresh air. It wasn't always like this, Buffet's far more constructive and positive sentiment is perfectly normal.

anjc 10y ago
> I'd go even further: our current presidential administration spends a lot of energy telling us that America sucks because the people in it suck Wtf are you talking about? This has never happened.
- BatFastard 10y ago
  While he didn't use the words "suck", he did say it was a "mess". http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/01/10/donald-trump-the-state-of-the-union-is-a-mess/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/01/10/donald-trump-the-st...
  - wire9 10y ago
    That is magnitudes different than saying the american people suck. Lets try not to put words in peoples mouth, thats how we divide people.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      I don't think you could cause more division than the current administration has.

roymurdock 10y ago

This is classic Warren Buffett. He leads almost all of his annual shareholder letters with something similar. While he may be talking his book, he does it in a wry and genuine way that makes it a pleasure to read regardless.

throw2016 10y ago

Those who credit american ingenuity and exceptionalism must acknowledge land is by far the most precious commodity, an entire continent and a beautiful and rich one like North America is essentially priceless, and will enrich generations to come till the end of time. Much much more than $90 or $900 trillion. The economic value of this immense tract of free land and slave trade cannot be brushed aside. But there is also credit to the courage and ingenuity of the early immigrants who took perilous journeys leaving everything behind, risking diseases and an unknown and uncertain future, and made something out of it. One would like to think those who are proud are proud of this and not the usurpation of a continent or slave trade.

Shubley 10y ago
Land really isn't that valuable. You can build a great country without it. See Israel or Japan or SK or HK or Singapore. Its the people and way of life that matter. Primary resources can be bought. In fact land can be a hindrance when it induces Dutch Disease.
- wtf_is_up 10y ago
  You have to consider geographical advantages when considering the growth of a civilization. For instance, the Mississippi River has amazing properties for transportation which was obviously great for trade, manufacturing, and settling. Many rivers in Africa may seem similar on the surface but due to things like frequent waterfalls and variation of depth, they are not nearly as advantageous.
  - ftlio 10y ago
    This stratfor article discusses the natural capital afforded to the US: https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-... both in terms of transportation networks and being removed by an ocean from the costly power struggles of Europe (which I'll add can be seen in the numbers of casualties for Americans in the first and second world war relative to our European counterparts and realized gains from those wars). There is also an interesting observation by Nick Szabo about the value of a transportation network: ' Combine this with Metcalfe's Law and we reach a dramatic but solid mathematical conclusion: the potential value of a land transportation network is the inverse fourth power of the cost of that transportation. A reduction in transportation costs in a trade network by a factor of two increases the potential value of that network by a factor of sixteen.' http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2014/10/transportation-divergence-and.html?m=1 http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2014/10/transportation-dive... So yes, the actual land we occupy is worth booku bucks.

kordless 10y ago

Austerity or not, assuming infinite growth is a fallacy.

theptip 10y ago
Who's doing that?
- kordless 10y ago
  > Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman and my partner, and I expect Berkshire’s normalized earning power per share to increase every year.

vkreso 10y ago

I must say that I also feel proud and I'm not even American!

bbcbasic 10y ago
Every country can be proud of their achievements. The success is powered by science, human ingenuity and risk taking, all over the world.

losteverything 10y ago

>It is refreshing to hear from a source... I agree and thanks for sharing. The biggest challenge now for me with free time is read from those types of sources. Or to just stay off my phone!!!!! The joy of reading is under attack. When my parent got near death s/he also framed a very patriotic life full of optimism.

throwaway5752 10y ago

Look, it's great and all but 1) it was not a standing start (NY and VA have colonial histories starting over 400 years ago) 2) even at a low rate of return of 4% wealth should have compounded over 12,200% over 240 years (or: assuming a 4% IRR and current $90T valuation, ignoring inflation were the colonies worth $750M?) 3) this spanned the industrial and computer revolutions and all nations benefited. If you don't read this much, then go back and read prior ones, WEB writes this way all the time. I like the guy a lot, but he does.

hackuser 10y ago
I agree with the main thrust of your statement. My understanding from my synthesis of reading the experts is that the U.S.' current economic success and international power comes down to: 1) Political stability and the rule of law: No point in investing much in a farm, factory, or infrastructure (fiber!) if it will be burnt down the next day by bandits or seized by someone more powerful (government, the rich family in town, etc.). The same applies to human capital (education): No point in studying computer science if there is no electricity and your life will be a fight for survival with guns and knives. 2) Free people and free markets (as a general principle, not taken to logical extremes): The system that produces the most aggregate wealth from the same labor and capital inputs. 3) Scale: Of developed nations, the U.S. has by far the largest internal market. ~325 million in the US, second is Japan at ~125 million. The UK market is 60 million, for example; that's why the Beatles sang with American accents (AFAIK - and also because the UK and Europe probably were still recovering from two massive wars). Note that Europeans are roughly as productive per capita as Americans. Scale by itself isn't sufficient; China and India have probably always been larger, for example. 4) Geographic security: Protected from enemies by two oceans, and with neighbors too weak to do anything but be friendly. To get a sense of what those oceans mean, look at how hard it was to attack across the English channel in WWII. If the U.S. was in continental Europe, WWI and WWII would have devastated the U.S., twice, just like the rest of Europe - and who would have provided a Marshall Plan to bail out the US along with the Europeans? Instead, thanks to geography, it's only a slight exaggeration to say that not a foreign shot was fired on US soil - and hasn't been since 1812. 5) Geographic economics: According to one geopolitical analyst I read, the U.S. has the largest navigable river system and the largest contiguous area of farmland in the world, and they are in the same place, the Mississippi River basin. Remember that most of the world economy was agricultural for much of U.S. history; imagine the impact of that geography, an almost guaranteed economic engine. Consider how critical controlling New Orleans and the Louisiana Purchase were and are.

simonh 10y ago

Completely agree. But cue endless comments of lazy nitpicking whatabout-ism that completely miss your point.

y_u_no_rust 10y ago

I don't understand what he's talking about, this place is hell most would have been better off without the american revolution

akhilcacharya 10y ago

>Normally the flavors I do observe are hyper-nationalistic and filled with bravado, while the tone here is lauding yet reserved. He used this same logic when endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq_0un5CPSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq_0un5CPSo