Warren Buffett is the god of American stocks, and his investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, set a new record in the third quarter of this year: hoarding $149.2 billion in cash. This makes many people puzzled, why does Buffett not go to **more**, but choose to keep his money at home when inflation in the United States is getting worse and the US stocks are constantly ****
In fact, people who know Warren Buffett's investment history may not find it strange. Warren Buffett is a top billionaire, and the information he has is incomparable to that of ordinary people. He hoarded a lot of cash, most likely waiting for a big opportunity. What kind of opportunity is it?It is the financial crisis caused by the collapse of the US stock market.
The financial crisis is an excellent opportunity for those who are prepared. This is the rule of the game under the capitalist economic system, which takes advantage of the crisis to merge and reorganize and acquire more assets and benefits. This kind of operation has been successfully used in all past crises.
For example, Li Ka-shing took advantage of the financial crisis to acquire a large number of high-quality assets at a very low price, thus quickly becoming the richest man. When the crisis is over and a new round of prosperity begins, his worth will naturally skyrocket.
In order to be in the financial crisis, there are two conditions, one is the information advantage, and the other is the capital advantage. Information superiority refers to the ability to make timely and accurate judgments about the onset and end of a crisis, and which assets are most valuable in a crisis. Funding advantage refers to the ability to have enough cash to quickly move and take the desired asset in a crisis.
In these two respects, the United States has a natural advantage over other countries. This is the main reason why US dollar capital has been able to succeed in the past after the crisis. The United States not only has the global financial system at its disposal, but also has the most powerful military power that can protect its interests in a crisis and even create a crisis.
In the crisis, the United States is not only able to earn a lot of wealth, but also to grasp more assets, especially the core assets of other countries, such as those that affect the world's lifeblood, such as oil, minerals, agriculture, etc. Once these assets fall into the hands of the United States, the control of the country is largely transferred.
Therefore, the control power of the United States is not only the military and political power that appears on the surface, but also the economic and financial power. His control was built up in the Latin American crisis, the Southeast Asian crisis, the Japanese crisis, and these crises, through round after round of infiltration, to control the core assets.
Without these core interests, words don't work, it's the same everywhere.
It was only after we joined the WTO that we became aware of this problem. Since we have become the world's factory, the production capacity has been greatly expanded, and at this time it is necessary to import a large number of various resources, but in those years, there was such a phenomenon, we went to the international market, as long as we bought something, the price of what would rise.
Of course, before that, our foreign exchange reserves were not much, and it was not too realistic to seize the opportunity to make a large number of international layouts. Later, with some money, the opportunity finally came, just after the 2008 financial crisis.
At that time, with the outbreak of the crisis, global assets *** theoretically speaking, this must be a good opportunity. In fact, we did make a move, and some people may still remember that at that time, Chinalco** Rio Tinto matter:
On February 12, 2009, Aluminum Corporation of China announced that it would inject US$19.5 billion into Rio Tinto, of which US$12.3 billion will be used to participate in Rio Tinto's iron ore, copper and aluminum assets, and US$7.2 billion will be used to subscribe for convertible bonds issued by Rio Tinto. If Chinalco chooses to convert shares, its overall shareholding in Rio Tinto Group will increase from the current 93 to about 18.
Of course, there are many reasons why the acquisition fails in the end, but the key point is that this kind of core asset, you have to be decisive when he needs the money the most, and once the situation eases a little, this opportunity may never be again. Rio Tinto was also dragging around at the time, and after finally relieving himself, he paid a little liquidated damages, and the matter was so yellow.
Looking back now, if it had been successful at the time, it would have been a good investment, because Australia has made hundreds of billions of dollars from iron ore for more than a decade. If we can control the core assets on a large scale, the right to speak will be even more different.
The United States is completely different in this respect, because it has both financial and information superiority, and it has a variety of means, and its attacks are relatively dark, so it has penetrated very deeply. We do have a gap with him in this regard.
But if the next financial crisis appears, there is such an opportunity, we can't miss it again this time anyway, the reason is very simple, since we want to break away from the economic system dominated by the United States, we must establish our own material and energy base, that is, our own sphere of influence.
Without the necessary resources, long-term strategic competition cannot be sustained.
So now, what resources do we need to solve most urgently?
If we look at it purely from the perspective of materials, there are two main categories of imports every year, one is energy and minerals represented by oil and iron ore, and the other is agricultural products represented by soybeans.