WarrenI have some rather distressing news to report. There are always a few people that vote against everyone on the slate for directors. And there's maybe a dozen or so people do that. And then there are others that single shot it, and they pick out people to vote against. And this will come as news to Charlie. I haven't told him yet. But he is the only one among our candidates for directors that receive no negative votes this year. I'll tell you, when you lose out the title of Miss Congeniality to Charlie, you know you're in trouble.
WarrenCharlie and I have two jobs. We have to identify and keep good managers interested after we figured out who they are. So the important thing we do with managers generally is to find the 400 hitters and then not tell them how to swing. Second thing we do is allocate capital. And aside from that, we play bridge. That's pretty much what happens at Berkshire.
WarrenReinsurance business by its nature will be a business in which some very stupid things are done en masse periodically. I mean, you can be doing dumb things and not know it in reinsurance. And then all of a sudden wake up and find out the money is gone. You don't find out who's been swimming naked until the tide goes out. And essentially that's what happens in the money. that's what happens in reinsurance. You really don't find out who's been swimming naked until the wind blows.
WarrenI think someone asked what might be the big financial story of the 90s, and we said we obviously don't know, but that if we had to pick a topic, that it could well be derivatives, because they lend themselves to the use of unusual amounts of leverage and they're sometimes not completely understood by the people involved. and any time you combine ignorance and borrowed money, you can get some pretty interesting consequences.
WarrenI do not understand why any buyer of a business looks at a bunch of projections put together by a seller or or his agent. If we don't have some idea ourselves of what we think the future is, to sit there and listen to some other guy who's trying to sell us the business or get a commission on it, tell us what the future is going to be, like I say, it's very naive. It's very naive.
QuestionerYeah, and five years out.
WarrenYeah. We had a line in the report one time, don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut. And it's quite applicable to projections by sellers of businesses.
QuestionerIs there any point at which your stock would rise to the point where you might split the stock?
[3:00]
WarrenI think the idea of carving ownerships and an enterprise and a little tiny $20 pieces is almost insane. Frankly, we can't imagine about. better constituency than is in this room. I mean, we don't think we can improve on this group, and we followed certain policies that we think attracted certain types of shareholders and actually pushed away others, and that is part of our eugenics program here at Berkshire.
QuestionerMy wife was a collector of blue chip stamps for many, many years, and she bought some stamps with her. What should she do with them?
WarrenCharlie and I entered this trading stamp business. to apply our wizardry to it in what, 1969 or so early?
CharlieYes.
WarrenWe were doing what then? About 110 million?
CharlieNo, it went up to 120.
WarrenOkay. And then we arrived on the scene, and we're going to do, what, about 400,000 this year?
CharlieYes.
WarrenYeah. That shows you what can be done when your management gets active. We have presided over a decline of 99.5%. Our advice. My advice to anyone who has stamps is to save them because they're going to be collector's items, and besides if you bring them to us, we have to give you merchandise for them. So tell her to keep them. They'll do nothing but gain in value over years.
QuestionerWhat is your next gold in life now that you're the richest man in the country?
WarrenThat's easy. It's to be the oldest man in the country.