QuestionerThe U.S. has set a dominant role in the world economy for about a hundred years. Its dominance resembles that of an economic monopoly. Would you say that the U.S. is, quote, unquote, a castle with a moat? And if so, how can we make the moat any bigger?
WarrenWell, the U.S. has been pretty remarkable, as I indicated in my earlier comment. I mean, you know, essentially the same population pool pretty much. And they've garnered over this 215-year period a remarkable share of the world's wealth. And it's an interesting question as to just why this group of people here have been able to do so much better than the rest of the world, considering we're not really smarter or anything of the sort. It's not an economic castle anymore. I wouldn't call it that. What we do is no secret. And I think that the relative importance of America, I mean, you know, we have been a dominant factor in the world in post-World War II. And I think it will decline somewhat, although I'm not an alarmist on that. But I think to some extent the rest of the world, or much of the rest, or some of the rest of the world, is catching on and adopting, you know, sort of best practices, as they say in industry. And our castle will grow in size, but there will be more castles around it. And I basically think that's a very good thing for the world. I mean, there's six billion people in this world, and a lot of them don't live very well. And I would hope that 20 or 50 years from now, that it's a higher percentage of them would live well. But I don't think it comes out of our hide at all. Charlie?
CharlieWell, I don't think it comes out of our height in that sense, but if we are now the richest and most powerful nation in the world and 50 or 100 years from now we're a poor third to some country in Asia. Sure, we're richer, but it's a peculiar type of richness where you've lost your relative position in the world. It's not all, I think, if I had to bet, I would bet that the part of the world that does best is Asia in terms of percentage gains per annum.