What he didn't say

Warren Buffett! Part 2.

I felt like something was missing from Warren Buffett’s latest Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter. So I reread it. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t not see it.

Or maybe more accurately: I can’t not not see it.

Let me explain. Yesterday's newsletter was about how Buffett made a point of featuring his many mistakes as an investor over the years—to the point that he literally counted how many times he’s used the words “mistake” and “error” in these letters since 2019.

The tally: 16 times between 2019 and 2023, plus another 13 times this year.

That got me thinking of what other words and phrases Buffett uses repeatedly.

Somewhat absently, I started searching for words to count.

• Berkshire: 71 times. Makes sense.

• Invest? 17 times.

• Shareholder? 10 times.

How about current events? Say, for example … “Trump?”

Zero times.

Interesting.

Musk? Zero

DOGE? Not once.

Vance? No chance.

Washington? Same story.

Tariffs? Inflation? Congress? Russia? China? Canada? Ukraine? Immigration? Never mentioned.

I don’t know about you, but it seems my phone blows up about once an hour these days with alerts about the breathtaking speed with which change is happening in Washington.

It’s hard to tune out even if you want to. And I am neither blind nor deaf to some of the feedback I’ve had about political content in this newsletter since Trump 2.0.

Yet, here’s Buffett – the master of taking the long view – ignoring it all.

Or at least not writing about it.

It’s not as if he didn’t write about the U.S. government or the state of affairs in America, or America in general. In contrast, Buffett seemed almost wistful about America at some points, especially our economic system and opportunities:

[C]apitalism … has its faults and abuses – in certain respects more egregious now than ever – but it also can work wonders unmatched by other economic systems. America is Exhibit A. Our country’s progress over its mere 235 years of existence could not have been imagined by even the most optimistic colonists in 1789, when the Constitution was adopted and the country’s energies were unleashed.

…

The American process has not always been pretty – our country has forever had many scoundrels and promoters who seek to take advantage of those who mistakenly trust them with their savings. But even with such malfeasance – which remains in full force today – and also much deployment of capital that eventually floundered because of brutal competition or disruptive innovation, the savings of Americans has delivered a quantity and quality of output beyond the dreams of any colonist.

…

[A]s Charlie and I have always acknowledged, Berkshire would not have achieved its results in any locale except America whereas America would have been every bit the success it has been if Berkshire had never existed.

Further, he wrote with pride of the idea that Berkshire pays so much in federal taxes that it, on its own, accounts for 5 percent of corporate contributions to the U.S. Treasury:

So thank you, Uncle Sam. Someday your nieces and nephews at Berkshire hope to send you even larger payments than we did in 2024. Spend it wisely. Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life.

They deserve better. And never forget that we need you to maintain a stable currency and that result requires both wisdom and vigilance on your part.

But consider: Not a word about the once and once-again president shrinking the size of the federal government to the point it could drown in a bathtub, seeking to deport 12 million people who aren’t here legally, and enacting tariffs against some of our main trading partners?

I don’t know if not-at-all is too much, but Buffett seems to at least have made a show of blocking out almost every short-term news distraction and focusing very narrowly on the long term.

Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise, given how much space he’s devoted over the years to talking about holding onto good investments for a long time and letting the market do its work. To quote his letter once more, talking about volatility:

“[Y]ear-by-year numbers will swing wildly and unpredictably … [but] our horizon for such commitments is almost always far longer than a single year.

In many, our thinking involves decades. These long-termers are the purchases that sometimes make the cash register ring like church bells.”

“Decades,” the man says.

I suppose that’s the obvious lesson – of the career of someone such as Buffett who has both been enormously successful and who has been doing it for a very long time.

Granted, there might be another reason why Buffett never mentioned the president or current news in the letter. Maybe he just decided it’s not worth it to get involved in a brouhaha with Trump or Musk.

Still, there’s something to be said for thinking long-term – and giving distractions no more space than they deserve.

People have put a lot of stock in the words Buffett uses over the years, and with good reason. But maybe it’s worth looking at the words he doesn’t use, too.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• More than 63,000 pages of records related to the 1963 assassination of president Kennedy were released Tuesday following an order by President Donald Trump. However, in a sign this might never end, an expert says "crucial information was missing ... [t]he transcript of the first conversation between president Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone after the 1963 assassination," which could help answer questions about any possible involvement from Cuba in the the killing. (Daily Mail)

• Dozens of Social Security Administration offices across the country are slated to close this year due to actions taken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented effort to shrink the size of government. Here's a partial list of the closures in about 30 states. (Associated Press)

• What life as an “innie” on the TV the show Severance would be like, according to a psychologist: severe trauma and mental stress. (Scientific American)

• Ben & Jerry’s, bought by Unilever for $326 million in 2000, now says its CEO was unlawfully removed in retaliation for the ice cream maker’s social and political activism. The marriage hasn’t been a happy one. (Associated Press)

• 'I wanted to be out there and was ready.' At just 14 years old, Mak Whitham made National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) history last weekend with her professional debut—at age 14. (Four Four Two)

• The 1960s ‘Chicken Tax’ Shows the Lasting Impact of Tariffs: Imported pickups have long incurred a 25% tariff, keeping production within North America but raising little revenue for Washington. (WSJ)

• I stayed in a tiny hotel room inside an airport during an 11-hour layover. I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed my $340 stay. (Business Insider)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Samartha J V on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!