|
2002 GUARDIAN AWARD WINNER PREDICTS THE FUTURE
Warren Buffett, the world's second wealthiest man, known as the 'Oracle
of Omaha' for his astute investments, is the winner of Lifeboat
Foundation's 2002 Guardian Award.
This award is bestowed upon revered scientists or public figures who
have heralded the coming of a future fraught with danger and encouraged
provision against its perils.
"The Guardian is awarded as much for bravery as it is for insight," says
Carl Martinez, spokesperson for Lifeboat Foundation. "Visionaries like
Warren Buffett fight opposition every day."
Warren Buffett, unlike other executives who go out of their way to coax
and reassure shareholders, tells his audience information they might
not want to hear. And, much like the mythic prophet Cassandra, Buffett
has made predictions that were disregarded — at great
expense.
When the dot-coms pushed the Nasdaq ever higher in the late 1990s,
Buffett stuck with his "paint and underwear" holdings believing that the
high tech companies were overvalued. As usual, Buffett's disdain for
mass sentiment paid off: While Internet companies have crumbled,
Berkshire shares now trade close to their 52-week high of $75,700 a
piece.
Buffett has not limited his predictions to the financial future, but in
the wake of 9/11, has turned his attention to the fate of all mankind.
"Fear may recede with time, but the danger won't — the war against
terrorism can never be won," the 71-year-old billionaire warns. "We're
going to have something in the way of a major nuclear event in this
country. It will happen. Whether it will happen in 10 years or 10
minutes, or 50 years... it's virtually a certainty."
Buffett backed this statement with action in his 2001 annual report
for Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company primarily involved in
the property and casualty insurance business, by asserting that, "We
will not ... write coverages on a large number of office and apartment
towers in a single metropolis without excluding losses from both a
nuclear explosion and the fires that would follow it."
Cassandra was cursed by Apollo so that her predictions would never be
believed. This came to no good end. But even if her warnings had been
believed, would that be enough? Guardian Award winner, Warren Buffett,
doesn't think so. He cautions that, "Predicting rain doesn't count,
building arks does."
| |
