Buffett Could Have Made Off as Well

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Someone has to be Warren Buffett.

Statistically, if it weren’t Warren Buffett, then somebody else would have a reasonably similar record of making multiple, successive, good stock picking decisions. And, in fact, this person does exist – he or she is just not as well known.

But what’s more interesting is that Warren Buffett could have just as easily been Bernie Madoff:

“Here is how the story goes. At the age of 26, Buffett was raising money and pitching to clients. But he was brazen and wanted to play by his rules. Some of the terms he had were: he would not disclose any of the holdings, he would only give a yearly summary of results, and he would only allow one day of December 31 for withdrawing or adding capital. And some people agreed to this!”

- From the book “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist” which I did not read. I found the excerpt here.

“He would not disclose any of the holdings”?! Is it possible – I mean, in the realm of possibility – that Buffett started out his speculating career with a Ponzi scheme [or let’s call it a well-intentioned plan to raise capital for stock-buying with lots of hope and no foresight] paired with a ton of confidence, and then simply got lucky in his first few stock picks?

Yes, quite possible.

And, really, there are likely a great number of people that start successful careers this way - Good intentions, a ton of confidence and no foresight to avoid excessive risk.

The many that take risk and fail become Normies, and a lucky few become Oracles. The Madoffs of the world could just as well be Oracles that blossom too near a major economic recession…