Warren Buffett did his annual shareholder meeting this past weekend and told the world that “we are seeing substantial inflation...We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us, and it’s being accepted.”
Buffett obviously knows a lot more about business than I do, but this reminded me that it’s always important to look across the entire distribution of goods. One of Buffett’s big companies is GEICO, and car insurance rates actually are in the midst of a rare decline based on a perceived structural fall in vehicle miles traveled. Buffett’s company is also a major shareholder of Apple stock, and the new Apple Silicon chips the company is rolling out represent a significant quality improvement and therefore quality-adjusted price decline in Apple products.
This is not to say that Buffett is wrong. He’s in other businesses like mobile homes and freight railroads where prices clearly are rising.
But Larry Summers cited inflation concerns as an objection to the American Rescue Plan…