idiot savant

Doug Casey dispels about 20 common reasons not to own gold. Of course, one reason is that Warren Buffett is a huge gold bear. Here is Doug’s excellent response to this view:

This is true, but irrelevant – entirely apart from suffering from the logical fallacy called “argument from authority.” But, nonetheless, when the world’s most successful investor speaks, it’s worth listening. Here's what Buffett recently said about gold in an interview with Ben Stein, another goldphobe: "You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all – not some, all – of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?"

I’ve long considered Buffett an idiot savant – a genius at buying stocks but at nothing else. His statement is quite accurate, but completely meaningless. The same could be said of the U.S. dollar money supply – or even of the world inventory of steel and copper. These things represent potential but are not businesses or productive assets in themselves. Buffett is certainly not stupid, but he’s a shameless and intellectually dishonest sophist. And although a great investor, he’s neither an economist or someone who believes in free markets. ~Casey's Daily Dispatch 2011-0331

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