The more unequal a society is, the more divided it tends to be, and the more difficult it is for governments to negotiate long term bargains. .
But they have only done so as part of a long-term bargain that would bring in more revenues, not as part of a hasty emergency deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
With the outlook for the economy and corporate earnings so iffy, he says that he doesn't know if stocks are a short-term bargain, but that they look cheap to him for anyone who can hold on for, say, a decade.
The question now, for him and others, is whether the short-term bargains now being made will translate into long-term leadership.
As for the comparison to Buffett, he has succeeded because of his uncommonly patient style, which assumes that genuine long-term bargains are relatively scarce, and that an investor needs to be willing not to buy anything for a long period of time if the price isn't right.
"The game is not about short-term bargains.
Once we get past the 23rd, we will only have China, Japan, Brazil and Venezuela to worry about - so maybe we'll be in more of a shopping mood then but 9 excellent long-term bargains were discovered in a 4-day week, so we're very comfortable - as I noted in our Top Trade Review - with our large amount of sideline cash, as we will ALWAYS be able to find something else to trade.
He was the first to use the term "Faustian bargain" to describe nuclear energy.
"It was [social reformer] Beatrice Webb who coined the term 'collective bargaining' – recognising that together we bargain, alone we beg," he said.
In the short term, collective bargaining can raise wages.
