At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on May 5, 2018, investor Warren Buffett answered a shareholder’s question about whether the United States had become more politically divided by pointing to the country’s record of business growth over decades. His answer placed political anxiety beside a much longer view of the economy and markets.
The shareholder asked whether the country was more divided than it had been 50 years earlier. Buffett recalled recurring fears that whichever party held power would damage the nation’s prospects. He named the Cuban Missile Crisis, recessions, unrest in the late 1960s and the 2008 financial panic as periods of strain. “America really, really moves ahead,” Buffett said, according to the meeting transcript.
Earlier in the meeting, Buffett offered a numerical illustration of that long view. He asked shareholders to imagine $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund in 1942 and left there through 2018. He said the holding would have been worth $51 million by the meeting. The example described a historical hypothetical across 76 years, rather than a projection tied to a particular vote.
Buffett also compared the index fund with gold. He said that $10,000 would have bought 300 ounces of gold in 1942, and those ounces would have been worth about $400,000 in 2018. In his account, the gap reflected that operating companies can reinvest earnings and pay dividends, while the gold holding remains 300 ounces.
On presidents, Buffett said that 14 had held office since he began investing at age 11 in 1942, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. The 14 figure refers to the period ending with the 2018 meeting. A separate count across his lifetime is 16 distinct presidents from Herbert Hoover through Donald Trump, with Trump counted once despite two nonconsecutive terms.
The meeting transcript presents Buffett’s remarks as an argument about the long-term record of American business. It does not show him saying elections have no effect on markets.
