U this next question comes from Advate<br>Prasad in New York. He writes, "Today,<br>Bergkshire holds over $300 billion in<br>cash and short-term investments<br>representing about 27% of total assets,<br>a historically high figure compared to<br>the 13% average over the last 25 years.<br>This has also led Berkshire to<br>effectively own nearly 5% of the entire<br>US Treasury market. Beyond the need for<br>liquidity to meet insurance obligations,<br>is the decision to raise cash primarily<br>a d-risking strategy in response to high<br>market valuations?<br>Or is it also a deliberate effort to<br>position Birkshar's balance sheet for a<br>smooth smoother leadership transition,<br>providing Greg Ael with maximum<br>flexibility and a clean slate for future<br>capital allocation decisions? And I will<br>add one line from another shareholder,<br>Mike Conway, who asks, "Are you<br>encouraged you may see some fat pitches<br>coming your way?"<br>Yeah. Well,<br>I wouldn't do anything nearly so noble<br>as to withhold investing myself just so<br>that Greg could look good later on.<br>[Applause]<br>Now, if he if he gets any edge when I<br>leave, I'll resent it. So, the uh<br>now the the amount of cash we have, we<br>we we would spend well, we came pretty<br>close to spending 10 billion not that<br>long ago, for example, but we'd spend a<br>h 100red billion. I mean, and and those<br>decisions are not tough to make. uh when<br>when something is offered that is that<br>uh makes sense to us and that we<br>understand and uh offers good value and<br>where we don't worry about losing and<br>the one problem with the investment<br>business is that things don't come along<br>in an orderly fashion and they never<br>will. I mean, it isn't like every day.<br>Uh, you know, the the long-term record<br>is sensational, but that is not a<br>product. And I've been in,<br>let's see, I've had um 200 trading days<br>times<br>80 years. And I mean, 16,000 trading<br>days. It It would be nice if every day<br>you got four opportunities or something<br>like that. And you know you could and<br>they were expected to be equally<br>attractive.<br>You know if I if I was running a numbers<br>racket you know every day would have the<br>same expectancy of that I would keep<br>40% of whatever the handle was. And so<br>the only question would be is how much<br>we transacted but we're not running that<br>kind of a business. And so we're running<br>a business which is very very very<br>opportunistic.<br>And Charlie always thought I did too<br>many things. He thought if we did about<br>five things in our lifetime we we could<br>we could uh we'd end up doing better<br>than if we did 50 and and uh and that we<br>never concentrated enough. Uh so that<br>we would rather have<br>if we've got 335 billion now in<br>treasuries,<br>we would rather have conditions that are<br>developed where we would have like 50<br>billion or something like that. But that<br>that just isn't the way the business<br>works. And<br>we have made a lot of money by not<br>wanting to be fully invested at all<br>times. And uh we don't think it's<br>improper actually for people who are<br>passive investors just to make a few<br>simple investments and sit with their<br>life uh sit for their life in them. But<br>we made the decision to be in the<br>business. So uh we think we can do a<br>little better than that<br>by behaving in a very irregular manner.<br>But if you told me that I had to invest<br>uh<br>well our<br>let's say that we have a roughly 40<br>billion a year coming in and we start<br>with 335. If you told me I had to invest<br>50 billion every year till we got down<br>to 50 billion that would be the dumbest<br>thing in the world<br>to invest in that manner. things get<br>extraordinarily attractive<br>very occasionally.<br>The long-term trend is up. Nobody knows.<br>And uh I certainly don't know. Greg<br>doesn't know. Ajet doesn't know. Nobody<br>knows what the market is going to do<br>tomorrow, next week, next month. And<br>nobody knows what business is going to<br>do tomorrow, next week, or next month.<br>But they spend all their time talking<br>about it because it's easy to talk<br>about. But it it it has no value. Uh<br>I've never found anybody I wanted to<br>listen to on the subject. And uh the on<br>the other hand, I found that leafing<br>through things like that big Japanese<br>book that I can't read anymore. Uh<br>that's a treasure hunt. And every now<br>and then you find something and<br>occasionally<br>very occasionally but it'll happen again<br>that uh I don't know when<br>it won't it could be next week it could<br>be 5 years off but it won't be 50 years<br>off. He will have we will be bombarded<br>with offerings that we'll be glad we<br>have the cash for. And it'd be a lot<br>more fun if what would happen tomorrow,<br>but it's very unlikely to happen<br>tomorrow. Very, very unlikely to happen<br>tomorrow. But it's not unlikely to<br>happen in 5 years. And then it gets the<br>probabilities get higher as you go<br>along. It's kind of like death. I mean,<br>if you're 10 years old, the chances that<br>you're going to die the next day are<br>low. If you get to be<br>15 or something like that, it's almost a<br>cinch.<br>Particularly if you're a male. I mean,<br>all the records are held by females in<br>terms of age. And uh<br>I tried to get Charlie to have a sex<br>change so he could test out whether<br>and uh<br>he did pretty well for being a male.<br>I'll put it that way.