Well, it looks like the holder of the metal has beat the pants off the sages in this decade. A decade! That's a long time. It must be galling to both these guys, to think that they could have sold their company and retired at the turn of the century and put all their retirement savings into gold and been even richer today!

Think of the significance of these data. One of the most important financial industrial conglomerates generating thousands of jobs and providing needed services to the world returned about half the return of the same original value of a dumb hunk of metal sitting in some vault somewhere, enriching no one but its owner.

There is something going on out there. This is just too weird.

Warren and Charlie have an ax to grind; the current system has been very, very good to them (and their shareholders). They will say or do anything that keep things as they are. And yet it will be these very actions, taken as a whole, that will feed the fire under gold and hence devalue their own position.

The tides will eventually go where they will in spite of the machinations of the powerful.

But for now, I vote to keep the Berkshire; but let's not kid ourselves. The wealth this company represents is dependent upon the status quo. It is the antithesis of gold.

CASEY DISPATCH