Stay away from the dollar.
That's the advice from the Oracle of Omaha this year to investors in his investment group Berkshire Hathaway.
"Our country's trade practices are weighing the dollar down. The decline in its value has already been substantial, but it is nevertheless likely to continue. Without policy changes, currency markets could even become disorderly and generate spillover effects, both political and financial," Buffett said.
"Americans end up owning a reduced portion of our country while non-Americans own a greater part. This force-feeding of American wealth to the rest of the world is now proceeding at the rate of $1.8 billion daily ... consequently, other countries and their citizens now own a net of about $3 trillion of the U.S. A decade ago their net ownership was negligible," Buffett said. He added that if foreign investors were to earn 5 percent on the net holding, then the United States needs to send $5.55 trillion of goods and services abroad every year to service the U.S. investments then held by foreigners, which means that 3 percent of its annual output would be going offshore.
Not only that, "as time passes, and as claims against us grow, we own less and less of what we produce. In effect, the rest of the world enjoys an ever-growing royalty on American output ... we are like a family that consistently overspends its income. As time passes, the family finds that it is working more and more for the 'finance company' and less for itself," Buffett said.
linkAre we fucked yet?