Byrne Hobart

Andrew Walker × Byrne Hobart

Early Buffett’s repeatable edge was “cigar butts plus control” or buying businesses amid company-specific distress, not simply owning mature compounders.Sanborn Map and Dempster Mill show activism and liquidation supplying the catalyst, while GEICO and The Washington Post illustrate crisis-created entry prices.Salomon and LTCM suggest crisis expertise could become valuable, but the missed roughly $3 billion immediate LTCM opportunity highlights execution risk.

Andrew Walker × Byrne Hobart

Irwin’s history finds tariffs imposed deadweight loss but often “not that big a deal,” while containerization and integrated intermediate-goods networks make that reassurance an imperfect guide to today.Protection then becomes a slow political attrition contest favoring marginal producers, with Trump’s unusual Republican alignment, presidential discretion, and the unmeasured value of US security and dollar assets leaving modern incidence and durability unresolved.

Andrew Walker × Byrne Hobart

Expertise offered a probabilistic edge, not immunity from error, as the manager’s March 2008 calls show.Systemic crisis emerged when uncertainty over AAA collateral seized financial plumbing, while cheap funding scaled tiny credit-pricing errors into concentrated books.Hobart says AI economics do not support capex, though shorter asset duration may limit losses; peak spending could be depreciated by 2030 or 2031.