An advanced market economy

Buffett believes the market economy has become more and more “specialized” with “economic rewards flowing to people with specialized talents.” This, he says, has caused the wealth gap with many people barely getting by while others thrive.

“It was an agrarian economy a couple hundred years ago,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Very hard, you know, to get 20 times the wealth of the next guy because you were a little bit better farmer. But if you’re better at some skills now, you can become incredibly wealthy at a very young age … You get to capitalize [the] value of an idea. And so the wealth moves big time, even on an anticipatory basis.”

Now, he says, there’s a “mismatch” between the requirements of attractive jobs and the skills of the early American labor force, which is “simply a consequence of an economic engine that constantly requires more high-order talents while reducing the need for commodity-like tasks.”

The brutal truth, he says, is that “a great many people” will be left behind in an advanced economic system.

According to him, the solution is the right economic policies. “First, we should wish, in our rich society, for every person who is willing to work to receive income that will provide him or her a decent lifestyle. Second, any plan to do that should not distort our market system, the key element required for growth and prosperity,” he wrote.

Simply put, he thinks it’s difficult for average Americans to earn their way to significant wealth. Investing offers a simpler way of securing your financial future and growing your money in this specialized market-based economy.

Buffett’s advice to people is “just keep buying” and ignore “jabbering” about the market. In an interview with PBS, he said, “They should be willing to bet on America … They should just keep buying and buying and buying a little bit of America as they go along. And 30 or 40 years from now, they will have a lot of money.”