Paul Volcker

Paul Volcker was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve during the early 1980s. In the 1981 Letter, Buffett applauded his efforts to curb inflation.

📉 Fighting Inflation

Volcker is credited with significantly raising interest rates to combat the high inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Crossbar: Volcker's high interest rates elevated the "crossbar" of passive returns (bond yields) that companies had to clear to be considered "good" businesses.

🔗 Connections

Concept: The Crossbar, Inflation Tax
Period: Era 3 - The Big Four & Capital Allocation (1981-2010)

📚 Historical Mentions & Citations (1)

Click a reference document below to expand and read the exact paragraph(s) containing this concept in the archive.

🎙️

2020 MeetingExcerpt Available

▼

And to the great credit of (Federal Reserve Chair) Jay Powell — I’ve always had (former Fed chair) Paul Volcker up on a special place — a special pedestal — in terms of Federal Reserve chairmen over the years — we’ve had a lot of very good Fed chairmen, but Paul Volcker, I had him at the top of the list. And I’ll recommend another book. Paul Volcker died about — here — I don’t know, less than maybe a year ago or a little less. But not much before he died, he wrote a book called “Keeping At It.” If you call my friends at the Bookworm, I think you’ll enjoy reading that book. Paul Volcker was a giant in many ways. He was a big guy, too.

View Source Digest →