<story><title>See&apos;s Candies is Warren Buffett’s ‘dream’ investment</title><url>https://thehustle.co/how-a-small-candy-company-became-warren-buffetts-dream-investment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Competition generally eliminates these kinds of margins.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s last-century thinking, from when manufacturing cost dominated. Today, it&amp;#x27;s all about building a monopoly and crushing any new entrants. Comcast. Apple. Google. Facebook. CVS. The US is down to four big banks.</text></item><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>is there branding to this? Because if Vitamin C is 10 bucks in bulk and 100 bucks in drug stores I&amp;#x27;m about to open a 50 bucks vitamin C store in the US. Competition generally eliminates these kinds of margins. Quick check here on the German Amazon you can get Vitamin C ranging from 13€&amp;#x2F;kilogram to 117€&amp;#x2F;kilogram, they show that ratio explicitly.&lt;p&gt;If people want to pay 10x for the fancy bottle and name they can but I don&amp;#x27;t think they lack the alternatives.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s the slow and steady increase in prices that made it so profitable. About 5x over inflation during Buffett ownership.&lt;p&gt;This has happened to far too many items over the last few decades. Most of the things drugstores sell are cheap to make, but have steadily increased in price in the US over the last few decades. Vitamins used to be priced according to manufacturing cost.  Slowly, the low-cost vitamins have been up-priced to match the expensive ones. Vitamin C is about $10&amp;#x2F;Kg in bulk, but about $100&amp;#x2F;Kg at a US drugstore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s not last century thinking. You can&amp;#x27;t create any monopoly for generic drugs, by definition. You&amp;#x27;re not even forced to buy an an expensive Apple or Google phone. You can buy a 200-300 dollar phone with more than decent specs. They reason why people are running around with 1k phones is because it&amp;#x27;s a status symbol.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s exactly this century where you can buy anything at manufacturing cost from India or China if you want to, there&amp;#x27;s an entire political class upset about it.&lt;p&gt;I mean I&amp;#x27;ll give you Comcast, ISPs in the US in particular seem bad, but otherwise? Digital and electronic goods in particular have been driven down to the marginal cost of production, that&amp;#x27;s why 90% of the former are free.</text></comment>
<story><title>See&apos;s Candies is Warren Buffett’s ‘dream’ investment</title><url>https://thehustle.co/how-a-small-candy-company-became-warren-buffetts-dream-investment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Competition generally eliminates these kinds of margins.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s last-century thinking, from when manufacturing cost dominated. Today, it&amp;#x27;s all about building a monopoly and crushing any new entrants. Comcast. Apple. Google. Facebook. CVS. The US is down to four big banks.</text></item><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>is there branding to this? Because if Vitamin C is 10 bucks in bulk and 100 bucks in drug stores I&amp;#x27;m about to open a 50 bucks vitamin C store in the US. Competition generally eliminates these kinds of margins. Quick check here on the German Amazon you can get Vitamin C ranging from 13€&amp;#x2F;kilogram to 117€&amp;#x2F;kilogram, they show that ratio explicitly.&lt;p&gt;If people want to pay 10x for the fancy bottle and name they can but I don&amp;#x27;t think they lack the alternatives.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s the slow and steady increase in prices that made it so profitable. About 5x over inflation during Buffett ownership.&lt;p&gt;This has happened to far too many items over the last few decades. Most of the things drugstores sell are cheap to make, but have steadily increased in price in the US over the last few decades. Vitamins used to be priced according to manufacturing cost.  Slowly, the low-cost vitamins have been up-priced to match the expensive ones. Vitamin C is about $10&amp;#x2F;Kg in bulk, but about $100&amp;#x2F;Kg at a US drugstore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>daniel-cussen</author><text>Yeah I just mentioned Comcast and a hospital, along with Wells Fargo.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=31384732&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=31384732&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t say the money is like magnetically charged. It&amp;#x27;s not the money is attracted to the north. It&amp;#x27;s the people, an asshole whose idea of invention is coming up with excuses, couldn&amp;#x27;t come up with shit if he cleaned up after his dog for once. Wants what is rightfully for innovators (creation of wealth that can scale, through thought that can be imprinted many times) and tries to corner a market. It always has a name, it&amp;#x27;s not an organic thing, there is always a guilty party. Not ISP&amp;#x27;s, Comcast. Not local banking, Wells Fargo. Not healthcare, Christus.
Say it, corner the market. They&amp;#x27;re trying to corner the market. The markets have been cornered.&amp;quot;</text></comment>