I’m looking solely at the capital allocation.

That is the core issue and your points are well made. There still seems to be a level of comfort in the shareholder group that ballooning cash reserves is a not a problem that needs to be solved and one must have "faith" and not ask the question.

Well if we have a business which is merely hoarding cash, you should equally be completely prepared to accept lower multiples. Over the last 10 years cash reserves have gone from $53b to $370b which is despite a chunk of cash being used for buybacks a few years ago. If it was any other business there would be serious questions asked about the management.

I understand the people who value not losing money over all else and are comforted by large cash holdings but I also want to see a well managed business. The money thrown off by the business is the shareholders' capital and if management does not have anything intelligent to do with it, they should give it back as Buffett himself has said repeatedly in the past.
Operationally it was good to see that Abel will likely be an upgrade in that matter. There is no evidence that that will be true for the main job which is capital allocation. In fact I have concerns that there might be a passive acceptance that this is part of the "culture" and it is perfectly OK for management to hoard excess capital and that there can be no limits applied to the size of passive capital that keeps on accumulating. I expect new management to find a way to solve the problem not to pretend that this isn't an issue that needs addressing.

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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