Warren Buffett versus Pranab Mukherjee

Interesting juxtaposition on the front page of today's Financial Times: The paper leads with Berkshire's $27 billion buyout offer for the ~77% of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and highlights this quote by Buffett:

It's an all-in wager on the future of the U.S.

That makes the bet seem a little riskier than it is, I think. The bet seems fairly agnostic about, say, the future of American manufacturing or exports. The railroad will make money shipping imports in from the ports or exports out to them. In any case, here's what the FT had below the fold: news that India sold dollars to buy 200 tons of gold. Excerpt:

Pranab Mukherjee, India's finance minister, said the acquisition reflected the power of an economy that laid claim to the fifth-largest global foreign reserves: "We have money to buy gold. We have enough foreign exchange reserves."

He contrasted India's strength with weakness elsewhere: "Europe collapsed and North America collapsed"