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I recommend the book: "Excellent advice for living. Wisdom I wish I´d known earlier" from Kevin Kelly "The very best thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse." "If someone is trying to convince you it´s not a pyramid scheme, it´s a pyramid scheme." "Investing small amounts of money over a long time works miracles, but no one wants to get rich slow."

- Clickbait by Greg [ @Gregmal ]

if so why do people talk about 40yr investment track record, or about the long multi decade tenure of senior managers, or seek to increase management voting control. Those are all continuity things. I agree that the insurance has evolved, and is significantly larger. I also observe that interest rates are higher and appear likely to remain higher for longer, this after a protracted period of suppressed rates. They've had some recent wins in the investment side, but I remain curious on whether that's a structural change or a phase. And we won't know how their new investments turn out for years. Yet for me the first 2 items are adequate. I hope they can be average atleast in the equity side. The bar frankly isn't terribly high to generate 15% ROE from the structure they have.

OK, so humans can ultimately live on Mars, but they can't live on an earth that is 5-10 deg C warmer? Me thinks you're underestimating humans. But you're right, the robots would likely help us survive...if they chose to keep us around. Grok: An Earth that is 10∘C (18∘F) hotter than pre-industrial levels represents an extreme climate shift, akin to the Early Eocene period 50 million years ago. At this temperature, the equatorial and tropical zones would experience frequent, lethal "wet-bulb" temperatures (where heat and humidity make it physically impossible for the human body to cool itself through sweat), rendering the mid-latitudes largely uninhabitable for unprotected mammals. Furthermore, the complete melting of global ice sheets would raise sea levels by over 200 feet, entirely reshaping the continents. For humans to survive in significant numbers, civilization would have to structurally adapt. Here are three realistic scientific scenarios for how humanity could live on such an Earth: Scenario 1: The Polar Exodus (The Circumpolar Civilization) In this scenario, humanity undergoes a massive geographical migration, abandoning the tropics, subtropics, and traditional mid-latitudes (like the US, Southern Europe, and Central China) to aggregate entirely around the Arctic and Antarctic circles. The Environment: The poles, once icy wastes, transform into the planet's new temperate zones, with average annual temperatures resembling modern-day France or New England (10∘C to 15∘C). The Arctic Ocean becomes a ice-free, bustling Mediterranean-like sea. Human Life: Humanity builds high-density, highly urbanized megacities across northern Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia, Greenland, and the newly exposed bedrock of Antarctica. Agriculture & Economy: Because standard topsoil takes millennia to form, agriculture relies heavily on indoor vertical farming and massive hydroponic facilities. Outdoor farming is limited to specialized, fast-growing crops that can survive the intense, 24-hour sunlight of polar summers. The global economy centers around maritime trade across the open Arctic and the extraction of resources long buried under ice sheets. Scenario 2: The Subterranean & Nocturnal Shift (The Sub-Surface Niches) In regions closer to the equator where geopolitical or structural reasons prevent migration, humans adapt by moving underground, shifting the entire rhythm of human life away from the blisteringly hot surface. The Environment: Surface temperatures regularly exceed 50∘C (122∘F), with hyper-humid coastal zones triggering fatal wet-bulb events during the day. The surface becomes a hostile desert or an ultra-dense, chaotic jungle populated only by specialized, heat-tolerant reptiles, insects, and flora. Human Life: Civilizations carve out massive, interconnected underground subterranean cities, leveraging the earth's natural thermal insulation to maintain manageable baseload temperatures. Surface travel, heavy industry, and automated maintenance are conducted almost exclusively at night, when temperatures drop to survivable—though still oppressive—levels. Infrastructure: Humans become an indoor, technologically insulated species. Power is generated heavily via surface solar arrays (which thrive in cloudless desert belts) and routed downward to drive massive cooling, water-desalination, and air-filtration networks. Scenario 3: The Automated "Ecomodernist" Enclaves (The Controlled Biospheres) Rather than moving underground or migrating to the poles, humanity uses hyper-advanced engineering to isolate itself from the environment, constructing closed-loop, climate-controlled hyper-cities. The Environment: The planet's climate is unstable, characterized by hyper-canes (extreme category-5+ hurricanes fueled by ultra-warm oceans), massive dust storms, and unpredictable weather systems that destroy traditional infrastructure. Human Life: Humans live inside heavily fortified, dome-covered megastructures or sealed architectural enclaves. These cities operate like permanent space colonies on Earth, dynamically regulating internal temperature, humidity, and atmospheric composition. The Technological Lifecycle: Human survival depends entirely on automated AI systems, advanced robotics, and nuclear or fusion power to maintain the colossal energy grids required for life support. Raw materials are gathered from the harsh outside world via automated drone fleets, and food production is entirely synthesized in industrial lab facilities (cellular agriculture, bioreactors, and synthetic protein generation), severing humanity's reliance on the outdoor biosphere.

I was so excited to see who would be the subject of this thread title, I was not disappointed!

Yeah we did what we needed to, strange we still win the group with only 5 points but I'll take it! Now let's see how we fair against better teams...

My view is investors need to be rational when they invest. There are times when it makes sense to own shares. And there are times when it doesn’t make sense to own shares. This is not specific to Fairfax - it is true of most investments. I never really viewed Fairfax as buy and hold in the past (pre-2020). Given how the company is structured today with both insurance and investments (and how they are executing) that is changing for me. I don’t think the version of Fairfax that exists today has ever existed in the past. That makes comparing the Fairfax of today to past versions difficult - I am not sure what it really teaches.

At Pride? Definitely stuff being jammed down throats! And most are probably closeted Christian/Catholic right wingers! Cheers!

They showed up! Cheers!

He's not entirely wrong. If we can't even protect the environment ideally suited for us because we are essentially parasites, what makes us think travelling deca-millions of miles to Mars is a good idea? Unlike our favorite sci-fi films, It's likely society will be wiped out before we form even a proper base colony on any planet with long-term potential for the survival of the human species! AI/robotics will be humanity's legacy in terms of remembering that the human species even existed and the more likely colonizer of other worlds! Cheers!

Grantham is certainly a nut job. His crazy and glaringly unscientific obsession with "climate change" is evidence of it. A Grantham quote from an interview in 2022: "It strikes me as utterly trivial and only producible by economists. [...] The guy who got the Nobel Prize for it [William Nordhaus], for his work on climate change — actually he spelled it out. He said, 'Even if there was 10 degrees centigrade, it would only cost something in the range of 10 percent of GDP.' To which I say, 'Dudes, we will be long gone as a species at 10 degrees centigrade.' It is quite obvious at 1.1 [°C] that we are already having trouble. At 2, we will be struggling and societies will fail here, there, and everywhere. At 3, in a sense, forget about it [...] At 10 degrees . . . You cannot find a serious climate scientist who would bet that society, as we know it on a global basis, will still be around at 5 degrees centigrade. I have met a lot of them, and I ask them this question. Not one thinks we have any material chance of a stable society at 5 degrees centigrade." https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jeremy-grantham/ In a 2012 Nature commentary, he urged climate scientists: "Be persuasive. Be brave. Be arrested if necessary. This is not only the crisis of your lives — it is also the crisis of our species' existence." He argued understatement is more dangerous than overstatement for this issue. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2012/11/financier-jeremy-granthams-be-brave-advice-to-climate-scientists/

It's just great!, @Paarslaars!

Is this a usual way talking about, dubbing European tourists in USA among Americans? - I'm just asking.

HaHa! [-Fun at 5:30 AM here Saturday morning! -Best part of the day in the heat wave!] -I suppose it is Greg @Gregmal, NJ, not Greg [ @Gregmal ], NW FL [Joe Land], posting

The dildo of consequences rarely comes lubed.

If you have a choice between flight and fight, choose flight every time.

I am afraid that you are thirty years too late. I would argue that given the insane immigration, UK, Ireland, France, et all are low trust societies today. If you go to a small town in the US, you will see a high trust society, NYC is not a good representative of the country as a whole.

I love how all the left-wingers who claim to be open minded always insist on jamming their values down other people's throats.

Yes

Yet EU's GDP is 2/3 of US GDP. US is clearly leading in market cap and hyper-growth startups. What's the comparison of Mittelstand?

Spek, I know plenty of people who summer in the Hamptons every year for two months and have not been to Europe in decades. Check out how much it costs to rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer, compare it to the cost of spending two months in Greece/Spain/Portugal/Italy. You will see that it's not the lack of money, it's the lack of desire to stand in two hour security lines in Paris Airports, zero air conditioning in Europe, and having to buy timed tickets to visit any sort of attraction in Europe these days. Europe is dirt cheap compared to the US. When my first son was born, I wanted to take the family to Maine for the summer, when I looked at prices, I realized that it would be cheaper to fly business class and stay in Ritz Carlton in Spain than to stay in Class B hotel in Maine. It's not that Americans cannot afford to go to Europe, it's just most don't value what you get in Europe - European culture, heritage, architecture and food.

My point was in the face of our pessimistic atmosphere, foreign visitors seem to be having a very positive experience. “And in the middle of this humid, oppressive gloom? An unexpected, fresh burst of globalized joy, a spasm of multiracial harmony, and the real shocker: a broad, genuine outburst of love for this country, its big-hearted people, and its unsung prosperity. No one expected the World Cup to be much of a draw this year, and many were afraid it would be an almighty flop, given the global atmosphere and you-know-who. But here we are. It’s the one obvious, uplifting, positive thing going on, and it feels like a fucking tonic.”

Alright up at 5AM to watch the Belgium game, they better show up this time!

Totally. You can always tell the finance guys by the ones whom make money every which way but from the actual investments working out. Fees, marketing, newsletters. That s what I found ironic about all the Elon Musk hate. These guys who are mainly just leeches are pissed that their button push wasn’t successful so they root against, bemoan, and routinely slander a guy who’s created more on any random Tuesday than they will in their entire lives….