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Who in their right mind doesn't see that 100 today is not 100 in 50 years. The 100 year Austrian bond was the height of lunacy as if Austria will be a Sovern nation in 100 years anyway? People who lend, banks ect are playing a different game with different ideas. Buffett buys treasuries to earn a bit while waiting for something real to come by like a railroad. He doesn't do it to make 1-5% Lending money long term is tough to understand unless the rates far exceed the level of inflation. In the 70's a big mac was less than 50 cents, today its 10x that or more. Our paper/ digit money looses value every day and has for a long time. Gold was 154 in 1974 today its 2400. Gold is money, paper or digits is just for transactions. Does it matter what the transaction number is? 10-100-1000 its just a digit. Will my house cost 18 million Canadian in 50 years, maybe maybe not who cares as long as its roughly the same value as today. I bet it will, gas will be 12 bucks a L, gold 25k OZ. all just a number. What we should care about is life expectancy, number of people starving, happiness, wars, have the leaf's won the cup ect

Parsad, thanks for the notes on the AGM. I was there this year, nice to see/meet so many of the managers of FFH companies and managers of some of the larger investees. 2 things really jumped out at me this year. Firstly, more discussion on buying better businesses and letting compounding work its magic ( a la, BRK). Second, I think I heard Prem correctly, when he said they only need a 5% return on the investment portfolio to achieve their 15% growth in BV hurdle. The 30 year return has been 7.7%CAGR. It reinforces how they just need to keep hitting singles and doubles for this to be a REALLY good investment over time. A few home-runs will just be icing on the cake. The discussion on owning financials (and the 2.5x multiplier effect) in a growing economy was very interesting as well. Hard not to get excited about India for the next couple decades.

What stood out to me: Their expertise in India and how well the bial team is executing Buffett and Jain tried to set up an insurance operation in India and gave up. I am sure they tried to invest there and found out it was too difficult. This is of course from 2010, before Modi. I would say that Watsa has been highly successful instead and it does get enough credit for this. He saw the opportunity and positioned fairfax to succeed. Bial becoming a hub for airlines in the south of India is a great accomplishment Sokol made me jump from my chair: I was not expecting that kind of growth from Atlas "we don't forecast, we react and we are fast": great line and great example with the $1B issuance not being possible today The fact that FFH might be less dependent on investment gains going forward and their improved ability to absorb cat losses: I liked that whole segment. I don't think we are there already but it is a promising start especially if they tilt their investment strategy in that direction G