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Rainforesthiker

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Everything posted by Rainforesthiker

  1. Anything in-particular from this year's presentation? The stock seems a bit expensive to me here. I wouldn't say anything in particular. I was just reminded what a well run company this is, with very shareholder-oriented management and good insurance and investment teams. I have held off buying because the stock did seem fairly priced to perhaps a bit overpriced. But I think they are a long term compounder that I am happy to hold for a long long time, most likely the rest of my life. And if they continue to compound decently, 20 - 30 years from now my entry point won't matter that much. I didn't want this stock to be like a Berkshire or a Walmart where you are waiting for it to get cheap and end up waiting a very long time and never buying.
  2. I added to my Markel position. Every time I hear their investor presentation in Omaha I have to buy more.
  3. Growth in the money supply is certainly inflationary. But there have been huge deflationary pressures at the same time to offset this, primarily the hundreds of millions of people entering the middle class in the last 30 years (mostly in China) and generating wealth, and all producing goods and services at a lower cost than those in the West would have. These deflationary pressures will eventually ease, and then I think we will be in for a bit of inflation.
  4. Somehow, your new board signature has a lot of appeal to me, Jeff! :)
  5. Bought a 5% position in DISCK (Discovery Communications) after the recent sell-off
  6. Mostly Berkshire, BAM, Markel and Fairfax
  7. Over the last month built a large position in BAM (now second largest position). Bought Teekay Offshore Partners (TOO) a few weeks ago; Sold down a lot more EZPW recently
  8. So basically take a 100% loss on it? Ouch. I just went through this with my Dad; he managed to assign it back to the time share company. A timeshare is a liability, not an asset.
  9. Assume you are correct on all points...even though hundreds of thousands of protesters disagree with you, including a number of Republican party members, supporters and well-known Conservatives. You are telling me that this President's conduct so far, his compulsive tweeting, choice of words when characterising those that disagree with him, and the ridiculously inane and incompetent way he has executed this travel ban, doesn't worry you in the slightest? Top brass at the borders, Department of Homeland Security, foreign embassies, travel bureaus, you name it...had no idea what this ban meant and how to enforce it. Citizens, green card holders, children, etc were held at borders or denied entry. This was a major f**k up. Sears executes their retail business with more competency! Cheers! George Bush, Obama and Hillary's State Department bomb and kill thousands of Muslims with unprecedented drone strikes, destroy entire countries, slaughter people in Iraq, create starvation in Yemen, and create this entire refugee crisis to begin with, and yet I don't recall any mass protests about that . . . But now your main worry is about how a travel ban was implemented. Do you not see that perhaps your moral compass is a little askew?
  10. Geez if you want to go political do it on a political thread; we don't need this on investing threads . . .
  11. How many people were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by these illegals? Compare that number to how many were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by guns? Restricting illegals or firearms...which would have more impact on the safety, livelihood and freedoms of Americans? I'm also guessing restrictions on firearms would be far cheaper than the $25B that is going to be spent on a wall! Cheers! IMO, an example of availability bias, the seen vs. the unseen, first level thinking. Looking at the 20th century how many people were murdered by state governments, many of whom after first being disarmed by those same governments? About 140 million or so. Those lives never enter into the equation of the gun control debate. But they should. If anyone really feels safer with only officers of the state owning firearms, then I would point to history - it hasn't worked out so well for those who surrender to the state and voluntarily disarm themselves. To answer your question, minor gun control regulations don't really do anything to reduce gun crime (see Chicago), but just make people feel like they are "doing something" and it harasses law-abiding gun owners. Outright ban of guns (a la the UK), likely would reduce gun crime (not overall crime) but would considerably increase the risk of future genocide, and leave citizens defenseless when large scale civil unrest occurs. (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-attacks-guns-idUSKCN10Y19U?il=0) No solution is perfect. But I would rather go down with the civil liberties ship than risk my fate disarmed against any state government.
  12. "Bill Clinton 1995 State of the Union immigration comments"
  13. I am a libertarian and voted third party, but I will answer your questions from my perspective: 1). I think the MSM was incredibly biased during the campaign, and think it makes sense for the Trump administration to hold the media accountable on day one. (Note that I am not sure where the truth lies on this particular issue) 2). I think he should release his tax returns, but I don't care that much. I think it most likely that he is not releasing them because they would show that he had a large amount of losses years ago and has not paid taxes in many years because of that. He knows it would be good fodder for his opponents. You can't view Trump's election victory in the abstract, but only relative to his opponent. Hillary was 100% bad - a big government politician and a warmonger to boot. Trump might actually do some useful things, such as reducing regulations, returning education to the states, reducing bureaucracy, etc., and may even be less interventionist in foreign affairs (I hope). I agree that this election was about the lesser of two evils; I just think Trump was the lesser evil here. Time will tell.
  14. Is the Edward Jones advisor younger than your MIL and good looking? That might explain it.
  15. Is there a way to read this without having a Barron's subscription?
  16. A good thing for what. Not believing science or the scientific method, definitely Pruitt, as in putting the fox in the hen house!! Well basically yes. In an evil genius/tough love kind of way. You have tons of people crapping on the EPA but they've been enjoying the benefits of the EPA like clean air and water. So if Pruitt dismantles the EPA and you get a whole bunch of crap in the water, then people will actually get a very good view what the EPA is good for and we can move past that debate. Yes, people will get hurt. But this is what they wanted right? Now they can have it. On a side-note they're all ideologues. If you didn't get Pruitt you'd get some other guy with the same beliefs who would do the same thing but quietly. Pruitt is loud and in your face so now people can connect the dots. They may they may try to defang the EPA for awhile. But the moment we get another Flint that will be the end of that. And then the dumb prick will have to resign and Trump will blame him for everything. I dont see corporations in the US suddenly rolling back their pollution control plans just because they can. A few might, and they will face the huge cost of playing catchup in four years when you have a democrat president, democrat senate, and democrat house, for the next twelve years because the republicans at all levels created such a fckup. . Or, My sense is that Republicans in Congress want to get reelected. They are going to block the scumbag PE everytime he does something that hampers their chances. Remember, this fckhead got elected by a minority. The republicans have a real mess on their hands. Be careful what you wish for. The dems can sit tight and vote any way they like, that suits their constituents, and and then blame the reps, for all the screwups. For the Dems, this is a sweet spot to be sitting in. Take the time and renew the party without the Clinton baggage. Many of you might be too young to remember, but many Chicken Littles said the same thing when Reagan appointed James Watt as Interior Secretary, and things turned out fine. There was a good op ed in the WSJ about the new EPA guy as rolling back some of the federal overreach and restoring more of a balance between federal and state oversight of the environment. Remember, Flint happened under our current EPA. If Flint had happened under Trump everyone would be screaming bloody murder. (and btw I did not vote for Trump; I just see mindless hysteria from some in the opposition to everything he does, kinda like the reverse halo effect)
  17. See that sounds really good when you say it but it turns out that it's empirically wrong for a host of reasons. So I'll stick with what's been proven to work instead of going with what's supposed to work but doesn't. Yeah, you're right; free markets don't work. What was I thinking. There has not been a free market in healthcare for about 100 years now. But it worked quite well when it existed. Can you imagine how stupid it would be to have a single-payer system in virtually any other product or service? How about a single-payer system for buying cars, or stocks? But yet people think it oughta work just fine in healthcare. Go figure.
  18. I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian. Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative. I fall in the same bucket of socially liberal and fiscally conservative. And yea fiscally conservative and Libertarian are definitely not the same thing. Libertarians seem to have an allergy to paying taxes no matter what the outcome. As a fiscal conservative I'm in favor of efficiency. In favour of the government doing what it does best and no more. For example I'm in favor of single payer health care because it's delivered cheaper not because of a great love of government. I don't care if I pay my money to the gov't or to an insurance company. But I'm not in favor of gov't run airlines. The private sector has done that very efficiently and it should stay that way. I'm also not ok with massive surveillance programs where you have armies of employees/contractors that get fat paychecks to read my email. Also as a fiscal conservative I am also looking for the gov't to keep its fiscal position roughly in balance over a cycle. By no means does that mean a balanced budget mandate. I recognize that during bad times the gov't needs to run deficits but those should be balanced by surpluses during good times. It definitely doesn't mean it ok to hand out tax cuts like Halloween candy to top earners early and often. Definitely not when you're running deficits. I believe that those views have a whiff of libertarianism in them, but with views like that I'm pretty far from actual libertarians. " in favor of single-payer healthcare because it's delivered cheaper?" With single-payer healthcare, there is absolutely no incentive on the consumer to shop for prices or control costs. It is very inefficient.
  19. I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian. Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative. Or perhaps you just need to understand libertarianism better . . .
  20. Let me make this very simple for you. How are you going to enforce property rights and make murder illegal without a government and a legal system, and who will pay for those costs? In math, the most common way to prove something is true is to assume it isn't true, and then show that that assumption leads to a contradiction. That's why you're frustrated. You've assumed property rights and without government or taxation, and that leads to a very simple contradiction. You really want to be able to say with a clear conscience that taxation is stealing and also want to believe in property rights and basic legal protection. Yet you can't get property rights and legal protections without the government and taxes. Darn. It can be really annoying when you realize that a core belief leads to a contradiction. When people with intellectual honesty run into such a sticky situation, they change their core belief, but in your case, I recommend just waving your hands and whining that nobody's taking your argument seriously. Dude, shhh... don't try to relitigate. I already got the libertarians to admit that the state/government can add value/crate wealth by establishment of law and property rights. That was like 6 pages back or whatever. I don't know if it means much, but when the libertarians admit that the government is useful just that's a pretty big thing. I was surprised myself at that. Lol, just take a win and leave it. Move on to the next fight. Perhaps you are referring to my comment. Some libertarians believe in a small role for the state wrt rule of law, property rights and defense. Some are more of the anarcho-capitalist mold which believe in a different form of organization than the state based more on private mutual cooperation. For example, despite my comments above, I think it very possible that a private law enforcement model, paid in the form of insurance premiums, would be better than our current tax / law enforcement from the state. Also, given the propensity of governments to assume ever greater amounts of power and ultimately start wars or commit genocide, and given my belief in the power and importance of individual liberty, I think in general the less state the better. Since this is supposed to be an investing forum, this whole thread seems to be a large distraction. I will say no more on this subject here. Good luck.
  21. That place doesn't exist and I never claimed it did. I never said anything about rule of law and strong private property rights. That's the cognitive dissonance I was trying to point out. Once you're talking about rule of law and strong private property rights you're talking about state, government, and taxes to pay for it. Btw, since you're looking for those things, which are provided by the state/government. I'd argue that it's exhibit number 1 that the state can contribute to the standard of living and the creation of wealth. I never said there was no role for the State; my point was that our current manifestation of the State, far beyond what our Founding Fathers envisioned or the Constitution literally allows, hugely infringes on our personal liberty. In the prior discussion you seemed to be arguing for all of the taxes and government regulations currently proffered by our DC overlords. Government should be for the most part limited to enforcing the rule of law / property rights and defense. When it does more than that, by and large it destroys both our standard of living and liberty.
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