Marco Van Basten

Your argument about sales tax is disingenuous, sales tax may have been there for a long time, although it was 8% in 1980, but you did not have city income tax 60 years ago. More importantly, it along with excise taxes (telephone, etc...) takes a huge bite out one's cashflow, even if you choose not to count it. Your tax rate only applies if somebody is not working, and his income is less than $200K per annum. Starting at $200K, marginal tax rate in NYC on qualified dividends exceeds 29%. (15% Federal + 3.8% Medicare surcharge + 3.8% city and 6.6% state) Top tax rate on qualified dividends in NYC is almost 39% (23.8% Federal + Medicare) + NYC (3.8%) + NY (10.9%). I am glad that you are happy with your tax situation, I am not and hence I am moving and so are many people in top tax brackets.

I don't know how familiar you are with what is going on in NYC. In case that you are not, here is a tidbit: my wife and I pay 60% of our income in taxes (that's the sum of NYC+NYS+Federal + Social Security + Medicare + sales tax + property tax + various excise taxes - do you know that more than 20% of my UBER bill goes to taxes?). Now, this figure is even larger for those who have their own businesses due to a 5% city tax on unincorporated business and MTCMT (although if you have partners, you can try to use PTET to offset some of it, however I expect the PTET gains to be clawed by back the city and state starting in 2027 as Mamdani proposed.) Keep in mind, that my wife and are NOT in the top tax bracket in NYS. For those, the figures are even higher. Yes, there is an exodus of high income taxpayers out of NYC, you can see it in the statistics. It just takes time as people wait for kids to finish school for instance. My former boss is moving his 170 person company out of NYC to Florida later this year, as his youngest graduates from high school and he and his wife move to Florida. This is not an isolated case. I know several other people who run consulting/finance businesses that are waiting for kids to graduate to move out of the city and take their businesses with them to Florida.

Could you please share the name?

I think if you mark to market its portfolio, it is closer to 1.1x BVPS.

I would add AENA in Spain, 5% dividend yield that should grow comfortably ahead of inflation.

Not necessarily. You can have margin expansion and without higher unemployment. First of all, in the US, without immigration, labor force is unlikely to grow. We also have millions of jobs begging for workers: doctors, nurses, assistants in nursing homes, plumbers/electricians/carpenters/masons, and the list goes on. So you could have millions of people switch from wasting time in college studying imperialism in Islam and then complaining that they can't find a job to doing something productive for society.

Why? There are 10% of shares sold short, historically stocks with a high short interest do not do well. Do you know the short thesis?

There is a difference between an assassination attempt on a politician and a terrorist attack aimed at ordinary people. Essentially all of assassination attempts aimed at politicians in the US happen to be aimed at Republicans.

Really? Care to provide data?

Hasan Piker who Democrats like to campaign with, openly calls for murdering capitalists. I don't recall Republicans campaigning with people who called for murdering opponents. By the way, Democrats have a history of political violence - it was a Democrat who shot up a baseball game that Congressional Republicans were playing.

You have also forgotten the Rotherham grooming scandal and the impact of immigration on the UK...

If you can afford it, hire as much help as you can - cleaning lady, housekeeper, nanny, get groceries delivered, etc... That way, you and your wife can be rested and enjoy every minute rather than be harried, exhausted and angry. We did shifts at night, I would take the 9 pm till 3 am shift, wife went to bed at 9 pm, and I would stay up working till 3 am, and then the wife would take over. Second the experiences, and nightly reading to the child. I read to my kids every evening, and I play soccer with my boys.

If I recall correctly, in the Holcim press release which announced the acquisition, Holcim promised synergies that would increase EBIT by more than 30%, and even more on the EPS line.

Sure, but you'd be surprised as to how many stocks are trading at 2017/2018 multiples - SPGI/MCO/V/MA are good examples.

Except imagine a nuclear bomb hits London. Markets collapse and your insurance asks you for capital to pay out the loss

You are conveniently forgetting how this started. It wasn't Israel that decided to attack its neighbors, its neighbors started wars and then screamed bloody murder. Israel left Lebanon in 2000 and handed over Gaza to Palestinian Authority in 2005 if I recall correctly. So what happened after that? Constant attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah culminating in October 7th massacre. It wasn't Israel attacking its neighbors, the neighbors were attacking Israel. Israel offered Gaza and 98% of West Bank to Arafat in 1999 (name another country that conquered territory and then voluntarily gave it back to the attacker) and Arafat said no. Go back to 1973, Arab nations attack Israel. Go back to 1967, Arab countries getting ready to attack. Go back to 1948, again, armies of five Arab states attacked Israel, Israel fights them off, but Jordan takes West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Egypt takes Gaza. The world does not give a damn about Palestinians under Jordanian or Egyptian rule until Israel captures them in 1967. Go back further - the Hebron massacre of 1929, historical attacks on Jews in their historical homeland during the millennia of Islamic conquest, including convert or die orders. You don't like Israel in Lebanon? Say thank you to PLO and Hezbollah. You don't like Israel controlling Judea and Samaria - say thank you to Jordan in 1967. You don't like war in Gaza - say thank you to Egypt as well as Hamas. You don't like Israel bombing Iran? Say thank you to Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas. By the way, you do realize that until 1979, Israel and Iran were buddies, and Israelis build the water system in Teheran? It wasn't the Israelis who chanted death to Iran and who started this fight in 1979, the mullahs did.

Nobody has been threatening Iran since the Iran-Iraq war. On the other hand, they have been busy meddling in Syria, threatening & meddling in Lebanon, Yemen, meddling and attacking US in Iraq, and finally sponsoring Hamas and Hezbollah knowing that their reason for existence is to wipe out Israel. Iranian finger prints were behind Jewish cultural center bombing in Argentina. So Iran has certainly not been a target vassal state, but just the opposite - a colonial power bent on dominating some neighbors and wiping out others.

I would not, none of them have any volume growth, and most don't have pricing power anymore. If you insist, take a look at Robertet in France. It is growing ahead of inflation.

You are the one with the short-term and selective memory. Iran has invaded Iraq, Pakistan, India, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Greece over the last 2,500 years. Iran kept attacking Christian Armenia, Georgia and parts of Russia and bringing back Christian captives for centuries. You want to go to 1953? See you, and raise you to 2500 BC. You would not have had this war had Iran not been pursuing nuclear weapons. It has ballistic missiles that have four thousand mile range, exactly for what peaceful purpose? Iranian regime is an existential threat to everyone on earth. This regime stated that it was worth the deaths of two hundred million Muslims to destroy little Satan, so how many Muslims would it be willing to sacrifice to destroy the US?

The wealth that could have been created in Iran would dwarf the Saudi and UAE. Forget for a second the fact that Iran has a much larger population, it has a great civilization, a tradition of scholarship, this was a great and civilized nation 2500 years ago. Its human capital is incredible.

Iran has been at war with the US since 1979, and we just began punching back. Iran has been an expansionary power and a settler colonial empire for 2500 years.

You do realize that the reason we have the Iran was is because Iran thought that Trump would TACO rather than fight back against the war Iran has been waging for 47 years? As for lack of options for US, US can simply stop any and all oil exports from Iran, let Israel destroy Iranian industry, and watch Iran just collapse.

I think that the mistake people make is that they focus on one or two things that support their thesis, without thinking about the rest. Yes, energy is up, yes food is up, yes healthcare is up, yes airplane tickets are up. However, it seems that rents are flat, housing prices seem to be roughly flat. Insurance prices should be coming down given the profits that the insurance companies have been making. 300,000 federal employees are no longer on the payroll, may be they are doing some more productive than before? Given the impact of the student loan reforms, fewer people may be going to college to get degrees in historical preservation and may be doing something productive? College costs may be coming down due to lower federal student loan limits? Food stamp work requirements may send a million or two or three people into the labor force keeping wages and prices flat? I have no idea how all of this shakes out, but everyone here seems to focus on one thing and one thing only. That is just foolish.

It is my understanding that under the Peruvian law, Holcim has to tender for the rest. If I am not mistaken, both Holcim and CPAC stated that, and so did a JP Morgan analyst. However, let's say that Holcim does not. Then you own shares that pro-forma for announced synergies, at $10.75 is trading at around 13-14% free cash flow yield to the equity, and I expect most of that be paid out as dividend. I am happy to own a cement company in Peru, in a growing cement market, controlled by Holcim, with a 13-14% free cash flow yield and paying probably a double digit dividend yield. 20% spread reference the difference between roughly $13 price that Holcim must (as far as I understand) pay per ADR vs $10.75 at which it currently trades.

Yes, twenty percent deal spread to close within six months. At thirteen dollars, it is an eleven percent free cash flow yield pro forma for synergies.