Blake Hampton

This may sound weird, but Ajit's mannerisms while he's speaking make him so interesting to listen to and watch.

Ajit is awesome. I would love to hear him answer more questions. That activist girl represents exactly the kind of thinking that got Trump elected. We need to find a way to cut off the oil and gas to all these ignorant people who think Berkshire is "destroying their future" by using it. I'm curious to see how long they'd last. It seems Californian thinking has reached the Midwest.

I'm sure that rising prices and safety net cuts will alleviate their concerns.

All I know is that logic, data, and math have been thrown out the window by a large share of our population. This is also dangerous. We are living through an epistemic crisis.

I actually just got married a couple of weeks ago. On the day before my wedding, I sat at a table on my back porch and shared some beer with three of my boomer relatives: my uncle, my dad, and my fiancé's dad. I love them all to death of course and think they're all quite smart, and all three of them support Trump. We sat out there for a few hours and debated politics and some finance/economics. It was respectful and overall a good and insightful experience. Some of the stuff they believe I think is quite crazy. I even got my uncle to say at one point that America should simply "kill them all" when it came to Iran. I also think he is probably the smartest of the bunch. He was an executive-level engineer at GM. My fiancé's dad was an operations manager at Goodyear. People on both sides of the political divide see the world so differently than one another. I think this is dangerous. I also personally think Republicans lost their grip on reality a while ago, but Democrats seem to me to be quickly bridging the gap. @dealraker once made the point that I'll likely be even less impressed with our next leader following Trump, that is if he doesn't decide to be our forever leader lol. Deal may very well be right. Maybe some of the worst things Trump is currently doing are the ones surrounding precedent. Maybe we have even worse things in store from someone anew building on top of what Trump has already done.

I'm 100% certain that Mr. Abel will be a great manager for Berkshire, but goddamn it if I'm not sad that Buffett won't be on that stage tomorrow. I heard someone say that we shouldn't expect Greg to sit up there and opine about the world like Buffett did. And it's so sad to me because I think that's exactly what the world needs right now more than ever. Buffett's wisdom will be so sorely missed. God bless that man.

Also: "In 2010, Iran said it would begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent — ostensibly to make fuel for a research reactor. This level is the official dividing line between civilian and military uses. In 2015, Iran and six nations led by the United States reached an accord that limited the purity of its enriched uranium to 3.67 percent and the size of its stockpile for 15 years. Under the deal, Tehran shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium, or 12.5 tons, and restricted the size of its stockpile to under 660 pounds."

FAKE NEWS!!!

NYT: How Iran Accumulated 11 Tons of Enriched Uranium "Iran lacked a single bomb’s worth of uranium in 2018, when Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact and reimposed a series of tough economic sanctions. Then Iran began to enrich above the deal’s limit, first at low enrichment levels to pressure the West and then up to 20 percent in early 2021, just before Mr. Trump left office. The Biden administration tried, unsuccessfully, to restore aspects of the abandoned deal. Throughout the negotiations, Iran enriched uranium to an unprecedented level of up to 60 percent — a hairsbreadth away from the preferred grade for atom bombs. With Mr. Trump again in office in 2025, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium grew at the fastest rate since the International Atomic Energy Agency started reporting."

See The Economist is saying that oil markets are currently in La La Land, which of course I completely agree with, but I also personally think that almost everyone and everything is in La La Land. Our president most of all.

I think Warsh simply has Trump fooled. It may soon get very interesting when Trump finally realizes he made another mistake. Trump isn't much of a reader, he's about as ignorant as they come. Probably not that difficult of a guy to make a fool out of.

The only thing still dumb enough to believe anything Trump says is the stock market.

Lol: The Economist: Oil markets are still in La La land

Cubs, When I was a newborn, my dad went to prison while I lived with my mom, who has borderline personality disorder, in a Kentucky trailer park. When I was 5 or so, my parents got divorced and I moved in with my grandparents in an Oklahoma town where the median household income is a little over 60% of the national level. Basically all of the friends I had growing up were poor. Can someone please explain what an "elitist" actually is?

That's true. I think the NYT is the weakest paper among the three nationals I read. I still think it has good reporting though.

Did you read the article? Nothing in it was opinion, they were simply reporting what happened.

I personally thought that article from the NYT was incredible. I read it the first day it was in the paper. I almost couldn't believe that they were able to scrounge up that much information. Somebody close on the inside I think is squealing.

Congratulations. One recommendation I would give is to open up a 529 and put all the first couple of year's gifts and money towards it. On the toy front, I think that you could give a baby a spoon to play with and they'll be happy. I also think friends and family would contribute more money to something like a 529. It is the baby's future after all. The only other recommendation I would have is to be a good role model and teacher. Be a person that your kid can both depend on and look up to. Being someone who's asking for advice on a board like this, I don't think you'll have many problems.

Sorry Cubs but you're wrong. The WSJ is a factual and objective news reporting body with strong editorial standards. That is, the stuff that exists outside of the opinion section of course. Some of the stuff that finds its way in there blows my mind in its stupidity. Same with the NYT. Main Street is dumb. Many of them get their news from Facebook and the various other social media platforms, a lot of which isn't news at all. Most of that stuff is actually biased horseshit and lies masquerading itself as news. I think this problem has increased exponentially over time, will likely keep getting worse, and is responsible for a lot of the political environment we now live in. Up has become down. Blue has now become red. A lot of people today aren't even able to agree on the factual reality of things, let alone the difficult solutions required for our serious and growing problems. Read The Economist.

So right before Trump was elected in 2024, the WSJ EB was basically sucking the guy off. But now that he's in charge and causing chaos, and of course the WSJ has to now report on the objective reality of that chaos, it has become a machine for liberal propaganda and conspiracy. It has now obtained the dreaded moniker of being "fake news."

Or if you prefer:

The real news:

It’s funny because even the Wall Street Journal is now being dismissed as liberal propaganda.

I was howling watching Pete Buttigieg tear into Joe Kernon this morning on Squawk Box.