Blake Hampton

Now imagine that their portfolio is probably split 60/40... My father-in-law, who is 59 years old, has nearly his entire net worth invested in the following: - Large-cap US equities: 40% - 30-year government bonds: 40% - Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co (GT): 20% His advisors are a group of morons.

This is a better chart that goes back to 1959. It shows how dramatic the rise in base money has been relative to inflation. I don't really think it has that much significance, I just thought it was interesting.

Quantity of money per unit of output (I used assets at the FED instead of M2) relative to the implicit price index. Unfortunately, the measurement for total assets at the FED only goes back to 2003.

ROE is god

From the 17th through the 19th, Buffett bought almost 9 million shares of OXY stock. Since the 10-day average volume is about 14.5 million shares, that means Buffett bought approximately 20% of all the shares traded in just those three days. I find it interesting because I can recall him explaining how he bought 20% of the volume the first go-round. Is this a limit for him? Does he start experiencing problems when he tries moving above this figure? Form 4 - Buffett's OXY Purchases

My best ideas are oil and T-bills.

I think people hate oil without realizing that is the most important substance outside of oxygen and water. Climate change is bad and needs to be addressed, but oil is far too important to go away anytime soon.

Just doubled my position in OXY, the stock is currently selling near its 52-week low

When I look at pictures of these massive ghost cities, they also seem like they were built in remote and terrible places. You see these huge skyscrapers that have the capacity for thousands, but yet there is no infrastructure in sight. I'm talking about the basic things like roads, grocery outlets, and the additional items people need to survive. This is especially concerning considering the amount of people they planned on living in these places.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Chinese property bubble is actually worse than it's been portrayed? I haven't looked too hard at the details and it seems difficult to get good numbers, but it simply seems staggering to me. It's incredible that these developers got away with building entire "ghost cities." I mean my god... I was curious if anyone had any special economic insight on this mess.

Curious, did you calculate how much he would’ve lost?

This is an incredible article, thanks for posting

Also @Longnose is absolutely correct. Management always matters enormously when it comes to returning money to shareholders, but especially so with smaller companies. I’ve seen a couple of extremely cheap stocks where management absolutely refuses to do anything for shareholders. It’s quite sad really.

If my understanding is correct, the environment within a computer is brought to absolute zero (-273.15 degrees Celsius) and then they start somehow turning a 1 or 0 into both a 1 and a 0. This is crazy.

I like oil btw

A great depression would almost certainly involve problems at banks, and that's a future that I really don't enjoy thinking about. I would argue though that there are lots of people that deserve to lose their shirts. During the last few years, Buffett and Munger have stated repeatedly how they think gambling and speculation are currently dominating the markets. If we have any sort of crisis, anything involving interest rates, treasury markets, a flight to cash, or just fear in general, there are going to be a TON of individuals who aren't prepared. Suffice to say, there can be an immense amount of pain as people have to quickly come to terms with reality. Some applicable quotes: I'm only 22 years old so I can't attest to having any experience, but I will say that the people that do, the ones that I study religiously, the ones that have acquired proven track records and have been around for 40 to 60+ years, are all sounding alarm bells. It's interesting to me that very few people have actually experienced an economic environment outside of extremely loose money. At its base, money is essentially the medium for being able to live. It is the instrument in which we have created that buys food, shelter, and the necessary means for survival. It's all fun and games when it's abundant and seemingly infinite, but that notion can quickly change once people realize that it's not. Markets are almost like an extension of human emotion, changes in them can cause both extreme joy and sorrow as people question their capability to survive. I guess the inherent problem is that the VAST majority (at least 90-95%) don't understand them.

What's wrong with a pizza joint?

Suspect in C.E.O. Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise - NYT This is a very good article on the subject

Seems to me he had a bad experience regarding a spinal injury…

"Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s vice chairman and my partner, and I believe both Berkshire’s book value and intrinsic value will outperform the S&P in years when the market is down or moderately up. We expect to fall short, though, in years when the market is strong – as we did in 2013. We have underperformed in ten of our 49 years, with all but one of our shortfalls occurring when the S&P gain exceeded 15%." - Warren Buffett, 2013 shareholder letter

My theory is that almost everyone understands the general implications of past policy, being inflation, and is trying to find ways to escape it. The problem is that there is no escape, there are only better places to position yourself for what’s eventually to come. Another risk is that Trump’s cabinet destroys the dollar through interfering with the FED’s independence. Inflation also swindles the equity investor.

I strongly believe that we are just one fiscal crisis away from calamity. Something of that magnitude won’t simply be some dip that gets corrected in a couple of years, especially when you consider how markets are currently priced. However, I understand that I could always be wrong.

What you all are talking about was started in Switzerland in the 90s and it's called Heroin-Assisted Treatment (HAT). There have been many studies that prove it was highly effective. For context, back in 2015, my brother overdosed and died from Fentanyl in Cincinnati, Ohio. That whole tri-state area has been struggling with a pretty bad opioid crisis for quite some time. My brother started his addiction as a teenager on his step-father's back pain medicine, OxyContin. As he grew up, he couldn't get a hold of pills anymore so he eventually had to switch over to heroin to fill that hole. His death devastated my entire family, especially my dad. Our countries drug problem is very nuanced and complicated. The whole drug supply chain, from plants to final product, is very profitable and lucrative. The entities involved are all very incentivized to keep the cow milking, and I almost don't blame any of them. You have middle-eastern countries whose whole economy is based on harvesting poppy. On multiple occasions, the Taliban actually went around and burnt down poppy farms that almost always led to Afghanistan going through a terrible depression. A lot of Mexicans basically praise cartels because they are the only ones who they feel will take care of them. Cartel leaders such as El Chapo are idols to many. I don't know the perfect solution, but Switzerland has some good data behind it. The problem is that I'm not sure whether our congress or president even know what a study is. I do know one thing however, the Sackler family deserves to lose everything.

This video is somewhat informative

Is it possible that the U.S. dollar is simply the world’s currency at this point? This topic has always confused me, but I also think it's important as well as interesting.