LC

Most economic theory and business experience would suggest not to expect long term underwriting profitability for the industry as a whole. Large scale insurance is a commodity business, pricing is transparent, and there are many sophisticated participants. Maybe a continued string of catastrophes (Los Angeles for example) will help sustain pricing in the near term. And maybe some thesis is that climate change will create an upward shift in catastrophe frequency and/or severity. Not sure that is really knowable, however. The other long thesis is regulatory capture, which could limit entrants and protect pricing. I don't know much about that as it's state-level, I take folks like Buffett at their word when they talk about insurance industry dynamics.

Oh c'mon! Don't leave us hanging, buddy!

I think it's an underrated point. Keeping COVID gains during 2022 (IIRC I broke even - congrats on a great 2022 for you!) solidified some life changes for me. And then being able to dump a lot of that into Fairfax - worked out very well. Matching performance or outperforming during good years is of course the goal, but to extend a popular analogy - holding onto your pants when the tide pulls out is how you build wealth.

It was - Berkshire (my value market indicator) at what like 170? Such a skewed risk reward. Either the world falls apart or it doesn't. Just bet everything but the house on the world not falling apart. Leaps on everything. Should've bet the house too, not like the bank could've come to repossess it without getting within 6ft

Stumpy should be talking about taxing Russian and Chinese goods - the mutual antagonists of US and CA. In my experience a lot of Americans casually dismiss Canada, because they are ignorant of our shared history. I still wear my Poppy every year!

We threw our wedding party in prospect park - no permit (what permit?), informally catered by about 6 nyc restaurants that to this day still crush it. A never-forgotten shout out to venerio's for the best cheesecake in the city. The sister- and father- in law hauling catering size portions of food all over brooklyn via the B & Q. Did the ceremony right past a pedestrian tunnel (this one, in fact) leading to the boathouse. Weather was perfect. Musical accompaniment as provided by the busker sitting in the tunnel with a saxaphone (tipped generously). A random group of 4 firefighters, in uniform, did us a solid by holding back passer-bys for the big moment. They did unfortunately turn down our best man's offer to provide nude entertainment for the party afterwards. That was a real bummer. Partied all night at a friend's brownstone a block away, kind of trashed the place right before she sold it to some author and his wife ("is it a safe neighborhood here?"). I still remember the hash circle that my old man set up with my degenerate 20-something friends in Angela's bedroom...drugs probably dug out from his tackle box from the 70s. "Gin and juice" was the drink. Thanks, Tom - next time swap out the cucumbers for fresh ones so we're not all eating gin-soaked garnish. Sweet Sarah from Corpus Cristi (bless up) who saved us plates of food. Even the Pakistani guy who ran the bodega came by with a few packs of cigs as a wedding present. At some point a 275 lb man dressed as a hipster-lumberjack and a 120 lb woman wearing a Tigger leotard swapped outfits. I do remember pulling about 50 pins out of my then-wife's hair. My neighbors gladly hosted the afterparty. A jar of coins were stolen by a gay friend who also hit on my mother all night. Gina, Sexy Pervy Mark, and Gina's John (she was (is?) a dominatrix) I believe bought us a hotel room. It's a bit hazy of a memory. Spek, we would've got you absolutely trashed

Equal is not the goal - there will never be equal. The widening inequality is what causes these issues. That is what needs to stop or we all better get used to Fentanyl Phil on our doorstep. Taxes just stem some of the bleeding but the root cause is that we're living in an oligopoly. How do we fix that? I don't know but I'm not sure more plumbers is the answer (but to your point it's also not a bad thing, either) Education? My folks were Bronx public high school teachers and they barely made a living - probably not the union abuse you are thinking of. But they always said the biggest roadblock to teaching kids were the parents. Shitty kids generally had shitty parents. Solutions? Maybe more regulation (and enforcement) at the corporate level - cutting into corporate profits and instead distributing that as wages? I mean, haven't we seen corporate profits grow to what Buffett previously called unsustainable? I would say, probably letting Uber label drivers as "contractors", Amazon and Walmart get away with paying workers 13$/hr, doing stuff like monitoring bathroom breaks, working them so cheap that they're forced to be on welfare just to get by...that is probably is not the answer. We've got tax enforcement focused on bullshit W2s rather than complex avoidance afforded only by billionaires and billion dollar companies. What message does that send? A legal system with so many loops hoops and swoops that what is even the point...I mean isn't our convicted felon president supposed to serve a sentence? Isn't that what felons do? We've got problems up the wazoo and we've all sold out rather than try and fix them

If the goal is a large, healthy middle class, then a larger proportion of the wealth generated in this country needs to accrue to them. I assume we can both agree there. If you think the way to accomplish that is more tradespeople, less education, and less welfare, OK that's your opinion. I'll just say that over the last 30 years, the middle 60% of the US population has seen their share of national wealth shrink by 10%. Where did that 10% go? Has the bottom 20% seen their share of wealth growth by 10%? I think you know the answer here.

Take a look in the "new parent" thread. It's amazing how many folks are able to just quit their jobs, take extended (unpaid) leave...to raise a kid. And we wonder why birthrates are declining in the west. This is theCOBF where members are I assume wealthier than the average. If we want birthrates to increase in the west, the wealth curve needs to flatten and more money needs to flow to the middle classes.

Take the time off - babies are a ton of work, and can be very stressful on a relationship. The more time and energy you can dedicate solely to managing that, the better off everyone will be.

Problem is a lot of people don't know how to throw a dope party

Here's a question: if Ted outperforms and Todd doesn't, what happens? What about over a 5, 10 year horizon? What if they both collectively underperform over similar timeframes? Who holds the accountability here to shareholders?

When he was dress-up sheriff for a year, he paid a 10k “gift” to avoid doing the mandatory training hours. Dude wants to walk around carrying a gun, arresting people, with the law at his back…and won’t spend the time to prep for it? Was he a do-er as Archer-Daniels board member when they were colluding to fix prices? I’m cherry picking my criticism, but at best he is willfully ignorant (the benefit of being a billionaires son I guess). Not someone I want as “cultural successor”. Btw- What kind of job is “cultural successor”, anyways? Sounds like a BS position anyways. If it was some DEI hire this board would be up in arms. Just my two cents!

Oh boy. From playing dress-up sheriff to dress-up chairman? Warren is a great investor but his succession planning never struck me as outstanding.

koyfin is OK I find with US based resources offering Japanese info, I have to double check all the #s.

RTO back to pushing low lows.

Thanks Wayward. This one fell of my radar but I appreciate you resurfacing it.

Well I am 37 and you guys make me feel young, so thank you Still I am probably too old to ski the way I do

Yes! New year, new Pabrai bashing thread! Good to see some traditions live on. Did he ever change his license plate?

41% - Fairfax and Aecon as the big contributors. Detractors were oil and gas (basket of OXY, PBR, EC, IPCO, etc.) Another year of thanks to everyone for their contributions to this forum- Happy new year!

That is true- although they are also getting maintenance/refurb contracts which have a shorter timeframe. But I agree one needs to weigh the timeframe- it’s a good point.

Is Fairfax moving from making macro-level equity bets (deflation hedges) towards macro-level interest rate bets (extending duration position)? Not claiming the above is what they are aiming to do - but just something to think about.

Did Kuppy make it out alive? Aecon has benefitted from the nuclear "hype" as a contractor - but I am a bit curious whether it will actually play out. Are governments really going to build a lot of nuclear power? Traditionally it has been thought of as too risky.

Oh it’s bad and some people really eat it up. My old man who is at this point deliberately clueless about financial education just bought 6zeros of an annuity because “it’s a guaranteed 3% and he doesn’t have to think about it and doesn’t need the money”. Honestly I thought the annuity biz was destined to dry up as a naturally inferior product…this is what I get for overestimating the average Americans intelligence

Merry Christmas all