LC

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

What broker are you using? IBKR apparently doesn’t allow me to trade this.

I've been listening to these 80s synth inspired bands while skiing recently:

The luxury of not have a job as an adult can make life incredibly boring. Especially without kids. Speaking personally I need something to work on, I need some deadlines, I need other people to depend on me…otherwise I am just skiing and surfing and partying and frankly it can become incredibly boring and kind of lonely- even with my girlfriend. I’ll have a job until I’m 60 - otherwise I have to say I’d probably die in a skiing accident off a cliff, taking too many risks out of boredom! Money does reduce stress- if management or company culture or my colleagues piss me off I can tell them to screw off and go work elsewhere. But I don’t think I would ever quit working.

Frankly as a Nintendo shareholder I think this is positive news. I eagerly await the next Luigi spinoff featuring vigilante justice for Princess. edit: Oh, this is just pure gold. Should be in the "tell me a joke" thread: https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/luigi-mangione-ceo-shooting-mcdonalds-worker-reward-333982-20241210

Yep that's pretty much it. I have some personal funds tied up in 401k's with terrible options, I manage some family money which is locked in a variety of annuity/pension-esque types of accounts, also with limited options. Pretty much I'm choosing between a short term T-bill fund, an SP500 index fund, or a variety of other very high expense / very low performance nonsense funds. So it's just a matter of trading in/out of the SP500. But I am not a good trader so I keep it to very small, infrequent moves, just trying to generate slight alpha over the index. Edit: but otherwise @gfp I totally agree. ~70% of my freely-investible assets are in two stocks.

Well yes but for folks like myself who are stuck with a chunk of assets with very few investable options (cash vs. SP500 are the best ones) - the level of the index is important. Remember kids - don't let financial advisors convince you/your family to buy into convoluted investment structures!