LC

Unrelated, there's some good stuff published with Buffett as an author: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/author/5564 Here are all the CFC articles archived, you can dig thru these: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/1339

I admittedly know little (nothing?) about blockchain technology. Was a tongue-in-cheek comment ;)

There is no reason a government couldn't issue money on a blockchain. But you know they would never relinquish control over it. It wouldn't be a mined public blockchain, it would be a private blockchain running on government servers. They would have complete control and could issue new units at will just as they do now only they would have perfect record keeping over who owns what and where they got it from. It's the IRS's dream come true. Man I really hope this happens. No more panama/paradise papers!

I exported my various portfolios to csv files. The old google finance is still working on my desktop (but not mobile). When they finally kill it, I'll probably create google sheets which auto-update, unless I can find a good online replacement.

Not a single one. ::) Which, coincidentally, is the same number of anarchists I've met who have started an anarch-state ;D I haven't read the book...but I agree with rk on this one. I'm not sure what there is to gain from reading a psycho-analysis of Trump.

I usually go with Alton brown or Serious Eats. Here's serious eats' take on mashed sweet potatoes: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/11/the-best-mashed-sweet-potatoes-recipe.html

I love cooking - Good Eats is a great program that shows a bit of science and a lot of technique. There's an awesome fan/reference website as well: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/gefp/index-topic.htm As Jacques Pepin says, "Happy Cooking!"

And for those who would rather a wet brine, I'm partial to Alton Brown's method of brining: And I've been cooking the bird this way for years:

Happy Thanksgiving!

How do you feel about the non-inflationary characteristics of bitcoin in an environment with very low inflation? The US hasn't seen much inflation in the past 5 years. What if that persists?

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

Debt is mainly due to financing the Produquimica acquisition. Recent lower than normal returns are mostly due to warm winters.

Just had a glance out of curiosity. Are you not worried by the debt-to-EBITDA levels? SI made a good post on the debt here: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/cmp-compass-minerals-international/msg302112/#msg302112 Just to add a quick caveat: it's definitely a concern and something to monitor. the salt business is pretty stable so it provides some downside protection if the brazil business does not pan out as expected. the next few qs will be illuminating.

bought a little more compass minerals

So let's realize that stress does not directly cause strengthening. Stressing a muscle creates microtears in the muscle fibers, which then regrow stronger. You're looking for companies that survive the initial stress, and transform into something which can deal with the previous stress. Everyone gets hurt in times of stress. It's the survivors that matter. And sometimes they will make less money post-stress, in absolute terms. But their business model is more resilient (albeit smaller). So the trick (I think) is to look for places of stress. And see who survived, and ask the question 'why did they survive, what did they change?' You could argue that the big banks have gotten stronger as a result of the stress in 2008/9. Almost all internal controls have improved. Or, alternatively, the Federal Reserve got stronger in terms of regulating the banks. Look at companies transitioning post-Internet shopping. Content creators are more in control of their content than ever before. TV networks can release their shows directly on their website (i.e. HBO). You can possibly argue WalMart is stronger post-Amazon, or perhaps Costco...i.e.. the brick/mortars which are still alive. They naturally lost a lot of foot-traffic due to Amazon, but have dealt with that stress and are still alive and kicking. They were forced to transform their operations to a leaner, more efficient operation.

I don't own a house.

I hope so. It's also a good case study of where government subsidies have worked to spur demand/investment, to the point where the technology is cost competitive.

Really good article, even better than his recent Dept of Energy piece. Some quotes I liked: “There’s a real idealism that you have to indulge to think that people in New Orleans were now going to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There were no bootstraps.” "We don’t really celebrate the accomplishments of government employees. They exist in our society to take the blame. But if anyone ever paid attention they would note that Woteki’s department, among other achievements, had suppressed the potentially catastrophic 2015 outbreak of bird flu. They’d created, very quickly, a fast new test for the disease that enabled them to cull the sick chickens from the healthy ones. Because of their work the poultry industry was forced to kill only tens of millions of birds, instead of hundreds of millions. In the early 1990s, the U.S.D.A. had also dealt with the outbreak of ring-spot virus in papaya trees, when the papaya industry in Hawaii faced ruin and extinction. Inside the little box marked “Science,” the U.S.D.A. helped genetically engineer a papaya tree that was resistant to ring-spot virus." The whole section on the Rural Development division was fascinating (who knew they had a bank with $220B in assets sitting there?): “I am absolutely convinced about one thing: there are conversations going on right now in New York and Washington between people in the Trump administration and Wall Street bankers about how to get their hands on the bank portfolio. Folks in banking: I’m sure they are nice people—they just can’t help themselves.” Would love to hear the thoughts of fellow board members.

If indexing were creating a bubble, should we not see SP500 companies trading at outlandish valuations compared to non-SP500 companies? Or is the argument that indexing is in equities in general, not just the SP500? Then should we see equities trading at crazy valuations compared to other asset classes? Or is the argument that indexing is creating a bubble in all financial assets? In that case, how is indexing the culprit?

In addition, depreciation usually understates true maintenance capex costs. LC, can you please provide an example ? Like a very basic one - thanks Well, the general theory is that inflation will cause prices to go up. So when you're replacing some asset in the future, you will be paying more for it. Buffett wrote a really good article on inflation back in the 70s: http://fortune.com/2011/06/12/buffett-how-inflation-swindles-the-equity-investor-fortune-classics-1977/ For a practical example, take any company without growth capex and compare their annual depreciation vs. capex. Let me see if I can find a good example... Ok found one. I just screened for companies with 5yr sales growth under 10% (i.e. not a lot of growth) and sorted by market cap. Walmart was #5 on the list. Take a look at the CF statement: http://www.rocketfinancial.com/Financials.aspx?fID=4876&p=2&pw=160866&rID=3 Capex: -10,619.0 -11,477.0 -12,174.0 -13,115.0 -12,898.0 -13,510.0 -12,699.0 Depr.: 10,080.0 9,454.0 9,173.0 8,870.0 8,478.0 8,106.0 7,641.0 Generally capex has been higher than depreciation. Recently the gap is falling which could provide some insights (or not). I don't really follow Walmart but I don't see their business model changing drastically over the last few years, so my first guess is they are under-investing in their stores.

In addition, depreciation usually understates true maintenance capex costs.

Found an interesting article which is related to this topic: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/ If we’re going to rely on science as a means for reaching the truth — and it’s still the best tool we have — it’s important that we understand and respect just how difficult it is to get a rigorous result. I could pontificate about all the reasons why science is arduous, but instead I’m going to let you experience one of them for yourself. Welcome to the wild world of p-hacking. “You can do it in unconscious ways —I’ve done it in unconscious ways,” Simonsohn said. “You really believe your hypothesis and you get the data and there’s ambiguity about how to analyze it.” When the first analysis you try doesn’t spit out the result you want, you keep trying until you find one that does. Scientists who fiddle around like this — just about all of them do, Simonsohn told me — aren’t usually committing fraud, nor are they intending to. They’re just falling prey to natural human biases that lead them to tip the scales and set up studies to produce false-positive results. Nosek’s team invited researchers to take part in a crowdsourcing data analysis project. The setup was simple. Participants were all given the same data set and prompt: Do soccer referees give more red cards to dark-skinned players than light-skinned ones? They were then asked to submit their analytical approach for feedback from other teams before diving into the analysis. Despite analyzing the same data, the researchers got a variety of results. Twenty teams concluded that soccer referees gave more red cards to dark-skinned players, and nine teams found no significant relationship between skin color and red cards. My take on this: it's very hard to be a scientist in the truest sense. A real scientist has one motivation: discover the truth. But it's quite insidious how human biases creep into this. Take the example from the article about analyzing how soccer refs give red cards based on skin color. Even if you don't give a damn about soccer, about people's skin color, or anything related to the topic, maybe you just want your job to have some meaning in the grand scheme of things. So already you have a bias to create something significant where nothing of significance may exist. Researching a stock, how easy is it to begin by saying "I want to make money". Then this bias creeps into the research. You can interpret pieces of information in a way that seems more profitable. For example: "Oh well Sears just HAS to turnaround with all of that real estate - then I'll make buckets of cash!" This is a damn hard bias to overcome (and also why I think Buffett's rules #1,#2 are the types of bias you need in your head).

It is for me at least. Or I just suck at finding undervalued companies. Probably a bit of both :D

Nerd joke incoming: Heisenberg, Schroedinger and Ohm are in a car. They get pulled over. Heisenberg is driving, and the cop asks, 'Do you know how fast you were going?' 'No, but I know exactly where I am,' Heisenberg replies. The cop says, 'you were doing 55 in a 35.' Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts, 'Great! Now, I'm lost.' The cop thinks this is suspicious and orders him to pop the trunk. He checks it out and says, 'Do you know you have a dead cat back here?' 'We do now, asshole!' Shouts Schroedinger. The cop moves to arrest them. Ohm resists.

This is going to be a bit of a ranty post! Warning ;D ROC ROIC ROE ROA yada yada yada I kind of hate them because it's all backwards looking. And it promoted false accuracy. Let's use Hayden Capital's example because its there (no hate on that dude, seems bright as hell). Delivery has better margins than sit-in restaurants? A first year business student could tell you this. Does it really matter whether the margins are 76% or 80% higher? The REAL questions are on slide 17: 1. How much can delivery grow to? 2. What are the most effective methods to promote delivery? New Customer Discounts? Advertising? 3. How can you make delivery costs cheaper? Drones & their unit economics? (ok maybe not the drone question) But that first question is the most important question and it has everything to do with the whole reliance on measuring a bunch of historical "Return on XYZ" metrics. I'll talk about Nike since I'm a shareholder. Retail sales are falling, online/direct-to-customer sales are increasing. The company is actively moving towards direct-to-customer sales. Now any freaking genius can tell you online sales will have higher returns on XYZ. Because there's no footlocker or whatever retailer taking a cut. So as an investor, I'm not taking the time to calculate ROICs of the marginal sneaker sold in each channel, because it really doesn't matter. The real question is, as traditional customers move from purchasing in-store vs. online, what are the implications for sales volume? (i.e. question 1) from hayden capital's deck) Online, customers will see many many many more brands/varieties. You go into footlocker, there are 5 brands and Nike owns the prime viewing location. But when you go online and sit down and look at running sneakers, you have so many more options. How will that dynamic affect Nike brand value and sales volume? That is the question. Is it going to be a simple replacement? 100% of customers going from Footlocker will go to Nike.com? 75%? 50%? Will shifting attention online actually improve sales? Communication, information travels much more quickly online. Essentially, cool sh1t goes "viral" fast. And its also forgotten fast. And brands can communicate more directly with customers. Will kids in Tokyo see meme's of kids in New York running around in a pair of Nike's and want them? Or will it be some Adidas, or J.Crew, or whatever? So I hate using ROIC and ROC because they don't even come close to answering those questions. They are more useful when the business environment is not changing. Great for monopoly-esque situations.