Borgesian

Nobel Prizes are normally awarded for work that was done many years ago. Only the peace prize tends to be more focused on recent work.

As others have already pointed out Microsoft OneNote is amazing for this.

There was a theoretical model for the Higgs Boson. Care to explain the theoretical model on the big bang? Care to explain how my reasoning is off base in regards to empathy? I have the internal honesty to realize what reality is if atheism is the accurate world view. 200 years ago we didn't even know about atoms, go back further and people thought the world was flat. I guess we should have just thrown in the towel on all these things because we didn't understand them at the time. Incase you didn't know that's how science works, we come up with models and theories, test them out and if they hold we update our understanding, if they don't then we throw them out.

+1 This is a fun conversation to follow and all but please lets keep our quantum physics and religion separate. There's enough misinformation out there regarding science as it is.

Who is the old white guy? I don't remember checking a box for ethnicity. Dr. Dre is also older than I am! Some things are right, some things are wrong. Does not matter the age or culture of the person saying them.

Here you go: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2013ltr.pdf

I'm currently in Turkey right now for a couple of months to do research on company's here, at the moment I'm just trying to get my head around the current political situation and how companies operate in the country but will post here if anything comes up.

I have a Surface Pro, its perfect especially when you couple it with the Onenote Software.

That's a fair question. Anything that I read and think is worthwhile or worth revisiting goes on my blog first. My blog is a collection of things that I'm in to - not just investment articles. I have the blog as an outlet for myself bc not a lot of folks where I live want to talk about value investing, or vinyl or proper cocktails or hard to find craft brew. It's another online storage place for those things for me and possibly a point of interesting interaction. I'm not living in the town from the movie Deliverance or anything, but I've gone from a major metro, to a significantly smaller place, but I still have my big city tastes. I post to the blog first for myself and then ill tweet it and if its relevant, post a link here on the board. I'm not against you having a blog but when you post them this way it seems like you are simply promoting your blog. You can still post this on your blog but instead of providing us with the blog link just give us the source link where you originally found the article.

Why not just link to the memo on the Oaktree website instead of a blog post? http://www.oaktreecapital.com/MemoTree/A%20Fresh%20Start%20(Hopefully)%2011_19_2012.pdf

Fair enough:). I don't think we disagree on much because I would also choose other managers past and present over him. But I think you were overly harsh in simply calling him "merely a very good manager". He has taken some shortcuts but I think you will be hard pressed to find a manager who hasn't done that.

I must say, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you that Ferguson is certainly not a value investor. But there is no way you can say Ferguson isn't one of the top 5 managers in the world at the moment (Mourinho, Del Bosque, Wenger and possibly Hiddink being the others), I personally support one of Manchester United's big rivals and would probably be the last person to admit that I like Ferguson in any way. Sure the current team has a lot of stars that were not bought cheap and they have spent a lot of money but you have to remember that Ferguson has also been in charge of Manchester United since 1986, the back bone of his initial title winning teams in the 90's all mainly featured young homegrown players from the youth team (Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt). And looking at the current team, you say everyone apart from Giggs and Scholes were bought for a nice fee but what about Jonny Evans, Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Phil Jones and Danny Welbeck all these are players who have been in the starting lineup for the last few games (I watch the premier league every weekend) and all came from the youth academy at Manchester. I mean if you going to judge him based on the past 3 years and say he has spent a lot of money, sure go ahead (it would be similar to judging a portfolio manager on his returns in less than 5 years) but that would be doing a great dis-service to manager who has been with the same team for 26 years and won 12 premier league titles. If that isn't the definition of being a great manager then I'm clearly deluded as a football fan. My friends would be rather surprised to hear that I just defended Ferguson. I'm happy to respond to your comments in more detail a little bit later (I'm work). But a few key points. The players you mentioned: Jonny Evans - Not a true first team prospect - has been surpassed by Jones and Smalling Wellbeck - correct. Michael Carrick - Product of Tottenham Academy (did you not know that?) Phil Jones - Product of Blackburn (ditto) Fletcher - Never matured into the player he was supposed to be and has not made a major impact on the first team. Ferguson has a great record. But keep in mind A)He has been coaching for 20+ years. B) He had a far better team and budget than most of the Premier league throughout the 90s. C) Look at his failures in the CL. In 20+ years managing ManU, Fergie has only won the CL twice. Think about what Benitez, Mourinho, or Guardiola could do in 20 years of coaching a top club. First rate manager? Absolutely. Best? I'm very skeptical. Better managers than Ferguson? Here goes (This is not exhaustive): Ancelloti Mourinho Benitez (His early career was amazing, seems to have gone off the rails) Oscar Tabarez Del Bosque Marcelo Lippi Pep Guardiola (Just imagine what he could do with 20 years at Barca) Joachim Loew (Young, but extremely gifted tactically) Hiddink Among retired names Arrigo Sacchi and Carlos Bianchi come to mind as well. I am surprised at your naming Wenger and not some of these names. My bad about adding Carrick, he wasn't supposed to be in there, I do know he came from Spurs. As for the rest, I wasn't saying that they are amazing but just that it's disingenuous to say that the entire current starting squad of Man Utd is made of bought players when a considerable of their starters where actually from the youth setup. As for the other managers, here is how I see them: Ancelotti - I agree on this Benitez - I think he is a great manager for cup competitions but when it comes the league barring his success at Valencia he tends to fall short. To me he is not near the top 5 in any way. Lippi - I agree, great manager! Pep Guardiola - I loved him as a player but the truth is he hasn't proven himself at any other teams. If I had Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Villa, Pique and Messi on my team I'm sure even I could win a trophy or two, let him do it at another team and we'll mention him in the same breath as the rest. Loew - Definitely ne of the best tacticians around, but lets look at his record with Germany, for a team with so many good players he has fallen short on the big stage time and time again. Tabarez - He is good and considering the size of Uruguay he has done wonders with the team, I would put him in the same category as Bielsa, good coaches but not great. Bianchi - I never followed the Argentinian leagues at the time so it's hard for me to comment and I do not know the relative strength of the teams that where playing then. As for winning the champions league twice in 20 years, this is incredibly hard to do. The only managers who I can think of who have this are Fergie, Ancelotti, Sacchi, Hitzfeld, Llorente, Clough, Mourinho, heck even Cruyff only had 1 with Barcelona and that team of his with Laudrup, Bakero, Guardiola, Koeman, Txiki and Stoichkov was one of the best around. I think only Paisley managed to get 3 with his Liverpool team. And if we can't judge managers based on their long term records and strength of the league they are competing in, how are we to judge them? Edit: And if you read any of my comments at no point do I saw he is the best manager ever, but I do say he is one of the greatest managers in the history of the sport and I don't think you will find many football enthusiasts who disagree with that.

I must say, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you that Ferguson is certainly not a value investor. But there is no way you can say Ferguson isn't one of the top 5 managers in the world at the moment (Mourinho, Del Bosque, Wenger and possibly Hiddink being the others), I personally support one of Manchester United's big rivals and would probably be the last person to admit that I like Ferguson in any way. Sure the current team has a lot of stars that were not bought cheap and they have spent a lot of money but you have to remember that Ferguson has also been in charge of Manchester United since 1986, the back bone of his initial title winning teams in the 90's all mainly featured young homegrown players from the youth team (Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt). And looking at the current team, you say everyone apart from Giggs and Scholes were bought for a nice fee but what about Jonny Evans, Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Phil Jones and Danny Welbeck all these are players who have been in the starting lineup for the last few games (I watch the premier league every weekend) and all came from the youth academy at Manchester. I mean if you going to judge him based on the past 3 years and say he has spent a lot of money, sure go ahead (it would be similar to judging a portfolio manager on his returns in less than 5 years) but that would be doing a great dis-service to manager who has been with the same team for 26 years and won 12 premier league titles. If that isn't the definition of being a great manager then I'm clearly deluded as a football fan. My friends would be rather surprised to hear that I just defended Ferguson.

Some one saved them from this thread on /r/securityanalysis. You can contact them to get copies:

He is most certainly one of the greatest managers in the history of the sport but I honestly wouldn't classify Alex Ferguson as a value investor based on his football transfers. Sure compared to Manchester City and Chelsea you could call him a bargain hunter (any manager is actually a bargain hunter compared to those two clubs), but I would say that Arsene Wenger has him beat when it comes buying players on the cheap. Arsenal has consistently stayed as one of the top 4 teams in England over the past 16 years and I do not think Wenger has ever spent more than £15m pounds on a player. In the article Ferguson says "‘There is a borderline in terms of what you would think is a good signing for United,’ said Ferguson. ‘I see some values on players, like Hazard for instance. To me it was a lot of money. He’s a good player, but £34m?". He mentions that and yet in the same week he just bid £32m for an unproven Brazilian 19 year old Lucas Moura who is far from the player that Eden Hazard is. There's no doubt he's a great manager but I wouldn't consider him a bastion of fiscal responsibility. Arsene Wenger and David Moyes are more deserving of that mantle.