JBird
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Posts posted by JBird
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It's hard to value. Based on the amount of gold that is known to be in curculation, the price of 1 BTC would be >$300k if it completely replaced gold and did nothing else. The potential is even higher as the use of Bitcoin will unlock value that gold doesn't. For one Gold is hardly used as a currency. On the other hand Bitcoin is currently used by only a small portion of the population and therefore this is speculation on future usage.
I feel there still is a very wide margin of safety.
Why does bitcoin belong in the same conversation as gold? Why is there a large margin of safety at current prices?
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I'm keeping an eye on the Sberbank thread, but when you read stories about how the Russians have managed to run up a $50 billion bill for a Winter Olympics it makes you think that Russia is a great place to make money vanish into thin air.
HBO's Real Sports did a segment on the Sochi games. The level of corruption is hard to believe, even for Russia. They built a ~30 mile road from the Olympic square to the Ski/Snowboarding mountain. For $9 billion USD. And of course the contractor is Government-owned Russian Railways. The program also mentioned that the total cost for the Olympics will be around $50 billion, which is roughly equal to the cost of all previous winter Olympics combined.
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Part of it is much of Russia is a kleptocracy led by the government. There are some good cheap companies there like Lukoil but firms like Gazprom are tied into the government with product pricing determined by Putin et al. If you can seperate out the good from the bad, there are some bargains there.
Packer
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When did a country with nuclear weapons ever attack another country with nuclear weapons?
When did a country without nuclear weapons ever attack a country with nuclear weapons?
When was the last time Iran attacked another country?
Can you explain your point?
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Racemize and I are looking for any boardmembers interested in getting some online bridge games going. Nothing serious-- just for fun. We're not pros by any stretch! If you're interested just PM one us. We're thinking we can join up on Google hangout and then dive into a game.
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I contacted 10 brokers and the only one I found with access to the South Korean exchange is Fidelity. They charge an $80 commission buy/sell. Plus there's a 10bps commission for the Korean broker on the buy side and 20bps on the sell side.
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The following Korean companies have a two-class share structure:
Hyundai Motor. Common: KRX:005380. Preferred KRX:005385.
Daelim Industrial. Common: KRX:000210. Preferred: KRX:000215.
Nexen Tire. Common: KRX:002350. Preferred: KRX:002355.
The common and preferred shares have equal rights to company profits. In each case, the preferred is entitled to an additional dividend above the common stock. The preferred shares do not have voting rights.
The preferred shares of Hyundai trade at 4 times earnings, a 50% discount to the common.
The preferred shares of Daelim trade at 2.8 times earnings, a 68% discount to the common.
The preferred shares of Nexen Tire trade at 3.7 times earnings, a 74% discount to the common.
These are large-cap companies. The common stock market cap of Hyundai is $50 billion USD. Daelim is $3 billion. Nexen is $1.4 billion.
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Edit: Clarifying example- North America has a lot of oil. This is a finite resource that we have but it was not a resource to the Native Americans that inhabited the land before us. It was a sticky useless goo that actually made certain pieces of land uninhabitable. It was only after man applied his mind to nature that the goo became a value or a resource. And that fallacy of finite food supplies has been exploded so many times it's silly. And that Ehrlich guy still gets credit from environmentalists for that crappy book lol. Anyways, the US grew its GDP at an absurd rate in the 19th century while simultaneously welcoming millions of immigrants. If you think the US is just some resource laden land where all you had to do was pull an apple off a tree to feed your family I'm afraid you're mistaken! Read about any of the early colonies. I'm sure you could come up with some rare exceptions (like the random apple tree) but resources are only resources once man creates them. Capitalism is the system that frees man's ability to do the creating. Exercising your mind and acting on your conclusions is impossible under coercive government systems.
Edit 2: To keep on with the oil example. How long have we been told about peak oil? Why haven't we hit peak oil? Because we continue to find ways to rearrange nature and create value. ie. fracking. And then critics say, well you can't keep counting on technological improvements! But again, they're not understanding where values come from.
Do you believe that given the right technology, the food supply is not finite? And do you believe that given the right drilling technology, the world's oil supply is not finite?
Peak oil is the idea that the rate of oil production will one day reach a maximum. This a logical conclusion that stems from two premises a) that the world's oil supply is not infinite and b) that we're consuming oil faster than Nature can create it.
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It seems to me that the premise of the one-child policy is this idea that people are a drag on per-capita wealth because wealth is a static pie. Under capitalism, we see people as creators of value. I guess that's why they're commies.
Why do you think that's their premise?
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Attractiveness is a highly subjective term, right? Someone that's looking for 2% returns will find the general market very attractive today. Someone looking for 15% returns won't. Can you narrow your definition of attractive?
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There is actually a third way, as suggested by Pabrai : you can combine a day time job with investing for some years until you have the needed funds.
That's the way we did it. We are not from wealthy families, haven't been supported, didn't have a financial background, we never inherited anything and we now have 4 children to support. But after some 10 years of combining a day time job with investing, we could choose to do whatever we wanted.
I agree with you however that it wouldn't be as easy to replicate this if you already have the kids. We could combine my day time job with managing the partnership and my wife's job until the 4th child came. Then I had to choose and give up my day time job.
That's commendable-- I have a lot of respect for that. Same for you Parsad!
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(B) A division of profits between the limited partners and general partner, with the first 6% per year to partners based upon beginning capital at market, and any excess divided one-fourth to the general partner and three-fourths to all partners proportional to their capital. Any deficiencies in earnings below the 6% would be carried forward against future earnings, but would not be carried back. Presently, there are three profit arrangements which have been optional to incoming partners:
Interest Provision. Excess to Gen. Partner. Excess to Ltd. Partners
(1) 6% 1/3 2/3
(2) 4% 1/4 3/4
(3) None 1/6 5/6
In the event of profits, the new division will obviously have to be better for limited partners than the first two arrangements. Regarding the third, the new arrangement will be superior up to 18% per year; but above this rate the limited partners would do better under the present agreement. About 80% of total partnership assets have selected the first two arrangements, and I am hopeful, should we average better than 18% yearly, partners presently under the third arrangement will not feel short-changed under the new agreement;
© In the event of losses, there will be no carry back against amounts previously credited to me as general partner. Although there will be a carry-forward against future excess earnings. However, my wife and I will have the largest single investment in the new partnership, probably about one-sixth of total partnership assets, and thereby a greater dollar stake in losses than any other partner of family group, I am inserting a provision in the partnership agreement which will prohibit the purchase by me or my family of any marketable securities. In other words, the new partnership will represent my entire investment operation in marketable securities, so that my results will have to be directly proportional to yours, subject to the advantage I obtain if we do better than 6.
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I haven't found an article or letter. I did find one quote that pre-dates a crash.
"When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell."
According to that source, we're talking about a guy who made a fortune speculating on sugar prices.
I am not certain whether Loomis is referring to a Baruch warning given pre- 1920-21 Depression or pre- 1929 Depression. Here's why:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/weekinreview/12word-ART.html?_r=0
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if anything was imminent the market would be sniffing it out.
I bet you could think of a lot of examples where the market didn't sniff out something imminent.
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Would people really feel safe or comfortable with a computer guiding their cars? Besides, even on planes and trains where everything is highly automated and human input is designed and forced to be minimal, humans still have to be at the controls.
Clearly the effectiveness and reliability of the computer system matters a great deal in answering that question for any specific situation. But given a computer system with enough quality and reliability, there's very little I wouldn't let it do. I'd go so far as to say I'd let a computer-operated machine perform surgery on me. And I don't see any reason why a computer system can't be more safe and effective than a human driver.
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I think it was an aberration. Columbia has webcast many presentations and that's the first one I've seen where the AV was shoddy. "These universities" is a bit of a stretch.
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It's true that stock prices frequently go up and down, making seeming gains and losses transitory. By my understanding, permanent loss of capital arises when you make a mistake, i.e. it's the risk of making a mistake and these mistakes generally happen when you get yourself into something that you don't truly understand. It's subjective and not something that can be measured as easily as beta.
A permanent loss of capital occurs when an investor's aggregate after-tax receipts from an investment-- including those he receives upon sale-- give him less purchasing power than what he had to begin with. It's easy to measure and isn't subjective.
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I think idea number 7 is unlikely to add more value than idea number 6. All in all, I think he'll do fine. Thanks for posting.
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But I don't think people can handle not driving their own cars in one form or another anyway.
Why not?
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I should've been more clear. I wasn't referring to the article.
Clearly, even if all vehicles are autonomous, the probability of an accident is not zero. Therefore insurance, however limited, is still necessary.
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People insure things that are expensive. If I spend $50k buying a car I'm not leaving it uninsured, even if I don't think I'll get into an accident. Plus, there's always the chance a tree falls onto my parked car. Nothing AVs can do about that.
The idea isn't that auto insurance will disappear-- even if all vehicles are autonomous. It's that premiums will fall dramatically because the probability of an accident has fallen so much.
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If the debt load had a significant effect on my standard of living, then absolutely yes. There are a lot of fish in the sea. If I can choose between several girls who are very similar in character and quality to me, I wouldn't choose the one with debt that would materially affect my life. That being said, if my spouse went into debt chasing her dream job, basically I can live with that.
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Why are Russian stocks so cheap?
in General Discussion
Posted
At half of the value estimation.
"I think if it’s cheap enough, you can afford more country risk or regulatory risk. It’s not complicated." CM
We're all seeing the same thing here. Russia's Government is corrupt. But this doesn't mean their entire stock market is valueless.
It's like investing in China where you have a Government sorely lacking in repute and virtue. There's this miasma of corruption and gross immorality in the markets. And in '04 there was PetroChina... selling at $36 billion. You could have said, the Government is a majority shareholder, this could all go wrong, and so many Chinese companies are frauds. And you'd have been right. There is a possibility of loss-- total loss. But estimate the odds for the possible outcomes. Are the odds in your favor? After you answer that I don't think you need to ask anymore questions.