Otsog

Kind of mildly interesting (or maybe not...) facet of this. There is a Canadian company set to start construction in May on a fibre optic cable that will connect Tokyo and London by going through the Canadian Arctic (http://arcticfibre.com/). Our internet speeds up here are shit, 1.5Mbps costs me $84.00/month with a 10Gb data cap, and we would be able to tap into the Arctic Fibre feed. If there are any regulatory changes that make this project uneconomical, Michael Lewis might be screwing me out of faster internet in 2016 >:(

If you feel that way then you can make that argument about any situation. Bernie Madoff, Enron etc.

I agree there is a better than good chance Lewis will present his case in a way that oversells the dangers, but, how is the front-running nonsense? Firms/algorithms are making trades solely off your own order information (if you're an institutional investor). That will be a detriment to every single pension plan and endowment in the world. Even if it was just the IBanks that were getting screwed I would be pissed, to me this is a blatant (but easily solvable) degradation of the integrity of the capital markets. The efficiency of the markets in the past has absolutely nothing to do with this. Just because we were getting screwed harder before means we should be grateful and accept duplicitous behaviour today?

We're you guys aware of the scope of the front running? I have read numerous times before about the hft firms buying real estate as close as possible to the exchanges, but I thought that was so their algorithms could beat other algorithms for arbitrage opportunities, not to front run submitted orders.

Political leanings aside, one advantage of single payer is never putting a single moment to thinking about coverage.

Idk, I think fashion just changes too much and it would be too hard to monetize. There are also sites with tons of information that are free (but not the exact service you are proposing). http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice http://www.reddit.com/r/frugalmalefashion/ Edit: Just found an interesting site: http://crowdapparel.com/ Crowd sourcing for bulk discounts

Hmm... Adam McKay is Will Ferrell's comedy partner. It should be Will Ferrell alone in a room reading through CDS prospectuses for 2 hours.

I'd be interested in any book recommendations.

Shortcut to find out Buffett's thoughts on equities: 1. Open his latest annual letter 2. Ctrl + F 3. 'Elephant gun'

Has Racemize finished his study/paper on being fully invested/holding cash?

Leftcoast, I'm not there yet (or as close as you it sounds like), but this is a great forum to read up about early retirement (not so much investing, but they do have a section for that): http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/forum/

Not surprised to see other ER/MMM's here. I've been reading a lot about this lately and hope to pull the trigger one day. I would do this with a higher emphasis on the retirement aspect than the fulltime investor aspect. I'd read a ton more, but also look at picking up other hobbies. It's still at least 5+ years off but I am toying with the idea of moving somewhere very low cost for the first few years (SE Asia maybe?). I could get some cheap travelling in and if everything blows up I won't have to draw down a ton of capital.

Are we supposed to be shocked that someone at the government actually used a calculator and figured out how much these accounts were going to cost the government? Canadians, this will happen to the TFSA one day.

I agree Tiddman, I never see if there is any adjustment to account for Public/Private or international listings. The IBs were all private pre-1970, then mixed, then all public by 1999. What if Koch went public? If Samsung listed on the NYSE would that count? All those things would affect the metric but the change in the economy would be form, not substance. The article says they used the Wilshire 5000 which was just under 20 Trillion. Take all the IBs and international listings, could that not easily reach 1-2T? A permanent change of 5-10% which makes it not really comparable to historical figures. And yeah, GNP for sure.

When Buffett appeared on the TV program, Money World, he was asked what investment advice he would give a money manager starting out. "I'd tell him to do exactly what I did 40-odd years ago, which is to learn about every company in the United States that has publicly traded securities." Moderator Adam Smith said, "But there are 27,000 public companies." Buffett replied, "Well, start with the A's."

I just checked my CoBaF wallet, all my Bitcoins are gone. >:( >:( >:(

All forums I use have weak searches, even Reddit's search is crap. Use google Trying to find a post about something the premier said in the ALS thread? site:cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca ALS premier Trying to find a specific phrase? site:cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca "If it ain't broke" Trying to find a specific phrase but forget a word? site:cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca "good business at a * price" Trying to see if anyone called the March '09 bottom? https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Acornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca+try+searching+for+keywords&espv=210&es_sm=93&pws=0&biw=1334&bih=839&sa=X&ei=YakDU5XANqjg0QG954HQAg&ved=0CBoQpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3AFeb+1_2+2009%2Ccd_max%3AApril+30_2+2009&tbm=#pws=0&q=site:cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca+bottom&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min:Feb+1_2+2009%2Ccd_max:April+30_2+2009

183 days is only one facet of determining residency. Above 183 days is usually the point where it becomes automatic and you don't have to consider anything else, but if you are sub-183 days then countries will start to look at where you dwell, where your spouse or dependents live, where your bank accounts are, where your drivers license is issued from, where you have medical coverage. I don't know specifically what the Netherlands looks at, but you should check it out for each country you will be in. What country is your bank branch in? They will likely send your investment information to that countries tax authority.

Canada taxes the worldwide income of Canadian residents America taxes the worldwide income of American citizens Netherlands taxes the worldwide income of ??? (sorry I don't know) The Canada Revenue Agency mainly looks at your 'Significant Residential Ties' and 'Secondary Residential Ties' to determine if you have broken residency (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/tchncl/ncmtx/fls/s5/f1/s5-f1-c1-eng.html#N102D3). To ditch the long-arm of the IRS you have to give up your citizenship, à la http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/11/technology/eduardo-saverin-facebook-citizenship/ Edit: Netherlands taxation is residency based as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation Only America and Eritrea tax based on citizenship

I'm pretty sure they are commodities, check the CME.

Haha, I remember playing the business/personal guessing game at the RBC's in Victoria. Eventually I stopped playing and always went personal. Even if the business line is short it is still so damn slow. Right across the street you could zip through TD business way faster, never once went to the personal line. National Bank sent couriers to our office to pick up deposits (but omg, they nickel and dime the crap out of you for everything).

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/gender-poll

Not looking forward to refi in 2016. We never had the interest only or teaser rate mortgages here, but since practically every mortgage in the country matures in 5 years or less the entire country is on medium term teaser rates.