no_free_lunch

Go search the thread and you will find what you are after but really I'm in no mood to placate. I think this is a trumped up argument to distract from the murder and war brought on by RF this past year. There are tens of thousands of dead civilians, more every day but sure the real news is some Ukrainian joined the nazis 80 years ago. If we want to look that far you will also see a pact with the soviets and nazi. Where Poland was divided. Thousands of poles killed. That was all under Stalin in league with the nazis yes.

Where were your guys criticism when Russia murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians in Ukraine. This link is just a one off and frankly Russia's wagner group has it's own nazi links. If Russia were winning why would they reach for links to North Korea of all places? What does this say about Russia?

Those are not related. The southern border, yes there are costs but it's more enforcement is the issue. You can do both.

I don't know the whole situation but my gut is we should not be involved. I would need proof.

Lol. I quite enjoyed this. It's true, investing shouldn't be complicated. I spend the first decade getting increasingly complicated and fancy. Been dialing it back ever since. Let us know the next in your face investment he makes. I got no shame with cloning.

CNR.to - Canadian railroad oligopoly, mega compounder, trading around 19x earnings albeit this years earnings are flat. The company's record and industry dynamics speak for themselves. It's down 15% or so which is a decent and rare opportunity.

I think this is a great link and so relevant. There is real risk to being bearish.

Argentina went in for socialism.. this is how it always ends up. I am no expert on it, never been there, but I know they chased the socialist demon. " Argentina, “which has defaulted 7 times since its independence in 1816, which has seen the largest relative standard of living decline in the world since 1900, and which is on the brink of political and economic chaos again in 2019. Argentina met most of the following criteria: a) higher personal and corporate tax rates, and higher government spending; b) more worker protections restricting the ability of companies to hire and fire, and less flexibility for companies to set wages based on worker productivity and/or to hire foreign labor; c) more reliance on regulation, more constraints on real estate development; d) more anti-trust enforcement and more state intervention in product markets; and a shift away from a shareholder-centric business model; e) protections for workers and domestic industries through tariff and non-tariff barriers, and more constraints on capital inflows and outflows. " https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-one-country-proves-even-little-socialism-does-lot-damage-118946 Canada is going for socialism and could end up similar. I wonder if the stagnant indices we have seen in Canada and the EU since 2008 are not reflective of the degree of socialism that we have taken on.

Why is it that the US is so much richer than Mexico? Why is Arizona so much richer than any of the states it borders? Rule of law most certainly. I really wonder about the above. To ignore these type of inquiry and just flip to US imperialism or whatever you are getting at misses so much. If we are to move forward and you want to talk about the US specifically, we need to at least understand what led to the US wealth creation. To go apples to apples you need to compare the US to the best peers, probably Canada, Mexico, South America? When I do, superficially, what rhymes and doesn't rhyme is the rule of law and capitalist systems in place here.

Banking is too complex and risky for me. There are a lot of variables, interest rates, government involvement, legal issues. I only like US banks. I think the construction industry is the way to play. I have no investments in that area but I am looking.

This is a great discussion and unfortunately politically charged when it shouldn't be so much. I think all parties want enough housing. The consensus I have, is that there is a huge shortage of supply. I tend to read the same set of sources, generally right leaning, so it's good to see others perspective. Just one link on the structural shortage of homes we are looking at. Not sure that there are enough vacant homes out there to address this. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated in June that an additional 3.5 million housing units needed to be built by 2030 to achieve affordable housing for everyone living in Canada. That’s on top of the 2.3 million units it expected to be built by that time at current rates of construction. .. “Canada’s approach to housing supply needs to be rethought and done differently,” CMHC deputy chief economist Aled ab Iorwerth said in the report. “There must be a drastic transformation of the housing sector, including government policies and processes, and an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach to increasing the supply of housing to meet demand.” .. CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal suggests in a recent report that Canada’s actual increase in housing demand is far higher than official estimates. Ottawa is aiming to increase the number of new immigrants by 75 per cent over pre-pandemic levels by 2025. But saying 465,000 new immigrants in 2023 does not mean net population growth due to immigration and thus demand for housing will rise by 465,000, he said. Tal argues that it’s not the number of new immigrants that should be used to calculate housing demand, but the number of new people coming into the country from abroad. And these numbers, he says, have been vastly underestimated .. Altogether, permanent and non-permanent residents arriving from outside the country in 2022 approached 955,000 which represents “an unprecedented swing in housing demand in a single year that is currently not fully reflected in official figures,” said Tal. .. “It’s not a stretch to suggest that the number of new international arrivals in 2023 might reach one million,” said Tal. “This kind of inflow suggests that existing policy tools could easily fall short of addressing the current and further increase in housing demand.” https://financialpost.com/executive/executive-summary/housing-demand-stronger-than-expected

There are so many other countries that are relatively stable. People are selecting the west for it's wealth and rule of law. I don't buy what you are saying. The proof is in where people are moving to.

People like to criticize the west but sure like the progress and security of the west.

I never said as a sovereign. Always under different yokes. Poland and Russia in particular. However, they were always independent culturally and this is what led to the creation of the country, like so many others, post Soviet breakup. The US will support Ukraine, I believe, not because man on the street wants it to too but because the politicians know there is no real choice. It really comes down to fighting your enemy for a fraction of the cost. The US knows Russia is their enemy, Russia constantly reminds us of this when they threaten nuclear holocaust. So to counteract them for $25B, is really nothing. It's about 3% of the US defense budget. Contain Russia so the US is free to fight China, if needed, that is I think the US thought process.

Bought a small 1% position in LHX. Will like to add as I learn more. Not without some minor issues but as usual, the issues feel priced in. Trading at 15x analysts estimates for the year. It's a compounder and a cannibal.

Oh well, actually it has existed for centuries and in fact, it's now a sovereign country. If Russia wants it in it's sphere better ways to do it than at gun point but I know that's how Russia rolls. Here they even made a wikipedia page to help clear things up for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

Probably some combination of Ukraine, US, EU. It's really peanuts compared to alternatives such as handing over the region to RF. Keep in mind the US is spending somewhere around $800B per year on their military and I don't think that includes everything either. Spending on the Iraq wars, I have seen that pegged at over $1T (off top of my head). These are in fact sustainable numbers but of course it would be better to just have some kind of peace agreement.

It's not so black and white. There are options for escalation between current support and some type of direct NATO-RU conflict. That is what we are witnessing in fact. Increased supply and more sophisticated weapons can be delivered to Ukraine. Some type of private military, a parallel to Wagner could be employed, it already is to a very limited extent by virtue of volunteers. Drones play a significant role and can be upscaled by western donors.

No sir, I was referring to AutoNation, mentioned earlier in the thread. I can see how without a reference that would be confusing. With $DFS, similar story though to AutoNation in that you have to worry about an over leveraged consumer in a high interest rate environment. I guess this is where the cannibal factor really helps out.

I believe there are concerns that car prices peaked and will fall due to higher interest rates. Car loans are now 8-9% and people are already levered up. That said, it seems priced in and the company's record speaks for itself.

The current sitiation does not stand out to me. It has been confusing and uncertain from day one. There were maybe a few times during crashes where I saw sufficient margin of safety that I wasn't stressed but otherwise I've never known what would happen next and it always feels I'm paying top dollar. With interest rates reverting the current period feels actually a lot saner than the past decade. At least there's a bond alternative.

You could do an awful lot worse than LHX although I think NSC is the real winner here. Some good picks, simple to understand, reasonably safe, moat. I have tried this industry laggard strategy you mention without as much success but I wonder if you are leaving out some type of qualitative filter. It seems, now that I have a bit of a record to look back on, that it's almost always the high quality names, when bought beaten down, that turn out ok. Neither LHX or NSC are low quality, these are gems you are picking out.

Cargojet (CJT.TO) - Canadian company, air transport of goods. Likely this is known to Canadian investors on the board so always happy to hear their opinion, good or bad. They have an excellent track record, around 20% EPS growth over the past decade and yet are not very promotional. Low debt (2.5x EBITDA), good management, near monopoly. I like that management issued a large share block (I think ~20-30% of additional stock) when the share price got to it's peak last year at close to double the current price, looks brilliant in hind-sight. They are in the dog house after increased COVID linked business has started to wind down but I trust the management and they will find new business and/or cut costs to make up for it. Not without risks, it's a fairly shallow moat and so you are really trusting in management but then so far they have consistently delivered.

The real cheat code would be to ignore Ukraine and focus on problems at home. Build up the economy, education systems, reduce corruption, so much more. With its energy and other resources they could be very wealthy.

Defacto. The proof is in the arms delivery and training.