constructive

This is true but sanctions would have to be limited. If you apply extreme sanctions and turn off Gazprom pipelines in winter time, people all over central Europe would freeze to death.

Vodafone doesn't seem like his style in my opinion. Might just be more Tesco.

The immediate goal of American diplomacy is to improve the situation in the Ukraine, not address problems elsewhere in the world. Military threats would only make Ukrainian civil war more likely. Realistically we are limited in our response to Russian aggression in Crimea. It's past time to give up the Team America World Police mentality.

Sounds interesting. If you buy the building is he throwing in the business for free? Or is that an additional cost? Also can you subdivide the retail space or would you need all of it?

DTEJD, what kind of business do you own? If you were leasing instead of buying, would you choose this location and how much rent would you be willing to pay?

It looks like property taxes near Detroit range from 5.5% to 7.3% of assessed value. https://treas-secure.state.mi.us/ptestimator/PTEstimator.asp So 7.5% on purchase price seems excessive, but not so out of line that you are likely to succeed in changing the assessment. I think not having a retail tenant lined up is a bigger problem than taxes.

Considering the likelihood that WhatsApp will end up being a huge dud, you would think they would be sensitive to reputational risk. How much money is it worth to be the face of bad dealmaking in the second tech bubble?

They are different companies. You can't compare share prices and expect it to be meaningful.

Good idea. Or what happens when major telecom companies introduce a more functional message format and lower their prices? They make billions of profit from text messages - they have the most incentive to compete and stop the growth of proprietary alternative message services.

The market is up 66% in the last 4 years. Let's say the market's intrinsic value is up 46% (10% annualized). By hedging out the market risk, Fairfax has permanently lost that 46%. And stocks are only 20% more expensive than they were 4 years ago, not 66%. The risk/reward for shorting the market is pretty bad, except under extremely rare circumstances.

I can summarize the bear case. FNMA and FMCC were put into conservatorship because they were insolvent. The book value of public shares (equity value minus senior preferred) has been deeply negative since 2008. Equity and profits in the last few years are an illusion - they belong entirely to the government according to the terms of the senior preferred shares. The status quo is negative because they are currently shrinking and paying billions of dollars to Treasury. FNMA and FMCC shareholders need political action, or more likely court action, to recover any value.

Are there any good stock wiki sites? I think that could be very useful with the right format. http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Aapl http://wiki.advfn.com/en/Apple As far as message boards go, I like COBAF's format.

This is very well said, although the downside of cash might be a bit overstated. The 7 lean year / 3 fat year model sounds like Gambler's Fallacy to me. Lean years don't make fat years more likely. The only way to predict good results is to observe good business practices. The market is more expensive than it was 4 years ago, but I'm not convinced that Fairfax is any better positioned today than they were in 2010. The equity hedges are probably better positioned, but we are 4 years closer to interest rates rising and 4 years further into Blackberry's decline.

By the way, do you really think Treasury had to coerce FHFA to sign the PSPAs? Isn't it more plausible that FHFA believes they are doing what they're supposed to do?

FNMA and FMCC's lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders has been disclosed. From the latest FNMA 10K: "Our directors do not have any fiduciary duties to any person or entity except to the conservator" "we are no longer managed with a strategy to maximize shareholder returns"

The point of the preferred stock agreements is that FNMA and FMCC have a duty to pay interest and principal on the senior preferred. They have a higher priority to company value than public shareholders do. What a lot of people don't understand is that public shareholder equity has been deeply negative since 2008, and it still is. The balance sheet and income statement are deceptive if you ignore the role preferred equity plays.

There's no coercion required, since FHFA and the Fannie and Freddie boards think that their duty in conservatorship is to deliver value to Treasury. Private shareholders think that the conservatorship is for their benefit, but they need to prove that in court.

If Mt Gox (once the most credible Bitcoin exchange) can go down, taking all deposited money with it, why trust other BTC institutions? Are the Slovenian and Bulgarian legal systems going to protect your money any better than the Japanese legal system?

BTC now trades at $610 on BitStamp, $580 on BTC-e and $250 on Mt Gox. Seems like an arbitrage opportunity if you think Mt Gox will survive. http://www.investing.com/news/forex-news/bitcoin-plunges-50-on-mt.-gox-to-hit-usd230-as-troubles-continue-266646 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/

The administration had a policy since 2010 to shut out the common shareholders from all earnings but it was never disclosed to the common shareholders? Who decided this was not a disclosure item! I look forward to the discovery process. We will very likely find more examples where the administrations public statements (or overt omissions) that are at odds their internal dialogue. If that happens, the government's case will move closer to indefensible. This was an internal document in Treasury, so Fannie and Freddie may not have known about the policy until later. The full income sweep policy was certainly disclosed in the 2012 PSPA revisions. http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1684.aspx

SODA down 8% after hours. This deal puts them on a collision course with KO and GMCR. I wonder if Pepsi might want to buy Sodastream in response?

Good question. I think media/telecom companies like Alaska Communications and General Communications fit the bill. They benefit from network effects and in some cases have natural monopolies.

I think Buffett has slowly lost the go for the jugular, animal instinct to grab more than his share. He had that impulse like Soros and Icahn when he was a young man. Icahn is still willing to fight you over a dollar on the sidewalk (just ask Ackman). Baupost is a good point. They are still pretty huge though.

Take Fairholme. Berkowitz has responded to getting bigger by getting more concentrated than he was in the 2000s (more leveraged securities too). He still runs it like a $100M fund, not a $8.5B fund. If he underperforms it's not primarily because of size.

I think people are sometimes too quick to blame size for reducing returns. In most cases it could just as easily be luck, overconfidence, complacency or just not having the skill to adjust to different market conditions.