Spekulatius

Bought a bit on Onex from BX sales proceeds. Need to do some more research on that one. Also did the @thepupil trade with a starter in both ESS and CPT multi family Reits. Small add to GOOGL for good measure as well.

I liked "Where the Crawdads sing" against the odds: Streams on Netflix.

@Xerxes You have a very different view of history in general than I do. Way back then, when I had history in school, our teacher presented two different views of history. There is the one view that history centers around “great leaders” as anchor points. That’s the history written by Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Caesar, Churchill, Hitler, Napoleon. This is typically the history that was taught hundred of years ago. Then there is the school that believes that great leaders don’t really matter all that much and that history works sort of like a mechanical clock that moves in somewhat predictable ways driven by long term forces. The leaders only matter is over as they crystallize these forces and often accelerate their deployment. This is the history taught by Karl Marx and also Mearsheimer fall into this school of thought. I don’t think any of these views are correct and history is just what people do and reflects the choices they make. There is free will and there are forces driving nations in certain direction for a long time. that’s why Britain is different than Germany and China is different than the US. But nothing is inevitable and sometimes great leaders break or redirect the longer term forces and sometimes the long term forces break the great leaders.

I recommend checking out the documentary “Winter on Fire” about the Euromaiden revolution on Netflix. It also provides background and it is clear that the war in Ukraune started in February 2014 not 2022, it just went cold for a while. Before Viktor Yanukovych was ousted , Ukraine was on its way to become a Russian vassals state like Belarus by means of a treaty with Putin that pivoted Ukraine away from its path to the EU toward Russia. When people revolted and ousted Yanukovych, Putin took military action and invaded the Crimea and also started a proxy war in Donbas that never really ended. Now in 2022, Putin came to finish the jobs he started in 2014 but what while the West and the US did nothing in 2014, to Putins surprise the Western response was unified and impactful and that’s got us and Ukraine where we are right now. Based on my read of the story line of history and and Putin, this will not end with Ukraine becoming neutral or anything of this sort, because Putin knows that the people in Ukraine tilt toward the west and sooner or later any Russian friendly regime might fall. So in my opinion, the only way to end this is to help Ukraine to become part of Europe in the end and likely part of NATO or associated with it. Anything else will just make the conflict a temporary cold one and Putin will strike again at an opportune time for him to get what he thinks belongs to Russia. I have no idea if another Russian leader would look at this the same way. Possibly any Russian leader would, be skeptical towards the west, but I don’t think about anyone would start a war - that’s a choice not and inevitable thing.

Looks like I am down about 6%. Winners were buyout candidates (CSVI, SWMA, KNBE) and losers mostly tech and VNT and some small caps.

I did a Google search for this title and incidentally found an article from a Georgian author with the same title. Seems very prescient what this author predicted in 2019. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/08/26/all-is-not-quiet-on-the-eastern-front/ The more I think about this, the more it is clear that this attack on Ukraine is part of Putins long term plan.

My guess is that living spaces are going to be smaller (which makes sense because families are getting smaller) and we trend from single family detached homes to multi family condo units.

Work life balance has been a thing since the ancient Egypts apparently. https://mymodernmet.com/ancient-egyptians-attendance-record/?fbclid=IwAR1Yk1sHUC2EEGBMP2gyjqUAdYceQwwKumNoZtjMz_qRIip1_1X6QlfeLJI The Ancient Egyptians kept track of work absences, and the reasons range from embalming relatives to brewing beer.

A lot of ARM’s from 2003-2006 had teaser rates that would reset two years later. The plan was to refinance, which of course was only possible as long as home prices were rising. I don’t see GFC 2.0 happening this time. I do think we are looking at a garden variety recession type of situation. I am not sure that the logjam that @ValueArb is talking about will break anytime soon. I think people with low cost mortgage will just stay put for a long time generally unless something forces their hand. So transaction volume may go way down, but prices not so much.

we will see. maybe they are right and Russia closes the border to stop the bleeding. As for mobilization, if Russia indeed mobilized 300,000 troops, then this cannon folder will last about a year, if estimates of the Russian losses are correct. These losses have been able to plug some holes, but they haven’t been able to do anything offensive with this manpower. So I would expect an annual mobilization drive of about 300k troops to resupply the meat grinder. There are supposedly 40k conscripts alone in the Bakmuth area and if you want to see grizzly footage on how they are doing there , there plenty of it.

Not only that, I think there has been a lot of tax loss selling too. At least it feel that way watch in the “tape”. So his prediction is likely based on a false hypothesis as well.

Unless we get positive rates after taking into account inflation, debt service costs in inflation adjusted dollars is negative and debt is not a problem.

The ebook can be bought again for $1.99, if so inclined: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083DJWGO?tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=0035a936892211edaec84a71662b62f70INT

Interesting thread about demographic trends: 1) migration to south (Mainly Florida and Texas) Florida needs migration, they have more death than birth The US has worsening demographics , less birth and more death since COVID-19. Roughly 600k more death annually since 2020.

You should check out restaurants there that do traditional portuguese seafood. Some of them play Fado in the evening.

The value of bitcoin is the value of it's utility - that's one valuation method I can agree upon. For me, the utility value of bitcoin seems very low, for others that may not be the case. If you are in Russia and want to flee the country, it will be difficult to get USD, but you may be able to convert Ruble into BTC or ETH or stablecoin or gold , diamonds or another cryptocurrency. Crypto will be better if I need to move out of the country, don't like swallowing diamonds and BTC is less volatile (cough) than the rest, so might be the best option. That's for the guy in Russia who wants to flee his country though. The question is why should I buy BTC if I have no personal use for it, but think that somebody else will? If so, how much is this particular utility for all the cryptos worth? Why should it be worth more than $50B, just to throw one number out?

I don't even think you can "own" property in China. Everything is a long term lease and at the end of the lease, the property reverts back to the government, unless the government extends the lease. Owning property in China is more like a ground lease. I could be wrong, but if I am not, the property prices in China are even more nuts. In any case, with a bubble like this, there really isn't a good way out without crashing the economy. They can do it quickly (unlikely) or slowly like the Japanese did in 1990.

I would start researching BRO (start with their annual reports and the scuttleburb report I posted a link to). They seem to be straight shooters. As for valuation, BRO stock does not seem to be totally overvalued, but isn’t cheap either. I am learn about stepping into this sector because all the companies have stepped up acquisitions paid for with debt and I think organic growth is a slowing a bit too. BRO for example has doubled their debt from ~$2B to ~$4B in one year and they aren’t the only ones. I wonder if there is a bit of a feeding frenzy going on here.

This might do the job. Was formerly called docoh.com https://capedge.com

LOl, cud’s for keeping track of this stuff. I really do like the first quote which is from Ben Gurion, the founding father of modern Israel. The fact that Israel exists is in my opinion a miracle. The fact that Ukraine is still there and fighting and perhaps winning may also be considered a miracle. Sadly, I think this thread will still be active in 2024 because I don’t think the war will be truly over in a year. That‘s more of a tragedy but wars tend to be long drawn out tragedies. Back to my not so cheap wine.

Brokers basically have the same growth than insurance cos, but don’t require any capital to run the business, not even working capital. That’s why they are great business.

Tucker Carlson has basically become a Russian propaganda asset. He has been repeating repeating Russia propaganda in some cases, unfiltered. It’s not the first time, or second time or third time. He does this over end over.

I Never heard about Maître Anthony, but he appears to be the bomb, so to speak. They call him the pope of cheese : https://www.chilli-freiburg.de/gastro-gusto/der-sundgauer-kaesepapst-maitre-antony/

Wednesday (Adams Family spin-off) on Netflix is fantastic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13443470/

The risk of disruption has been contemplated a long time end do far, there is no evidence that it’s going to happen. I now remember this writeup from scruttleburb about BRO, which I think is still largely correct to this day. That alone tells you some thing. The valuation mutiples over time have crept up though. https://www.scuttleblurb.com/bro-compounder-in-a-fragmented-sector/