John Hjorth

I'm reading Roger Lowenstein : 'When genius failed - The rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management" as leisure reading right now. I have to say, that it's just awesome! Very entertaining! - Basically, it about what do you get when you combine academia and Wall Street [, here, please note with a label / goods declaration : Guarantied without / free of "reason" / "sound judgement" [for the sake of the climate, it would be called to day, I think]]. It is about when extreme ambitions and greed, combined with being delusional about the circle of competence creates, karma, hubris and nemesis. I recommend the book if you want a dose of this.

@mcliu, I have to say I'm actually more than just surprised to see this video clip by Mr. Stoltenberg. Huge red flag. What I'm curious about is a date / time stamp for this statement, and the written statement by Mr. Putin, and its date. I have to admit, that this somehow has skipped my attention.

Thank you, @Luca, Yes, I practice gallows humor [German : Galgen witz, Danish : Galgenhumor] to mentally cope with and to mentally survive the madness thats going on here in Europe. It is for sure needed. I have started to follow Sahra Wagenknecht, based on the content of your last post. My spoken German is a bit rusty, but I have no problem taking care of dailyday activity by speaking German, while in Germany, while I have absolutely no problem with understading all shades and nuances of the German language spoken or written. [Insufficient active vocabulary, because of lack of practice]. I also feel like a touchy bitch when our North American friends here on CoBF talks about money and starts blending US South border security into this European warfare matter. It concerns preventive measures in relation to 1st or 2nd order effects in relation to other and European NATO member states in case the situation escalates further. If our common North American CoBF members cannot or will not understand this, then I am not able to explain it. Just to try to trigger some kind of embarrassment into our fellow North American CoBF members with such stance, I will try to dig up some factual data about how Denmark has behaved in relation to Ukrainian refugees coming to Denmark since the war in Ukraine started. @Luca, Nassim Taleb would express it as "You simply don't have the same skin in the game as your North American friends on CoBF." -Period. - - - o 0 o - - - Edit : Bloomberg [September 26th 2023] : Erdogan Says Turkish Approval of Sweden NATO Bid Hinges on F-16s. Just Recep Tayyip Erdogan oportunistic modus operandi.

This actually a bit funny, @Luca, From the JP front page : This Marchen Neel Gjertsen [the woman to the right] is actual the editor in chief at JP, and running a podcast with her colleague, the podcast called 'Under the rug'. She is a neat piece of eye candy, 38 years old, and appointed to the position not so long ago. The theme is all kinds of critical stuff and dirt digged up in Danish politics and such stuff about Danish politicians at power. I think I started reading her stuff about eight years ago or so, and I thought she was a real real PITA. Today I must say I really like her. Here it's just unheard of to get appointed editor in chief at age 38. She is very good, and she likely still has a very long runway, where tiny Denmark becomes too tight for her at some time in the future, I think.

Translated from Danish to English : jp.dk JP [Jylllandsposten][September 25th 2023] : The case unsolved: A year after the Nord Stream explosions, the investigation is completely blacked out. Original article here.

34 more. It's just so ugly. *Ugh*

To this day I'm still wondering if the 2020 [green] Elephant Edititon was the last one from Mr. Kilpatric? From reading the CoBF board here during many years, I specifically remember a person posting here on CoBF by the name Marlin, at each new edition since I joined CoBF, and from posts other places here on CoBF [I think it was by Sanjeev [ @Parsad ] , actually I have gathered the perception that Marlin is one of those very rare and early Berkshire investors who have had a very joyfull - and lucrative - ride on the back of their Berkshire shares!? - Andrew Kilpatrick beeing another one of them!

This topic has to me personally recently derailed totally into a trainwreck. All this Nazi talk makes no sense to me. Would any of you posting in this topic blame a 1. or 2. order decendant of Adolf Hitler for Hitlers doings under WW2? -Or for that sake blaim it on any living person of German origin today? Come on - it makes no sense, and you all know it. In Europe, there are likely Nazis in every European country, even here in Denmark. Also, in an other dimension the whole discussion going on in this topic is or has become one-dimensional [,as in "Europe is Europe"]. I'm here talking about the separation of, and distinction of : 1. Europe [Russia west the Ural mountains is actually generally accepted as a part of Europe], 2. EU member [, or not] & 3. NATO member [, or not].

I did spend most of the day alone at home yesterday looking at the major six Canadian banks : RY - Royal Bank of Canada, TD - Toronto Dominion Bank, BNS - Bank of Nova Scotia, BMO - Bank of Montreal, CM - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, & NA - National Bank of Canada. Absolutely awesome experience, fantastic creatures, impressive last ten years development and ROE for them all, some better than others. A banking oligopoly. All built to last for the future. I like the picture of price / risk I see here, also based on what I have read in this topic.

Read this today : Brookfield - White Paper - May 10th 2023 [19 Minute Read] :Three Themes Creating Opportunities in Global Real Estate [Download available on the webpage and attached here]. - - - o 0 o - - - I think on overall basis that this whitepaper at the date of release had merit, and that it still has. I can't see anything else that there is a lot to do that may turn out lucrative all over the palette in any dimension you may prefer and choose, if proper preparation and analysis is carried out before investment decisions are made. Personally, I have no desire to become a landlord at this stage in life by doing direct RE investments - I consider myself too old for such stuff, besides that I don't want to. Actual and present existence too pleasant by now to have it spoiled by tennants calling about defunct plumming, defunct power etc. So I have been looking at listed real estate companies in many places and countries within the last few months, to avoid the operational part of such ownership, by basically paying somebody for that part, to not get involved directly in operational tasks. I think the key to make the right decisions here where we are now in markets is to understand at a deeper level the existing financing of each specific investment object of interest. Brookfield - White Paper - 20230510 - Three Themes in Real Estate May 2023_0 - 20230924.pdf

@scorpioncapital, Trying to answer all parts of your questions would quite a mouthful . Here I will just try to focus and zoom in a bit on European taxes. Wikipedia : Tax rates in Europe. So it should be very clear to you that the taxation of income is individual per nation, with national definitions how to calculate taxable income, including possible and legal deductions included in taxable income.

Russian Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol getting hammered yesterday. Wild, just wild.

YouTube - BBU 2023 Investor Day session replay. The Sagen presentation by Sagen CEO Stuart Levings starts at around the 20:10 mark. Personally, I perceive the expressions of expectations about what the future will bring by Mr. Levings to be in overall line with what - as in to a high degree similar to - what @Viking has expressed in this topic, while I'm very well aware that the expressions of boths gents are about the future with all what that brings with it, with regard to reservations etc.

I can't help to think, that what I and all other non-administrator members' perceptions of CoBF might be by now doesen't really matter as much as what the guy running the place [joint?] may think of it, most of the time it has not been needed to be a door bouncer, like in some bar, pub or Irish Inn! -But it has happened! I still remember some periods in time, where CoBF was a really unpleasant place to visit, because of the prevalence of bad posting manners among members, combined with primitivity and rudeness to the extremes. Most left by themselves, some got 'help' to do so. To me, the worst period was up to the last presidential election in USA, with trolls in here stirring the pot day in, day out, some even without even just one serious post in the Investment Ideas section of CoBF. Sanjeev [ @Parsad ] must really like us, as a whole! - to keep this thing going!

By the way, Joel [ @racemize ] has just updated his complilation of all existing Howard Marks memos. The compilation starting with the first memo of October 1990 is available for download via Austin Value Capitals Twitter account here . It's a neat and tiny thing, by now consisting of 1,632 pages. Thank you for it, Joel [ @racemize ].

Just to keep @Lucas blood pressure up! -This does not look good and is embarassing for Germany.

Mentioned here in all modesty : Perhaps North America actually could learn something from us Danes about a good solution to this by studying the The Danish Mortgage Model. [Download Link] and attached. As likely all interested in studying this phenomen with rises in interest rates, and the effects of it, may know it's quite bad in Sweden, too, at the moment. When I try to explain to Swedish investors why we don't have a real estate havoc by now here in Denmark, and links to this paper, most of them simply can't grasp the concept of interest rates locked in for 30 years on a mortgage. Finans Danmark - den-klassiske-realkreditmodel_uk_2021_final - 20230922.pdf

At The Brookfield Listed Affiates Investor Day running right now, there was in the presentation of BBU a presentation of Sagen [www.sagen.ca ] by it CEO. [BBU is a part owner of Sagen]. That presentation was especially and also with focus on the expectations for the near future for Sagen about morgage default insurance in the Canadian residential real estate market, so to me certainly relevant to this topic, and I found it interesting. I suppose a video of the session will be made available on the Brookfild website tomorrow.

Thank you all for your posts containing your personal considerations, It's a fascinating discussion going on in this topic by now. Please continue - I hope you will. Where do you consider the big Canadian banks to be situated in this actual situation for Canada?

How about speed on your connection? How is your experience of that? -Thank you in advance.

Mike [ @cubsfan], I can personally assure you, it is!, at least here, locally.

I think my point here would be, let just Putin attack Sweden [ALSO not a NATO member] tomorrow. Because It doesen't matter to anything, anyway, right? It's simply not how things work around here. [And I can assure you, he wouldn't even dare.]

No it's not. What matters is this below [, and all here on CoBF know it, and by the way, all here on CoBF also know, that you also know it] :

Star Link website. I've never visited the website before a few days ago, but I have naturally followed the project on distance during the years via other sources. Visiting the first time, I got to the page - like you likely do also : "Order Starlink". Tried to type actual address in "Service Address" also, followed by pressing the "Order" button. No sweat! : Even experienced autofill on this households relatively obscure address on the border between this city called Odense and its rural surroundings, the city being the third largest city in Denmark in the middle of nowhere [and tiny], to the west from Copenhagen, located at the center of the Danish island called Funen. You may perhaps know the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen better. This is the city, where he was born. Price Danish option "Own" [lowest configuration] : DKK 485.00/mo for service and DKK 3,400.00 for hardware. Price Danish option "Rent" [lowest configuration] : DKK 485.00/mo for service, DKK 112.00/mo for hardware rental & DKK 370.00 activation charge. [DKK 7 ~ USD 1]. - - - o 0 o - - - I would like to read here whatever thoughts, experiences etc. my fellow CoBF board members might have and would want to share in this topic with us all. Thank you very much in advance.

Be careful with what you are posting, @Luca! If you were mentioning the name you would likely be at risk for being called severely biased, based on your personal misogyny. It's great to a place to steam out here, right!?