John Hjorth

Presidential--with a capital 'P'. Somebody jelly of President Cuomo, wants to capture the political upside of Cuomo's stellar management (but "takes no responsibility" for any of the downside--Mr. 'Zero skin in the game' Trump!). Somehow, this reminds me about americans saying the EU and Euro being built with inherent flaws.

You're killing us, LC!, Please keep them coming! [ : - D ]

Agreed, but I think he'll try to rewrite and/or update it, and publish what's on his mind before the digital AGM. The February 22nd letter is pretty much obsolete as of now. He'll need to take some of the steam off the AGM questions, and inform shareholders in more detail about how Berkshire is doing now under these circumstances. -Wouldn't you expect that of him? ["Inform as our roles were reversed" and all that.]

Personally, I think Mr. Buffett has been busy rewriting his shareholder letter, scrapping the draft "as was", perhaps before Christmas, trying to do a total rewrite to give it another angle, but likely he'll have a hard keeping up with Mr. Dimon this year.

France24.com [March 23rd 2020] : German state to take in Italian virus patients, Berlin Spectator [March 24th 2020] : Germany Treats Italian and French Coronavirus Patients, Deutsche Welle [March 27th 2020] : Coronavirus: Treating European patients in Germany, I Am Expat [March 31st 2020] : Germany flies in more coronavirus patients from France and Italy, & EFE [April 3rd 2020] : Berlin sends ventilators to Spain, taking in patients from Italy, France. - - - o 0 o - - - Jyllandsposten [April 8th 2020] : Denmark sends respirators to corona hit Italy. - - - o 0 o - - - I speculate we will see much more of such activity within Europe along the way as certain European countries get the situation better under control, so all kinds of capacity is getting freed up, and will get reallocated within Europe. - - - o 0 o - - - Edit : Fixed spelling of "reallocated".

LC, Huh?

Politico - David M. Herszenhorn & Sarah Wheaton [April 7th & 8th 2020] : How Europe failed the coronavirus test. Devastating criticism ... - plain and simple. - - - o 0 o - - - In Denmark, we're trying to improve : Rokokoposten [April 8th 2020] : Yearly clamydia epidemic in the media industry avoided after cancellelation of the People's Meeting (from the future archive, august 2020).

Definitely positive. Our President (Cuomo), who has already accomplished the highest volume of testing per capita (even though NY is among the most populated states), is now talking about antibody testing -- those with proven immunity to be let out first. Seems like a decent strategy, but the concern is that may be too small a number to celebrate "reopening". Nice to have a cautious, reasoned leader though. Just elaborating a bit about what's going on here about Denmark [Perhaps Per [CoBF member perulv] will elaborate a bit about what's going on in Norway] : Schools class 0 - 5 will open just after Easter [will create an enormous productivity gain for the parents still working from home! [ : - ) ]]. Pupils in the highest classes will start in school, too, to prepare for exit exams. The intent is to gradually & carefully build herd immunity, in a controlled & closely monitored way [& roll-back, if things start to escalate again]. It reads right to me - We will eventually end in the Stone Age, if this continues - an extreme hard lock-down on March 12th 2020. More oxygen to zombie businesses hit by this under discussion. Better than nothing, & just for starters. - - - o 0 o - - - As a #metooCOVID-19? without access to testing [as of now] to get clarity, I have today found a short-cut : I'm an inactive Danish blood donor [have been a donor since I turned 18]. About 15 years ago I deactivated my account, because I was running on/off on pain killers for a bit less than a couple years because of a bad back. Tomorrow I'll activate my account again. The Danish blood banks use the taps for COVID testing, providing data to get a handle on the dark COVID numbers.

Some positive European news : Austria, Denmark & Norway have now introduced plans for gradually, slowly & carefully reopenings of societies.

Has anybody been reading about people going into China, and the tests and interim conclusions/findings about that?

LOL Thank you for sharing, Mike, [here, you're my kind of guy!] Pretty much the same here - space for improvement. [We really need to look at the bright side in this situation.]

Exactly, Dalal.Holdings, This is key to understanding. I think it applies to many European countries right now [, meaning we're "not there" yet.]

Who says we can’t drink? You gents are killing me! Our household right now - short version - consists of [2 x #metooCOVID-19?] - we bottomed out on Saturday March 14th 2020, both ill. Forced to switching to digital retailing [we chose nemlig.com] because of no access to testing as of now. She makes lists of what to order - I type them. At every order - if it's not already on the list - I add wine. Now she has started asking me : "Why are you ordering all that wine?" -I guess it's an unconscious mechanism. [ : - ) ]

Somebody working somewhere without using the inside of the head. Good that we have an active press worldwide, so absurdities like this get coverage, and thereby likely will be corrected swiftly.

The question by you certainly qualify, Greg, Observing [later] what you hypothetically stated, would not cause any reaction from me. Mr. Buffett has earlier stated, that the first priority [with regard to capital allocation] is the needs for capital of the subs already owned [wholly]. We have both read posts here on CoBF about the "Big Four" [also the Berkshire "Black Box" : Precision Castparts Corp., Lubrizol, IMC, Marmon Holdings] and their prospects, which aren't exactly spring green on overall basis.

Dalal.Holdings, Enjoy!

Thanks Eli & Paul.

muscleman, Do you have a source for this statement? -And what are the practical implications of this?- Thank you.

Pretty striking, that the CoBF Politics Forum is almost totally inactive within the last month or so. Nobody mentioned - nobody forgotten.

Please let it go, gents, - at least for now, To me, right now, it's all about damage control [forward looking]. - - - o 0 o - - - Perhaps a day will come, when to discuss who's to blame for this or that [including errors of omission].

if an 80 year old refuses to isolate, it's his/her own choice. It's the same now: if someone goes out anyway, it's on them. You can't let your policy be dictated by the notion some might not listen. At least, for that 80 year old you have the leverage there's an actual health threat to that person, while most 20 year olds have a bigger chance of getting hit by a bus on their once-a-day walk to the supermarket than actually dying of this virus. minten, No, it's not. Here in Denmark, this kind of reckless behavior [perhaps inverted compared to the actual context here discussed] is countered by the Danish Epedimic Act, which has been activated about a couple of weeks ago, latest Tuesday last week it was strengthened further, to use force related to reckless behavior. Reporters here have asked for insight in the cases where this has happened [there are a few cases [ less than 5, I think] already here], but insight has not been granted by the authorities. Elder people getting interviewed to the local paper saying "The death has to have a cause" and something like that. People who have been asked to quarantine, but refuse to do so [with proof of that] goes into some kind of box, locked from outside - somehow. Period.

minten, To me, the question is both ethical and cultural. The discussion has started here in Denmark, too. Personally, I'm amazed - in a positive way - about the cohesion of the Danish society in this situation. Everybody is helping each other, each at their own very best.

Thanks, rb, Obviously people here on CoBF are looking at the same things, however conclusions on observations come out out non-similar.

Aurelius, This line of thinking is flawed. Where is Mr. Anders Tegnell's downside protection? [For him and for every Swedish citizen]?

I mean could we ever really know if the bullet killed the man, or if he happened to die from complications of hypertension just as the bullet entered his skull? Causation can be tricky after all, and we should study it further before deciding conclusively! M. Why would anyone assume the hole in the head was caused by the gun going off? People are always jumping to conclusions. The liberal media has brainwashed everyone. The real question that everyone is waiting for, did this person has covid-19? If he did, he obviously died from it. False comparison. A bullet through head will kill 100% of time, immediately. Covid-19 doesnt kill 99%+ and definitely not immediately. So you cannot assign a 80 year cancer patient to Covid automatically. At least they should check for lungs and breathing problems etc. My understanding is a whole lot of times old and sick die of "infections" but is reported to be dead of cancer/stroke, and resultant complications. Not infection (flu, bacteria etc). Type II diabetes is a good example of how silly it is to haggle about the exact cause of death when it is clear that a disease is clearly a major factor in contributing towards death. Most patients with severe type II diabetes die of other causes that are essentially a result of secondary damage from the disease (infections that do not respond to antibiotics very well, kidney failure, more cardiovascular complications than otherwise, etc). Clearly Covid seems to accelerate the underlying pre-existing conditions towards death, in particular cardio-vascular and any lung related pre-existing condition is what we know so far. I guess this quick exercise quickly explain why it's hard to categorize death rates. No doctor is going to spend time on a cold body to find out what exactly the cause of death especially when you have bodies piling up. Not true for my country [Denmark].