John Hjorth

Thank you for an awesome write-up, wabuffo, I just ordered the book. I'm really looking forward to the study of it. [From your write-up, I suppose it's more like a study than a read.]

Because there are literally billions of dollars at stake for the continuing, long term shareholders of Berkshire, to get this right - long term, ref. also longinvestors post.

Value investors don't buy yachts - period. They are cheap-skates [, perhaps with some kind of weird obsession to cars or whatever - not yachts!][ ; - D ] - - - o 0 o - - - Now back to Buffett/Berkshire - General news.

rb, You're right. The last time I bought something tangible & expensive [for my part: a car] I paid with a certified cheque, too. Later, I have at my broker bought Berkshire shares in one transaction above that figure in the car transaction - the difference is the broker already knows the cash is present and available.

Okay, I chuckled at that! You never know.. #metoo! [ : - D] -Well, with a salary of USD 19 M for 2019 [including a bonus of USD 3 M or something like that], I suppose you "just" swipe some plastic if you want to buy "a boat" [not a yacht].

Just FYI, publicly editable spreadsheet looks like it's been corrupted. At least some values are grossly incorrect. This should have been expected but FYI if someone is still using it. Please dive into Berkshire specificics, Jurgis.

You got it right, CorpRaider.

I hope you're right, Charlie [ : - ) ], Then there is the retail part of the "Insurance and other" part of the whole "Berkshire circus", and how the construction related companies within the Berkshire sphere have fared? -Time will tell. [Disclosure : I may suffer from a great deal of home bias related to latter part ... - Here in Denmark, the real estate sector has continued to be glowing hot during the pandemic - I'm not in any way sure about how to interpret that.]

About 4 - 5 weeks from now, we'll see the next Berkshire 10-Q. It for sure will be an interesting read. Time will tell how Berkshire has fared through this storm, discussed recently in several separate topics within the last couple of months or so, with different focus [focus on the insurance part of Berkshire, the energy part of Berkshire, etc.]

I hear you, Greg, If this is true [i suppose it is], it's a shame, tragedy & scandal in its own right. - - - o 0 o - - Going anecdotal and local [, as a Danish analogy to Greg's post] : Danish numbers : Population [from worldometer] : 5,792,835. Hospitalized COVID-19 related persons as of yesterday : 17 Of which persons in ICUs : 4 Of which persons in ventilators [in Danish it's called respirators] : 4 - - - o 0 o - - - In short : Everything should be reopened by now here. - - - o 0 o - - - Now what's the status? : Well, the MPs have left the Danish parliament [called "Folketinget"] for vacation. What's "hung" of restrictions? A really stupid restriction that tourists from abroad have to book at least for 6 days when visiting Copenhagen. So the hotels in Copenhagen are still bleeding dearly! I suppose it must be evident to everybody that July is peak season time for hotels in Copenhagen. Tweet by Anni Matthiesen [Yesterday]. Ultra short translation : Q : "What does it take to get rid of the "six days" rule?" A : "Sorry, the Danish Parliament can't reply until August because of vacation." To me, it's soo appalling.

I have personally had the experience pictured & quoted above by cherzeca lately, and speculated it was a software bug. Personally, it has been, to me, an unpleasant & very annoying experience. That said, no way, I'm going to leave, nor stop participating & reading CoBF. [i suppose, if CoBF stops to exist, I'll go into suicidal mode. [ : - D]]

One thing that we have going for it is that there are a lot of test subjects to run the clinical trials in large numbers. That was one of the issues with SARS - we run out of test subjects due the SARS being ringfenced if I recall correctly. We don’t have the same issue here. :o I hear you, Spekulatius, It was a few day ago, I found out that the holy-go-moly daily public COVID-19 reporting here in Denmark "slacked" by going from daily reporting to weekly reporting on some stats, and I was actually stunned by that, until I realized that "10% [or something like that] of some "small number"" shouldn't in any way leave any effect on how your personal judgement about this evolves over time locally". Nothing to be stunned about, actually. - Actually, It's more like some kind of privilege in the random ovarial lottery - until you get it right, - inside your head.

I'd say it does. Since the Subject of this topic says "Keep em PC" and this involves a PC. +1 Gents, you crack me up! Sperm is a very potent part of your body, which you have to stay in full control of. Dropping it here, there & everywhere can be really expensive.

Thanks gfp, Always go to the primary source as the first thing.

Today, I've read some pieces "out there" today about Mr. Trump basically has been sweeping the market for available Remdevisir for months going forward, based on production capacity. Example : Here. For Danes, no sweat. We've already got it, in some volume - for free! - from Gilead. Number of persons in ICUs as of the latest reporting : 10.

Greg, As you perhaps already know, I'm pretty observant to facts posted here on CoBF, and by all means much-much more observant how those so-called facts are processed and handled. So, to me, you are here just such a low-life cheat fiddling with your numbers that you post here on CoBF, dividing by four, instead of dividing by four-and-something! [ : - D] I hope everything is evolving well over time for your part, and yours! Take care [ : - ) ] [The rest that we're talking about here on CoBF is "just money" [and all that].] In short - now that I actually think about it - there is no capital gain comparable to become a parent again! [ : - ) ]

Smart move. They ate their vegetables, now they move onto dessert. USA? Stuck in futile "isolate seniors/vulnerables" until/if a vaccine ever emerges. Oh, and economy takes on water over longer term now even without any more lockdowns. "Isolate seniors strategy" a.k.a. prepare for long term hits to tourism, entertainment, no spending by those who have money to spend (seniors/retirees), less spending even by young folks who also really don't want covid themselves, restaurant/hotel volume hits, etc etc. Oh, and good luck completely sealing off seniors from the rest of the population. Maybe we can pull some seniors out of retirement to run the nursing homes... The EU will not be alone in doing this. Canada keeps extending severe border restrictions with US and it is hard to see why they would be lifted with the spike in US cases. The rest of the world will likely continue shutting out the US. I am sure this fits with Trump’s re-election strategy... all part of the well thought out plan :-) ‘stable genius’ that he is. Viking, Dalal.Holdings & cwericb, Naturally, this is somewhat saturated of political tactics. But there is also some logic in some places of this. Going anecdotal and local, here in Denmark the travel restrictions for persons crossing the Danish border has been made dynamic, so that if a country has a number of confirmed cases per x citizen measured as an average over a given time span over a preset treshold, it considered a "bad country", and citizens from that particular country are not welcome here, and Danes aren't allowed to travel to that particular country. So the management of "open ["good"] countries" and "closed ["bad"] countries" has been made quite mechanical and dynamic. - - - o 0 o - - - As a European CoBF member I also want to express my sincere concerns to my fellow US board members about how this calamity evolves over time in USA. The mental load on you must be enormous while trying live the daily life as well as possible. I hope that you take care of those near and dear to you, and that you have not had casualties in your personal sphere. Please hang in there. The enemy is genetically coded not to show signs of fatigue. There is no such thing as defeat or rising the white flag. We all have to ride this out.

Speaking as one of Orhopa's smuggest critics, 100,000 deaths and mass graves were proof enough for me that he was wrong. Apparently to believe the "widespread/millions infected in January" thesis, you'd have to believe hundreds of thousands died back then and doctors had no idea what it was and put something else on the death certificate...Also none of those millions of people made it to FL, AZ, TX, OK, etc until now in June... Also, love the strawman attempt--to accuse those like us who saying it most certainly was not widespread in U.S. January as if we were saying it was not at all here in U.S. in January--we clearly stated it was here in Jan, particularly in WA state (even citing an infectious disease doctor in Seattle who was ignored back in January by Federal gov't/FDA). But yeah, either some people have memory problems or just aim to mislead about what was argued in the past. *Shrugs* Please can't we let this line of discussion go here? Is it constructive? [To me, no.] Is it fruitful [from a post mortem perspective] [for us, as investors]? [To me, no.]

Short time ago, mobility data from Google & Apple was mentioned by a fellow board board member in this topic [right now, I can't find it, I think it was in a post by Investor20]. Have we discussed Corona apps? Two days ago [on June 18th 2020] the Danish Corona app called smitte|stop was released and made available for the Danish population. ["Smitte stop" in Danish translated to English becomes "Infection stop".] It runs on a decentralized data structure based a data structures made available by Google and Apple, based on use of Bluetouth technology, combined with the use of the Danish personal digital ID [called Nem-ID], securing user anonymity while creating warnings if you have been close to an infected person retroactively calculated by an underlying algorithm serverside without permanent centralized data storage. Personally, I consider this a great initiative to track and trace chains of transfer. It will certainly be worthwhile to follow how this initiative will play out and contribute over time. [it may perhaps not work out as hoped for and expected, but at least it has then been tried - to me, every initiative matters.] - - - o 0 o - - - I would really appreciate to "hear" [read] a bit here about how it is with such similar initiatives from fellow board members in other places & countries.[/right]

And the latest WHO sit report continue - day by day - to look worse than the prior.

Here in Denmark, yesterday the treatment of CV patients with severe cases changed to be a combination of Remdevesir and Dexamethason. Yes, like Spekulatius mentioned, even a small step forward in the right direction is exactly that : A step forward. Edit : Here are the daily numbers for Denmark. Those actual numbers surpass my wildest dreams - in a positive way - from just about a month ago.

Thank you for sharing, cherzeca, Your post is actually a heartbreaking read, to me. Personally, I'm pretty sure that you're rooted in good & decent soil.

In a way, - I don't know which - the current line of posting in this topic has to stop.

Off topic & especially for Greg: Is it time to post a huge congratulations to you? [ ; - D]

Thank you, Pete.