John Hjorth

This weeks KAL cartoon at the Economist [15th May 2025]:

I preordered this book at saxo.com today, release date 7th October 2025. Will get back to it here, when done with it.

@Rainier, What's your nationality, - do you mind to share ? - That asked, company culture towards shareholders may vary deerly from country to country

This AI podcast episode really cracked me up, almost killed me [ ] :

Yeah, Roger [ @rogermunibond ], I read it like you do. Meaning, if there is any bank debt in the whole system of all the group companies at all, it's likely not that much at all, or we would see it in a separate line in the group balance sheet, again meaning no *BS* and hanky-panky with monthly reporting to banks, follow-up communication with banks etc. anywhere in the group, so if money is needed somewhere in the group for p&p etc. you just call corporate headquarter : 'Send us more money, please!'

Yes, on group level YE2024 : USD 44,885 million : On parent level YE2024 : USD 21,091 million : ,Diff BHFC YE2024 : USD [44,885 - 21,091] million = USD 23,794 million.

The 'silent communication', in reality by now imposed on Berkshire Hathaway shareholders by Mr. Buffett for many years, with Berkshire shareholders in reality and basically getting nothing but 10-Q and 10-K information has to change to something else, and better. Such improvements do not suck up a lot of ressources. It's primarily a matter of will.

Some basic trust in Mr. Buffetts personal assessments carried out during a long row of years with regard to his nearest managerial employeés, picked consciously and meticously, is of importance here. I mean he is likely personally in any aspect hit harder than any of us, if things does not work out satisfactory. You could blame him, in such situation, in such situation, he has nobody to blame but himself. We can discuss this from now on to Greg Abel gets fired, passes away or chose to retire, and the whole thing starts all over again. The solution to this is - by locic - for you to set up your own holding company, and start running it.

There is an other aspect of the Berkshire Hathaway AGM session lay-out : the MSMs - partly - control over the questions asked and answered. Does Becky Quick even own any BRK shares -Perhaps Greg Abel and Ajit Jain may chose a totally different setup going forward for AGMs?

-Great entertainment here on CofB&F on a Sunday! - On a more serious note, there is certainly an element of truth to what you posted above.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to have polls here on attached to posts, only available for topics. - And likely not a good idea to set such poll up in a separate topic here of CofB&F by now, unless one has an urge to get disconnected to CofB&F.

Yes, @Spekulatius, It was just the - for Putin - usual procrastination techniques. Asking [demanding] for Ukraine to pull out of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, the four regions which Russia attempted to illegally annex in 2022, as a precondition for a one month ceasefire, and thereby asking Ukraine to give up land it controls, and everything goes into deadlock. I'm pretty confident that the last bit of patience among the European countries standing together in the support for and of Ukraine is exhausted, and there will be futher sanctions against Russia initiated and imposed. Again it will be the average Russian Mrs. & Mr. Ivanov who will be hit eventually, Putin will not become situated so he feels anything on his own life, or body. Those sanctions will naturally have negative ripple effects on the economies in the European countries as well. I hope that POTUS does what he has said he will do to create a clear vision of Russian stance soon, and react accordingly. But POTUS says so much every day. - - - o 0 o - - - It may read as a bad joke, but it isen't - I mean it's the reality : On my Iphone I have an app from the Danish TV station TV2News : Every morning I get a notification from the app : 'What Trump has said this night'! [Great start on a new day! ]

Today, I ordered this book, based on reading a Substack post by John Mihaljevic, MOI Global, and the description of the book at Amazon : - - - o 0 o - - - Pretty decent price, I would say for a 378 pages paperback [, all while the content naturally matters more]. - - - o 0 o - - - Not available by now at Danish www.saxo.com [I don't know why], so I ordered it at Amazon.

Russian-Ukrinian War : Reuters - World, Russian-Ukrainian War [May 16th 2025] : Russia-Ukraine talks end after less than two hours in Turkey. Christ, what a joke, after more that day and nights stallling and bluffing *BS* from Putin, as the initiator for a meeting thursdag, not today. POTUS' clownbus derailed to the ditch by Putin. Keep up your appearances!

I recently stumbled on a couple of copies of this book available at very reasonable prices on E-Bay : Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.; a Saga of Courage (Paperback or Softback), & Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.; a Saga of Courage (Hardback or Cased Book). Available for everyone at reasonable prices if Adam Meads pdf copy in the starting post of this topic isen't sufficient for you.

Yes, Jeff [ @DooDiligence ], It's about to think about and for the best of the whole, with due regard for respect for the elderly. For Mr. Buffett about driving, it would just be a question of a Berkshire Corporate HQ clerk picking him up at home in the mornings and driving him to the office via McD, and also driving him directly home after end of his workday, or let his personal security take care of it.

Wall Street Journal - Exclusive, Business [May 14th 2025] : Warren Buffett Reveals He Stepped Down After Finally Feeling His Age Subtitle : The legendary investor, 94, opens up about his decision to hand the top job to Greg Abel; ‘How do you know the day that you become old?’ Some quotes from the exclusive interview, on which the article is based, which to me reads as very candid, honest talk and a great deal of self insight and introspection : Personally, I'm good reading this. It is to me exactly like it should be.

A bit more JOE.

Thanks, Charlie [ @dealraker ], Mike [ @cubsfan ] and @changegonnacome, Any suggestions about where to read to get a basic understanding of the basic yearly budget cycle, process, which I suppose must be a Congress thingy, with some computation macro nerds / guys involved? [Round small glasses, always in a checkered shirt, doing just calculations all day long].

This, exactly this, How will that part of of the US Federal budget for 2026 play out? I've looked at it the last weekend, to no avail, by starting totally basic by reading on Wikipedia, - all to no avail, as an a priori totally ignorant. Charlie [ @dealraker ] also has more than alluded to this subject more than once earlier in this topic.

And so is also the eventually thereby assumed operational budget ... - not!

@Dalal.Holdings, What I responded to, was ecactly this posted by you about 19 hours ago : And I did respond to it by provinding the last data available from the company itself as primary source. Now try again telling me it's not severely biased quoting something about 38 percent, when you can exclude Japan without doing any work, other than seeking the primary source? -And what about your phrasing 'burst your bubbles' in this context? - - - o 0 o - - - The basic truth is that there must be some kind of pull back going on by now, but we really don't know the severity, nor the extent of it, by now, it's by now insider information, and there is no way to get to it for any of us, - on the last LVMH conference call almost every analyst asking questions did try to 'fish' and / or 'pump' something out of management, and giving the information is simply denied every time, when asked for it. No specific information outside what's already released in reports shared and released, what so ever. These companies manage their stuff and business by meticously [totally anal, I would say] tracking and closely following their weekly sales, where every unit [shop] has to report fine meshed sales for week x minus 1 on monday in week x, so the agregate report can be on managements tables no later than tuesday morning in week x. No exceptions and no excuses for not reporting timely, or a head will be rolling somewhere. Nobody responsible for this activity go home from work without this task done monday, unless you're interested in getting sacked. Period. So you have fine meshed sales data on weekly basis, compared with sales same week last year, year to date data and similar P/Y data, split-week reporting in weeks with shift of month, clear-cut monthly data with eaxctly comparable P/Y data and the whole holy-go-moly. Most likely it's all going on in a separate reporting module in the group consolidation software maintained and driven by Agache SCA or Financiere Agache, likely running based on AARO, Hyperion, SAP or something like that. - - - o 0 o - - - And what is really interesting to observe here in this space is that by observing financial reporting alone, it seems pretty clear already now, that the three or four leaders in the industry seem to cope very differently individually among each other with the headwinds that have arrived from beyond the horizon. Naturally it has to do with brand strengths and product mix, but I have been unable to get to a coherent explanation of it. What is it with Gucci [owned by Kering] by now? - And Hermes has always somewhat been a mystery to me ...

@Dalal.Holdings, Now please get real with your posts in this topic with some real information sharing, or crawl back to your own cave named 'Europe Uninvestable' with your fear mongering, 'EV' analogies unsubstanciated et. al. [, where nobody really wants to communicate with you any longer], or at least please be so kind to use primary sources in stead of what you are providing here as sources, found by you all over the place, with likely no personal discretion at all. Everybody knows this sector is challenged by now. It's actually this fact, that makes the sector as such interesting for us by now. - - - o 0 o - - - As for LVMH, while I'm very reluctant posting specifics about LVMH in this topic, because it belongs in the separate topic for LVMH in the Investment Ideas forum, which I think you are perfectly able to decode for yourself without any guidance - perhaps also it would an idea to study how LVMH performed while China was hard CoVID-19 locked down in 2020 : And 2024Q1 :

@RiskAdjReturn, You've got to be kidding me. I'm living on the planet called The Earth, where are you from?

Like you, @GorillaHunter, I'm personally in the camp, that the manufacturing footprint of the leaders in this industry is in another place than what posted above by @Dalal.Holdings. And It has also absolutely nothing to do with actual Chinese customers active by now - for the long term. Just spin, with no real, documented basis, nor sources provided.