John Hjorth

If you have a less than $500 in liquid assets then basically anything is a potential financial catastrophe. lol. I simply love reading posts like this one from rb! It's all about getting out of the financial swamp / quicksand, and to stay there [stay out], by not swimming naked. Some prefer more frothy waters than others, though. [ : - ) ]

There is a personal and/or private reason for that. Please just accept and respect it.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, longinvestor. To me, you're really good at picking up the important details in interviews. Somehow, the oversight of Berkshire from an operational point of view must have been daunting for many years now. This is to me the right decision, to lift off some workload on Mr. Buffett. [i have no idea to which extent Mr. Munger has been involved in that part of Berkshire operations.]

Time for some banking humor: A Pet Piggybank Really Hams up in Santander Bank's Adorable New Ad. Then please scroll down a bit, and enjoy the new Santander video ads: "You've got the shaft" "You've been fleeced" "You've been hosed" "You've got Jack A**"

There is a 98.98% probability that I'll repeat this morbid excersise here on CoBF in a year, StubbleJumper! Charlie, I couldn't find statistics for billionaires only! Furthermore, I think will live on forever.

StubbleJumper, Here is my morbid-bid on your ask: [and no, I don't think I'm stuttering] Probability of 87 years old man to die this year ~ 12.48% Probability of 93 years old man to die this year ~ 22.49% Thus, probability of both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger being a live at 2018 year end = [100% - 12.48%] * [100% - 22.49%] = 67.8% Life expectancy of Mr. Buffett: 5 years Life expectancy of Mr. Munger: 3.2 years. Source: For Mr. Buffett.For Mr. Munger.

I suppose that you are referring to Svenska Handelsbanken AB here, rb. [sHB A.STO & SHB B.STO] There is written a book about it by Niels Kroner. CoBF topic here.

lol. Or perhaps Sanjeev can setup a separate forum for cryto-talk? - I mean, to give it a slow death, like the Politics forum ... [J/K] - The fairly new Personal Finance forum is a success though.

Somehow - finally - I've managed to get somewhere near the CoBF median - with about 13 percent pre tax [all nitpicking still not completed]. Largest positions during the year - here year end positions: Berkshire Hathaway B [bRK.B] [ size ~22 percent, up 22 percent over the year in local currency - bought some during the year] Cash [All in DKK, size 17 percent] Novo Nordisk A/S B [here, the Danish stock NOVO B.CPH, else US ADR NVO][ size ~ 12 percent, up 29 percent in local currency] Banco Santander SA [uS ADR] [sAN] [ size ~ 6 percent, up ~23 percent over the year in local currency] Schouw & Co. A/S [sCHO.CPH][ size ~5 percent, up ~12 percent in local currency - bought some during the year, not much]. - - - o 0 o - - - Like other European CoBF members, I've been hit by currency headwinds on the EUR/USD relation, mentioned by kab60 and other fellow board members earlier in this topic to be about 12 percent. Still my best year ever. The tides have been going in, though. - - - o 0 o - - - Congratulations to fellow board members on some awesome 2017 results!

Here are my New Year resolutions, ranked: 1. Try to find a way to help DooDiligence to get out from Guantanamo [He is incarcerated there as a "hostile combatant", because of his tweets to Mr. Trump ... - didn't you know that there is Internet connection at Guantanamo for the incarcerated there?] 2. To stay out of jail myself. 3. If I fail on #2, try again! 4. Keep my phone updated, ref. the discussion in the Intel topic. Here the correct security settings:

Al, Just to make you absolutely sure, please just add me.

I had to call the Lady of the House to read your post on one of my monitors, cigarbutt. She enjoyed your post as much as I did. I think it now must have been about 37 years ago, that I "suffered the pain" of being "forcely enrolled", to a course of "Sales and Marketing", to get my B.Sc. in Business Economics. Needless to say, basically - I barely passed. What kind of idiot was it, that I here was "confronted to" - [to get out of my way!]? Basically, he taught me a thing or two about sales. I've never forgot that. - - - o 0 o - - - The short version is, that there is always work to do - even if you're at 100% cash. - - - o 0 o - - - - Happy New year to you, cigarbutt.

Nate [fellow board member oddballstocks] and his business partner Kenneth have released this book short time ago [At the end of November 2017, I think]. Available on Amazon here. Great initiative! I ordered the paperback version today, and I really look forward to the read.

Jurgis, PGNT is [was?] a microcap discussed years ago here on CoBF. Perhaps it was before you joined CoBF. To say the least, the content of the posts about it was not positive [bH-like]. With my perception achieved over the years of your personal investment style, it's not worth your time to try to dig it up here on CoBF. [i tried to look it up based on the question in your post here in this topic by doing a search here on CoBF, but came out empty handed.]

Have you found out about Sham Gad and PGNT, Jurgis?

AMAT [Applied Materials Inc.] IRDM [iridium Communications Inc.] [Micro positions/trackers - only in my PA, not for any other family members.]

Merry Christmas to all fellow CoBF board members! - And thank you for all your contributions to the board during the year.

I especially found this part at around the 24:00 mark hilarious: Well, if it's not your favorite discipline to bill people after lots of hard work, one definitely should leave! [ : - D] Many years ago, one of my friends expressed his disgust for my profession: "You actually don't produce anything. This certification of yours is just a consession to tax rich people - your are just reallocating wealth from them... - to yourself. You are just a capitalist mercenary. You aren't even a tax accountant, so you're in bed with the IRS, too!"

This book is the mathematical parallel version of the Incerto Collection of books by Mr. Taleb: The Black Swan. Fooled By Randomness CoBF topic here. Antifragile CoBF topic here. The Bed of Procrustes. Skin In The Game [to be released in February 2018, as far as I know]. The book is free, and can be downloaded from Mr. Taleb’s personal website. [ link just south-east under the main picture of the Incerto paper back collection]. Direct link here. The book is a work in progress, and available for free for feedback. Current state as per the date of this post is August 2014, status described on p. XX [<- twenty] in the Chapter Summaries. There seems to be two ways to read this book: Full read. Text only reading [i.e. skipping the math]. Mr. Taleb’s own words in the book: I started reading the book a few days ago. I feel challenged, applying first mentioned method. A dormant center in my brain with regard to math gets massage. Furthermore, I have to stick with my favorite English web dictionary to understand all shades and details of everything because of Mr. Talebs above average vocabulary [above mine, that is]. I like it, because the language applied by Mr. Taleb is much more “neutral” than in his other books. His personal [huge?] ego appears to be omitted. - - - o 0 o - - - I expect to get back in this topic with my opinion on the book after reading it - no later than when I’m on my dead bed. There is the risk though that I suddenly drop down dead from the school bench, without such reporting, due to the circumstances.

Thank you for taking the initiative to give this topic some more substance, longinvestor. Perhaps I should have quoted some more here of your post... - At least what I have quoted here nails it. Perhaps a likely better exercise [no critism indended here] would be to look at the year end 2008 financials for Berkshire [or some nearby end quarter reporting, at your discretion] and to try to compare it with 2017Q3 Berkshire reporting - just grab the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement for each period, of your own pick.

Thanks for setting this and me straight and teaching me here, Eli. Obviously the delay led me to wrong conclusion.

Say it isen't so. Posted by Munger_Disciple in a separate topic here on CoBF: Here. I'm speculating about if there is a connection here.

LC, you're a fairly young man, it's just too early for you to get into the "repair-age" with something like that. All the best to you with it.

You just made my day, writser! [ : - D ]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic, Eli, It's much appreciated. Here is an article about robot.txt: Link. Please try to google one of your own posts here on CoBF! As far as I can see, the GoogleBot does not index CoBF. I suppose Sanjeev has kicked it out, by the use of robot.txt in the root of installation on the netserver at the company hosting CoBF. Good for us. [<-Wrong! - Please see later post by EliG]. - - - o 0 o - - - - Some time ago I got called out by fellow board members - for bad behavior - here on CoBF - with regard to Ms. Margrethe Vestager - while she was after one of the FAANGs. [Now she's "doing" IKEA.] I actually then did a google search for my post, and it didn't show up. Moreover, she hasen't sued my butt for slander - yet.