DTEJD1997

Not sure about that...I think that CMCL in the late 90's, early 2000's might have been a true penny stock, with no significant operations? I only know about the more modern history. CMCL bought the Blanket Mine from Kinross in 2006. All sorts of new management was brought in then. Maybe recapitalized? The whole company changed in 2005, both in terms of operations and management. Modern management has largely delivered on what they say. Of course, sometime things were slower than expected, sometimes it was more expensive, sometime a bumpy road I bought in initially shortly after CMCL initiated their dividend (2012). That was about 7 years ago or so for me. The dividend yield was about 10% then. Since then, they have maintained the dividend, and have raised it numerous times. I have traded in & out a few times, but have been holding & adding for the past 4 years or so. 7 years is probably not a complete cycle, but it is certainly not short term. Also, look to the future with CMCL. Zimbabwe has made tremendous strides in their society and economy. Of course, they have a long way to go, but they are generally on the right path. Look at CMCL, they have run the Blanket Mine incredibly well. They are about to increase production significantly with a new central shaft. The government has invited them to bid on government owned properties. It is expected that CMCL will bring these future properties quickly into development. That they have the capital, experience and knowledge to get an asset up & producing cash flow. Set CMCL aside, there are some other mining companies that have done incredibly well over long (decades) of time. For example, is a 20X increase in stock value over 24 years an acceptable return? What if significant dividends were paid all along that time, increasing the 20X return? Well, we will see.

LOL! Agree. Gold miners are perennial destroyers of capital. Calling gold miners a value play might be the biggest oxymoron I've ever heard. Let's take a look back to the beginning of Covid how did that work out for the investors holding gold as a hedge? They took an even bigger beating than the market. But that's where your wrong D33pV4lue gold is a hedge against inflation. Then can someone show me a chart of equities index to inflation vs Gold indexed to inflation? Investing in gold is a fool's game why don't we just go out and buy some crypto? Not to say there arent times when trading miners isn't a good strategy, but as "long-term investors" it makes no sense. Sorry for the rant I will now mute myself from adding my 2 cents so as not to disturb the people in this thread that are actually interested in gold. BOL Wow: Where to start? Sure, most gold companies and most miners are not very good companies over long periods of time...but then aren't most companies like that? It is really quite simple when you get down to it. You treat gold miners like any other business. You evaluate them for their sales, the cash flow, the free cash flow, the dividends. You look for management that grows things over time, that provides value to shareholders, that treats things like a BUSINESS, not a hobby. There are indeed mining companies that HAVE provided value over months, quarters, years, cycles. There are some unusual things going on right now. There are some gold miners that are clearly NOT properly understood by "the street", and trade at "silly" valuations. For example, my family and I have been piling into a Canadian gold miner that is trading for about 1x cash flow, 2x free cash flow, and will have a NET cash balance in less than a year. They have had problems, but solved 90% of those problems about a year ago. They have a history of paying out dividends before their time of problems. When you are debt free and trading for 1x cash flow....hard for it not to go up in value over time? Or what about CMCL in Zimbabwe? I've owned that for a long time. Got back a huge amount of my initial purchase in dividends. Not playing with "house money" yet, but getting very close. The company is in better position today that it was 1 year ago, 2 years ago and so on. The future looks pretty good. I've made multiples on my initial purchase price, and expect it to continue into the future. Just like any other sector, you've got to be careful with gold miners, VERY careful. So yeah, when people blindly say that a sector is "dogshit"...that leads to inefficiency. That is the way you make market beating returns, and that is what I am looking for.

Today's brief can easily be written remotely. But how does a law firm develop tomorrow's partners, i.e., business generators? I've seen this and been involved with it first hand... Some of the more nimble & "forward thinking" law firms are "in shoring" from Boston, NYC, LA & SF to say Detroit. Specifically, they are moving low-end, low value work to a Detroit location. In Detroit, you've got mail, power, interweb, and most other modern amenities. You've also got VERY cheap office space, and most importantly of all, you've got hordes of desperate attorneys who are willing to work for $20 to $25 an hour reviewing & sorting & doing basic prep work on large cases. You've got plenty of people fresh out of law skool, desperate to bring in some money, but you've also got seasoned attorneys from firms that disbanded after GFC. You've also got attorneys downsized from government, all types. Some of these cases that get farmed out will literally have MILLIONS of documents that need to be sorted & analyzed and have grunt work done. Perfect for the Detroit attorney! Detroit is not the only place, Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Atlanta are other hot spots. The high end work still gets done in NYC, along with client meetings (most of the time), and the partners and people on partner track. So shrink down NYC 75%, keep the high end there, but move out most everything that can be done elsewhere. This has been going on for the better part of a decade though. I think it will continue to accelerate and why not spread to other sectors of the economy? what you say is accurate, but this takes it one step forward. contract work for doc review and discovery searches are being "offshored" at cheap rates to contract attorneys hired on a deal/case basis, but this new twist would have the important work done by all attorneys be done remotely...until there is a need to meet in person over something...this is happening now due to covid and there is no reason that wont continue imo yes, I forgot to mention that most work is now being done remotely. I'm not sure how long that will last? There are some clients that are NOTORIOUS about security. Of course, it depends on the client and the firm. In the past, remote work was rather rare...now it is rather common. With the remote work, I would imagine you've got all sorts of potential problems, security & confidentiality being near the top of the list....then you've got technical problems....then you've got group dynamics and cohesiveness. When I was working projects, the first few days were critical, as attorneys would discuss different theories, different things that they were seeing, and would try to act in a synchronized fashion. Then you would have the group interfacing with the partner on conference calls. I guess some of this could be done with dispersed work groups, but I would think that quality and efficiency would take a hit to some degree. Pre-covid, there were some attorneys who were REAL germophobes. There would always be Lysol wipes & dis-infectant. Some of the women were really particular about this as we had shared workstations. If those people were antsy about germs before all this happened, I can't imagine what they are like now. I think we will know a lot more in a few months, if this is permanent, or if people start going back to offices. with encryption, I dont see security being an issue. management will have to be more alert though. it cant look at card reader reports anymore for associates etc leaving the office at 11pm... High level encryption is certainly a must for remote legal work...but there are a myriad of OTHER security problems besides just the encryption issue. One of the primary problems is potential waiver of attorney-client privilege if other people see/overhear legal matters being discussed. For example, does the Amazon echo (other devices) waive attorney-client privilege? What about spouse/children/significant other? In a strict office setting, this can be controlled to a great degree. With a remote worker gang, that becomes more problematic.

Today's brief can easily be written remotely. But how does a law firm develop tomorrow's partners, i.e., business generators? I've seen this and been involved with it first hand... Some of the more nimble & "forward thinking" law firms are "in shoring" from Boston, NYC, LA & SF to say Detroit. Specifically, they are moving low-end, low value work to a Detroit location. In Detroit, you've got mail, power, interweb, and most other modern amenities. You've also got VERY cheap office space, and most importantly of all, you've got hordes of desperate attorneys who are willing to work for $20 to $25 an hour reviewing & sorting & doing basic prep work on large cases. You've got plenty of people fresh out of law skool, desperate to bring in some money, but you've also got seasoned attorneys from firms that disbanded after GFC. You've also got attorneys downsized from government, all types. Some of these cases that get farmed out will literally have MILLIONS of documents that need to be sorted & analyzed and have grunt work done. Perfect for the Detroit attorney! Detroit is not the only place, Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Atlanta are other hot spots. The high end work still gets done in NYC, along with client meetings (most of the time), and the partners and people on partner track. So shrink down NYC 75%, keep the high end there, but move out most everything that can be done elsewhere. This has been going on for the better part of a decade though. I think it will continue to accelerate and why not spread to other sectors of the economy? what you say is accurate, but this takes it one step forward. contract work for doc review and discovery searches are being "offshored" at cheap rates to contract attorneys hired on a deal/case basis, but this new twist would have the important work done by all attorneys be done remotely...until there is a need to meet in person over something...this is happening now due to covid and there is no reason that wont continue imo yes, I forgot to mention that most work is now being done remotely. I'm not sure how long that will last? There are some clients that are NOTORIOUS about security. Of course, it depends on the client and the firm. In the past, remote work was rather rare...now it is rather common. With the remote work, I would imagine you've got all sorts of potential problems, security & confidentiality being near the top of the list....then you've got technical problems....then you've got group dynamics and cohesiveness. When I was working projects, the first few days were critical, as attorneys would discuss different theories, different things that they were seeing, and would try to act in a synchronized fashion. Then you would have the group interfacing with the partner on conference calls. I guess some of this could be done with dispersed work groups, but I would think that quality and efficiency would take a hit to some degree. Pre-covid, there were some attorneys who were REAL germophobes. There would always be Lysol wipes & dis-infectant. Some of the women were really particular about this as we had shared workstations. If those people were antsy about germs before all this happened, I can't imagine what they are like now. I think we will know a lot more in a few months, if this is permanent, or if people start going back to offices.

Today's brief can easily be written remotely. But how does a law firm develop tomorrow's partners, i.e., business generators? I've seen this and been involved with it first hand... Some of the more nimble & "forward thinking" law firms are "in shoring" from Boston, NYC, LA & SF to say Detroit. Specifically, they are moving low-end, low value work to a Detroit location. In Detroit, you've got mail, power, interweb, and most other modern amenities. You've also got VERY cheap office space, and most importantly of all, you've got hordes of desperate attorneys who are willing to work for $20 to $25 an hour reviewing & sorting & doing basic prep work on large cases. You've got plenty of people fresh out of law skool, desperate to bring in some money, but you've also got seasoned attorneys from firms that disbanded after GFC. You've also got attorneys downsized from government, all types. Some of these cases that get farmed out will literally have MILLIONS of documents that need to be sorted & analyzed and have grunt work done. Perfect for the Detroit attorney! Detroit is not the only place, Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Atlanta are other hot spots. The high end work still gets done in NYC, along with client meetings (most of the time), and the partners and people on partner track. So shrink down NYC 75%, keep the high end there, but move out most everything that can be done elsewhere. This has been going on for the better part of a decade though. I think it will continue to accelerate and why not spread to other sectors of the economy?

I think it scales if & when autonomous driving takes hold. You buy shares to pass on to your grandkids. edit: I meant re: Uber & Lyft. Why would Uber & Lyft want automated driving? If they have an automated driving fleet, they are going to have to buy automated cars. These cars are not going to be cheap. Then they are going to have to insure them. Then they are going to have to fuel them. Then they are going to to have to maintain them. Then they are going to have to replace them. This is going to cost billions of dollars, perhaps even tens of billions of dollars. Where is Uber going to get all that capital? They sure as $@#% going to do it out of retained earnings. That then leaves borrowing the money OR selling more stock. NOW, Uber's drivers do all of that for them. Uber's drivers are providing a LOT of capital by providing the vehicles. At current pricing, or anything near it, Uber's business model simply does not work.

hey all: Most education in America acts like a leech on society. Obviously, not all educators and schools...but a surprising amount. "For profit" education is perhaps the worst... followed by low level "professional" skools. Best of example of this is Law Skools where their graduates come out with $250k+ of student loan debt and no chance of paying it off...with Admins paid many hundreds of thousands per year, profs paid well over $100k, all the while working part time. Then you've got all the "regular" universities playing all sorts of games with tuition and scholarships. They may be "non-profit" but the stakeholders are the admins & profs getting all the "profits". Then you've also got blights such as the Detroit Public Skools. DPS has a budget of about $770mm for the year...but they are getting sued because so many of their graduates are illiterate. What is society getting for all that capital going into the skools? Well paid administrators and teachers. That is about it...society has been failed by the folks at DPS. Sadly, Detroit is not the only city in America with skool systems in shambles.

Yooooo......that's about the size of the subsequent purchase they were going to make to bailout the ex-CEO Lol! The word "billion" should be removed from the title of thread. WeWork is now valued at 35! Nah, still high...

Hey all: Every few days I get contacted by legal recruiters looking for attorneys to work on WFM or remote work projects. You have to be able to provide certain equipment (not difficult) and then you can from your home or office. Pay rates are actually going UP, generally speaking. The rate of pay has been as high as $28/hour! One thing that me wonder....is how remote working would actually work out. When I've worked on these projects, being able to ask questions of your co-workers was critical for me. It was also important in the first couple of days to ask others on the project, "what are you seeing", "how are you responding to this or that", and it was important to form group cohesiveness. It was also important to talk to other workers and get input on odd/difficult questions that would crop up later on. Even if you can "Zoom" with other workers on the same project (not clear), I think remote work will be generally much lower quality than having all the workers in a central location. At this point in time, lower quality work may be better than no work at all for the client?

What if workers start calling out sick at slaughter houses, processing plants, distributors, trucking companies, and most important of all perhaps, FOOD RETAILERS. There is no way I would be working at a grocery store stocking shelves, unloading trucks, working cash registers for $10, $12, $14 an hour. To an extent, that happened in the Detroit Post Office. We are not getting daily mail delivery in my city. The Post Office tries to do it, but some delivery routes can't be made every day. The distribution/sorting hubs sometimes had 90% worker outages. For a while, all outbound packages were being routed to Indianapolis for sorting/shipment. Many of my packages took 2-3 weeks to be delivered. 1st class letters were taking 1+ week to go across the city. There were simply not enough workers coming in. The Post Office was very close to collapse. In the past few days, things seem to have gotten better with the mail. I've also heard that more workers are coming back. Things are still difficult, but not like what they were. A lot of businesses won't function if workers don't show up. If there is a 2nd wave, that could be a real problem.

I have been surprised that people, especially those in the Detroit area, have been acting relatively calm. I think this calmness has been due to 3 things: 1). People are trying to come together and "do the right thing" in a time of emergency. 2). People got (are getting) $1,200 stimulus checks, and incredibly generous unemployment benefits. Getting significant money has a calming effect. 3). Here in the Detroit area, we have had very unusual weather. I can't remember it being this cold/snowy, this late in the year. Yesterday (5/8/20), some people in the area reported seeing snow flakes falling. No accumulation, but some snow in the air. Bad weather has a way of keeping people indoors and out of mischief. Eventually, the weather is going to get better and change. Stimulus checks will have been spent. People will be out of work.... I think there will be a real possibility of major civil unrest this summer if things do not get significantly better and the economy start to re-open. We have already seen a glimmer of this in the few protests at the MI state capitol. We do not have strong/intelligent politicians here in MI. People are starting to get VERY angry at some of the rules, and are starting to question what is going on. If things don't get better in the next few weeks, there very well might be major civil unrest.

Hey all: Here in the Detroit area, we have been hard hit by the Corona virus. We have another problem in that the Post Office is collapsing. I had noticed that some days I would not receive any mail. Hard to know if I simply had no mail for the day, which sometimes happens. HOWEVER, I checked with other business owners, and they were also not getting mail, and did not see the Post Man. What are the odds that a whole block of businesses NOT get any mail? I've also noticed that some of my packages coming in were frequently taking longer to get than they should have. For instance, a package took 13 days to come in from PA. All of this was intermittent and hard to get a handle on the exact situation. Here is where it gets really bad though. I send packages out to customers in various parts of the country. The outgoing package is dropped off at my local Post Office's customer counter. From my local Post Office, it goes to a regional sorting center. Detroit has 3 regional sorting centers. At one of these sorting centers, they will typically have 700 workers per shift. I've heard reports that at some of these centers, they have had up to 675 workers not show up. How do you run a 700 person operation with only 25 workers? This massive outage occurred a bit over a week ago, and the situation is getting somewhat better, but they have massive worker outages and shipping backups. End result is that packages are piling up at these sorting centers, some of my shipments have been there for over a week. This is going to be profoundly bad for my business. I have crazy angry customers. I have thousands and thousands of dollars of product stuck at the Post Office. I will have to try and ship with other companies, perhaps Fed-Ex ground AND start to curtail my business for small packages/low value that don't have a viable alternative to shipping. Why is it that the Post Office has collapsed, but Fed-Ex and UPS seem to be functioning? The problem I have with the Post Office is that they should be making it abundantly clear that they can't get shipments out of Detroit. That this is not a 1-2-3 day delay. When they were having a systemic breakdown, they should have alerted customers. If I had known the true situation, I would have made adjustments much sooner, not having inventory get stuck. If the USPS has collapsed, could Fed-Ex & UPS be next? So this is a real world collapse of the supply chain, at least for me.

I don't think that is quite correct. "WeWork" simply had a flawed business model right from the get go. They didn't make a profit, not even close. I seem to remember that at it's height, WeWork was losing $1 for every $1 of revenue they brought in. WeWork wasn't making money, wasn't ever going to make money. Contrast that to a typical Airb&b host. They would make money when people were staying in their properties. The problem with the Airb&b folks was that they: 1). Did not keep enough of a cash buffer. This is common in America today. I know people making $100k a year, who live paycheck to paycheck. 2). The Airb&b people have too much debt, not enough of an equity cushion. The end result is the same, both are going out of business....but WeWork wouldn't have made it, even if Covid-19 hadn't come along.

I am doing relatively well... HOWEVER, I am concerned for some of my family & friends. My Aunt quit her job. She is in healthcare and there were some odd/shady things going on, and worker's health was being put at risk. She is also has an elevated risk factor to the corona virus. She is an excellent worker and will have no problem finding new work. She is going to take 2-3 weeks and simply stay at home with her children. One of my nieces started working in healthcare as an office receptionist. She is on leave of absence and just found out that one of her co-worker's father contracted the corona virus and has died. He was a nurse at a hospital in the Detroit area. My father is elderly and has MULTIPLE risk factors. He has not been taking the precautions seriously enough. I've argued with him multiple times and it is slow to sink into his consciousness how vulnerable he is and how bad the situation is. I have several friends who work in healthcare, and I am concerned for their safety. Most businesses near me have also shut down. Of course, all the auto companies have shut down or are down 95%+ in business. The schools are closed, the casinos are closed, restaurants are closed. The economic downturn is going to be bad, just a question of how bad it is going to be. Finally, I have some Canadian friends who live in Windsor. The economic situation in Windsor is falling apart even faster than it is in Detroit. My Canadian friends also are suffering from a depreciating dollar. I hope everybody who reads this stays safe and comes through this crisis OK.

Hey all: I bought some Jerash Holdings today, (JRSH). Was kicking myself that I didn't get some the other day when it collapsed to $3.60/share, but nibbled at some today. These guys have a fortress balance sheet, and I think they are well poised to grow the business when things get back to normal. I will definitely be buying more if it goes down further.