loganc

lognac, I don't think that I've replied to your post. Putting all that aside, I don't know exactly what you mean. My post was in plain English text and I can see it with no problem. I don't know what you mean by formatting that is decipherable. Can you send me a screen grab? Maybe we're having a technical issue. I misread your post. I apologize.

What?? 2000 was not even referenced in the post. The post started with Bush in office. If you don't think the weaker economy in the rust belt had any effect then you need to do more reading. It doesn't take a national issue like 2008. Regional can matter too. Against my better judgement, I am going to try to shift this political discussion to something that is more relevant to investing. Tim, I have seen some of your investing commentary and I respect that you are thoughtful in that regard. I have also seen some of your political commentary and would say that I am generally in disagreement with respect to Trump. To be clear, I am certainly no "Liberal" as it pertains to economic policy. Given that I haven't read everything you have written on all things Trump, I am going to make some assumptions here about your support for his economic agenda generally and as it pertains to trade. If I am wrong about this, I apologize. That being said, I am curious as to why you think the Trump economic policies that we can make reasonable predictions about at this point are going to actually help, rather than hurt, the rust belt areas. Specifically, I think it is pretty clear at this point that there will be some sort of anti-free trade legislation passed in some form. Given the EOs so far, the Trump trade rhetoric during the campaign, and the commentary from Navarro, I believe that is a near certainty that either (1) the corporate tax reform bill will include some sort of border adjustment tax or other measure that will be a de facto tariff on imports or (2) direct tariffs or border taxes (the same thing) will be implemented against China, Mexico, etc. I am in agreement that things like lower tax rates (individual and corporate) and deregulatory measures will be of some help to the rust belt areas. However, it seems to me that there is a very high likelihood that border adjustment taxes or tariffs are going to ultimately be a net negative. I am EXTREMELY skeptical that such anti-free trade measures will ultimately result in any significant increases in jobs for low skilled labor and that the nearly certain rise in consumer prices will be a net negative for these individuals. Further, the second order effects from ad hoc economic policy (e.g. border tax on Mexico to pay for the wall) are very likely in my view to have very negative unintended consequences. So, I am just curious if you have any specific empirical data that would support the notion that a border adjustment tax or some similar measure will yield a significant net positive benefit to low skilled labor in the rust belt.

How exactly do you come to the conclusion that Trump represents fairly accurately what the Republican party wants? First, he is a protectionist, which is just about the most anti-free market position possible. Second, he has proposed fiscal policy (to the extent that one even exists) would result in massive deficits (i.e. cut taxes, increase military spending, 500B+ infrastructure spend, no cuts to entitlement spending, and ??B on the wall and other nonsense. Essentially, his budget plan is like Obama's stimulus plan on steroids. So, you are telling me that these two pretty major talking points of his campaign are in line with Republican thinking? Do you not remember the massive fights that have happened over the last 6 years over the debt ceiling? Does the Republican party all of sudden not care about the national debt? Does the Republican party all of sudden not care about entitlement reform?

If you can't tell the difference between comments about sexually assaulting women and those comments from Clinton, then you have serious problems. Edit: As a matter of fact, the response from the hardcore Trump supporters on these comments simply validates the accuracy of the "deplorables" comment.

With a few words snipped that is a excellent summary of this election. The dangerous, corrupt, bloodthirsty, war hawk politician vs. the dangerous populist xenophobic demagogue that, well, who knows what he will do. I find it fascinating that "war hawk" would be a pejorative for Hillary Clinton from the standpoint of the Trump supporter given that a consistent rhetorical position of Trump is that the military has been underfunded (good luck proving that based on military budget allocation through the Obama administration from actual data). Further, a major talking point of Trump is something like knocking the hell out of ISIS (whatever that means - he apparently knows more about ISIS than the Generals) and encouraging increasingly brutal "enhanced interrogation." How is increasing military spending, increasing military actions against ISIS, and encouraging more intense "enhanced interrogation" (plus, encouraging war crimes by "kill[ing] their families") not the actions of a bona fide war hawk?

Interesting talk. I agree with the general philosophy espoused - "capacity to suffer" and reinvesting capital for long term growth in spite of current earnings. However, can anyone provide the long term investment track record of Russo? Edit: (paraphrasing) The top 100 people in Illinois that work for Kraft speak 0.9 languages, per Russo. Good luck with discounting 3G.

So, why aren't you a shareholder of CSU? Too expensive right now? Thank you, Gio Gio, I have not made an investment because I have not done significant work on this company. I think Leonard's track record is incredible and what I gain from listening to the Constellation calls justifies my statement. However, I will not make an investment on that basis alone. I try to take the "punch card" notion pretty seriously in my investment process.

+1. Not a shareholder of CSU (unfortunately), but Leonard is incredible. QSR/BKW performance blows my mind. I'll go ahead and make the obvious, while controversial, nomination: VRX - Pearson. Flame away.

If I could get a PM as well, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

This is awesome. Thanks so much.

I can't say anything about the exact US federal cash taxes that BKW has paid, but BKW doesn't have "earnings" anywhere close to $12 billion. I suspect there was some kind of a typo here or misunderstanding.

I kind of derailed this thread by talking specifically about BKW/QSR, but I wanted to address the above comment by Liberty because I think it is important. So, Buffett has been asked the direct question comparing 3G to "private equity" (from Becky Quick) and his response was along the lines of what Liberty says - (paraphrasing) "the difference between 3G and private equity is that 3G holds for keeps and private equity has a short term horizon and is looking to flip the asset." What Buffett said (and what many have said in this thread about the short term thinking of private equity) is absolutely true. However, I don't think the culprit is really the private equity general partners. In other words, I think the true criticism should be geared towards the short term thinking of the limited partner investors in the private equity funds that force exits from investments on a specific time frame. The perceived "flipping of companies" could very likely be explained by the selling of assets to return capital to the limited partners on the specific time frame that is demanded from the limited partners. Ultimately, I think it is a gross oversimplification to place all of the blame of "short termism" on the private equity investors, when the private equity industry in general does not have access to permanent capital and must therefore return capital on a strict time frame. I think this particular dynamic is worth thinking about.

Very awesome. Thank you so much.

No idea why he passed on it in 2010. I guess it would have been a pretty small investment for BRK at that time, so maybe that has something to do with it. I recall him mentioning passing on the initial deal during an interview on CNBC which happened around the time of the THI deal. No idea whether BRK ends up with significantly more of QSR or not. It certainly doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. I would say that Buffett has been blown away by the progress at HNZ and I am sure he is really excited about the KRFT deal.