Gamecock-YT

Greetings from the Alps, nice office view for the month.

Was owned by 2 private equity companies as I recall. Easy to say in theory, but when you're an entry level employee just trying to get some experience on the resume before heading to greener pastures you try to keep your head down. Also forgot we had the CEOs son on the payroll as a sales associate for Australia. He made far and above what the other sales people for the company did. Plus got the same sales commission that the rest of the team did. He also brought in the least amount of business for the company. We paid him a monthly wire and he'd kick and scream if it wasn't paid ahead of time if pay day was over the weekend.

D, would even push for lower - My first job out of college was working as an accounts payable accountant. The amount of grift the CEO did by employing his wife to do tasks such as decorating the office, catering for events, the company even paid her commission for art work, and she paid herself a very handsome hourly rate for her services. Even had her own LLC to keep things appearing on the up and up. My bosses were all powerless to do anything about it. Just run of the mill petty corporate theft. I did manage to get the CFO to draw the line on her accompanying the CEO on his business trips to Europe. He was even wanting us to pay for a couples weekend in Venice that had nothing to do with any company business or was anywhere close to where the business meetings were taking place. And we also managed to ding him for trying to have the company pay for her round trip business class ticket as well. Plus the corporate policy was he, himself, was only allowed to take Premium economy given the length of flight. Needless to say I wasn't very popular with him after that.

nice burner account Monish

CCM for one. Warrior and True maybe lesser known brands but lots of people favor them over Bauer or CCM. Then you get down to Sherwood and Winwell.

Rains almost every day and tough to get to, besides that it's nice. Spectacular views.

2 months before the election, what great timing!

reminds me of hurricane hugo with the speed and intensity. It did a number on towns even inland.

Well the Hanoi airport is currently reporting gusts of 55 mph and it's well inland. I'll leave it up to you to imagine the quality of buildings in Vietnam. If you feel like following along. But funny/ironic to me an article comes out that the Atlantic has been quiet whereas the Pacific has had 2 typhoons make landfall (China & Vietnam, Japan) in the past 2 weeks. https://e.vnexpress.net/evolution/environment/typhoon-yagi-triggers-violent-winds-to-uproot-trees-blow-away-roofs-in-northern-vietnam-4790074.html

I look forward to reading the 50 pages in his annual letter about why it was a bad decision

Well with the typhoon that just hit Northern Vietnam today, BIC probably isn't going to have a good year.

What’s the odds 7-11 gets bought out by a trading house with assistance from Berkshire? Might be a White Knight solution to their quagmire of wanting to keep it ‘Japanese’. One of their Japanese rivals, FamilyMart, is already owned by Itochu which is one of the trading companies BRK has a stake in.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-08-01/exxon-almost-walked-away-from-1-trillion-guyana-oil-discovery Exxon Almost Walked Away From Its $1 Trillion Oil Discovery A few geoscientists pushed a reluctant energy giant to take a chance on Guyana.

Financial Institution titles are always self-inflated. Kids 3-4 years out of college will have VP titles, so I wouldn't take 'Director of Sand Pounding' as anything serious. Rule of thumb is how many hierarchies you are below the CEO that determines how powerful/important the position is. Also having previously worked in a regulatory role at a financial institution, I don't think that career path is heading to your board of director promise land. I've worked with quite a few people that were directors for companies we had various equity stakes in: usually it was either we were a founding shareholder, brought scale and influence to a platform, or came in during a series B-D fundraise and got a board seat (or an observer seat) as part of the funding agreement. So I'd say your best bet is something similar to what Greg is suggesting. Get in with 1 company and take it from there, CEOs talk when it comes to needing new directors. So be a good boy and you might find yourself on a couple.

handouts to their base. At least in India you used to get a toaster or a TV out of the deal.

If I'm Dimon or Fink that would be really tough being the boss for so long only to have to suck up to Trump as Treasury Secretary. I guess getting the immediate options vest and the tax deferred treatment of going into government service might soften the blow but it's not like these guys are hurting for cash. Guess it's the old saying that everyone has a price.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-29/clos-have-too-much-money-and-are-running-out-of-things-to-buy-credit-weekly You know they're going to keep the gravy train running so next move is dogshit about to turn into dogshit²

he's a reputation risk now

Kyoto is the epicenter, but it's country-wide. Instagrammers started blocking traffic in front of a Lawson's that had a view of Mount Fuji above it, it got to be so bad the local town put a screen up to run the tourists off. Now they're finding holes in the screen. There's now even been a push to start charging foreigners more for goods and services and at attractions. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240624_19/ I went for the Sakura in spring of 2023 and it was a complete zoo. Ruined the experience. If I was going back I'd get off the traditional tourist track and spend more time in Hokkaido and Kyushu.

That 21% youth unemployment is so vastly superior. Last time I was in Japan the convenience store workers at my local shop were speaking mandarin to one another. Nevermind the videos of the Chinese nationals crossing the border to the US from Mexico. So sure, western society might have their problems but China isn't some utopian society, nor anywhere close to achieving it. It's been noticeable even in the past two-three years being in Asia that countries in Asia that previously would have been kowtowing toward Chinese tourists are now putting up Korean language menus and signs. They are learning there are other fish in the sea. All this to say that other countries that aren't in the immediate orbit of either China or the G7 will continue to play them against one another to get the best deal for themselves. Same as it ever was.

Literally one of the best parts of being in Asia is how you are practically removed from the 24 hour news cycle. US Markets are closed for the day by the time you are waking up and European markets haven't started up yet. Anything that's "news" just for the news cycle-sake is already being removed and replaced by whatever new stories are hitting the headline in the US&European papers. These days it's just the various Asian currencies hitting new lows against the USD and whatever "news" is coming out of China. Bunch of ho-hum. As someone who previously had multiple TVs of CNBC/Bloomberg in front of them at work, it's mind boggling how utterly worthless those channels are. I'd argue the only time they are ever worth paying attention to in during market turmoil but even then you're probably better off not being influenced by their presenters, instead forming your own opinions about what is going on, and acting accordingly.

getting out before the fallout of the trade war starts showing up in the results

I'm not reading anything that's sourced from the heritage foundation or the Ronald Reagan Institute. Give me a break. Next you'll be citing the epoch times.

Who in their right mind would sign up after 20 straight years of military conflict with boomers in power on both sides of the aisle revving to send another generation to fight in more meaningless conflicts? But it's DEI that's the problem........right.