Dustin T

I'm in the middle of facing the same decision myself. I plan on taking the buyout and rolling it into my IRA. There is some risk but in my case as long as I average over 5% I come out ahead. I'm willing to take the challenge of clearing this relatively low hurdle but I do think the markets current full valuation makes it a bit more difficult than I would prefer. I plan on living a long life but should something happen to me my daughter will be better served with cash on hand.

+1 for Dan Carlin and hardcore history, he does a great job of proving that history is full of great stories.

Mensa gives out two tests. One includes a version of the Wonderlic test a timed test for which the questions get progressively more difficult. The other battery of tests is designed to be culturally fair. The questions on the linked test are similar to some of the questions on the Wonderlic. I would not categorize this test as representative. IMHO IQ is multifaceted and difficult to measure but we all recognize it when we see it. I expect a significant portion of the people on this board would do well all the same.

This rings a little too true. Every other field has been revolutionized by the computer age but education is still stuck in the 19th century. We do a very poor job of getting the best out of our very brightest students.

Beautiful, I've been experimenting with some shandyesque wheat beers lately. The first couple have turned out wonderfully. I really need to try my hand at a cider.

I'm no expert and no little about how this spreads. The fact that several doctors and nurses who knew what they were dealing with have been infected concerns me. Now I am assuming that they did not roll around in infected blood and may have even have worn gloves while playing with the fecal matter. I suspect this virus is very very sneaky. A virus cannot be sneaky in the same way that a stock cannot be moody. They are, in fact, rolling around in infected blood and bodily fluids by virtue of having to be in near constant contact with the patients that they are treating. The fact that they're wearing protective gear is helpful, but, as I said before, it's a highly infectious disease when it is contained within a bodily fluid of some kind. I swear, the Dow drops 400 points and all of a sudden everyone is worried about everything. I believe it is something we should be concerned with as the infected population is doubling every month at least by most accounts. Every time it doubles it becomes harder to eradicate. I don't believe it will pose much danger to the modern world but fear it will continue to spread and cause damage in the third world. Of course viruses are not literally sneaky. I think this one deserves serious attention and an effort to eradicate it. I'm not pushing any doomsday scenario just advocating that the proper response lies well between indifference and panic.

I'm no expert and no little about how this spreads. The fact that several doctors and nurses who knew what they were dealing with have been infected concerns me. Now I am assuming that they did not roll around in infected blood and may have even have worn gloves while playing with the fecal matter. I suspect this virus is very very sneaky.

I think that what you are saying is incorrect. The burden of proof I'm talking about isn't some legal or traditional thing just for the sake of it. I'm talking about the logical burden of proof; if you claim something, it's not up to others to disprove it. If I claim that I can read minds, or that I can fly, is it up to you to come up with evidence that I can't? Of course not. Atheists don't have to prove that god doesn't exist. They're just saying that they have no reason to believe in any particular god (zeus, odin, thor, the christian god, etc). There's a lot of things that you don't believe in that nobody has proven don't exist, no? You just have never seen anything (and I don't just mean seen with your own eyes, but including research by others) that convinced you. I'm sure you're an atheist about most of the gods that have ever been claimed to exist for that very reason, yet there's no conclusive proof that apollo and vishnu don't exist. I agree that if I want to convince you then the burden of proof is on me. Just as I would assert that if you want to insist to me that you know definitively there is no higher power then the burden of proof would be on you. I profess my ignorance from the rooftops. I strongly suspect that there is more to this existence then any of us are aware and I choose to live my life as such. I don't seek to convince you, I do hope to keep your mind open to the possiblity of something more, however unlikely it strikes you.

Everything you said makes total sense to me Liberty and it's a logical point of view. I don't disagree with much that you said even if I come to a different conclusion. The only thing I will say is that none of us truly know anything about how this time and space came into being. We are all equally ignorant. We have our own ideas of what we think is the likely cause, even if that idea is it just happened.

Keep in mind I never claimed to be Christian (I really can't say that I am) but here is something kind of odd. If we look at odds, what are the odds that the two world's religions have a pretty big association with a poor carpenter in the middle east (Christianity and Islam)? Sure, that isn't proof that something happened there, but I do find it odd that so much of the world is associated with this one poor, random guy in the middle of nowhere if there's not something more to it. Further, there is a good amount of historical evidence that Jesus existed, much more so than any of the other deities. If you're really interested, I grab some resources. This whole idea of religion isn't something I'm super comfortable with yet. Honestly, guys, if I had a choice, I'd rather you guys be right and the theists wrong. But, as I deep dived into this stuff, I really started to question my agnosticism. I'm probably not too far from stahleyp, I'm nominally a Christian but I'm much more of a Deist. I like the poster earlier felt much the same at 10. That it all seemed like nonsense and didn't believe in much of anything. The thing that will always be there, though is this. This existence is fantastic and ridiculous, the fact that a universe poofed into existence out of the void. That energy, matter, and time all sprung into existence makes in my mind anything possible. Here we are in the year 2014 and we aren't that far from being able to create artificial intelligence and quite possibly before a few generations are though we may be able to create life itself. If mankind that is way more full of Homer Simpsons then it is Albert Einstein's can do so much. How could we ever know for certain that we were the first to be able to do so and hence aren't ourselves the product of an intelligent species that came before us? I think many of you are much more interested in tilting against a fundamentalist straw man, and maybe that straw man needs it. I just can't figure out how you are so certain that we weren't preceded by something both more ancient and intelligent then ourselves and that something beyond mere chance couldn't have had a hand in our creation?

The whole argument about militant atheists is ridiculous. For centuries your life would be ruined for just saying that you didn't believe in the supernatural. Basically all kids were indoctrinated from a young age, if not by their parents, by the schools. Wars were fought on religious grounds and all world leaders had to repeatedly proclaim their allegiance to the right religion (which varied depending on where they were). Pretty much all religions have a strong foundation of proselytism and of public demonstrations (putting recognizable buildings in the most visible places, having their members wearing some kind of uniform and putting various distinguishing symbols everywhere, etc). But now that a few atheists finally can speak out publicly and try to explain their logic with people rather than threaten them with eternal torture or indoctrinating them when they are too young to reason, oh boy, it's a problem! :-X It's a framing technique; if you can't argue with the ideas, you attack the bearer of the ideas. Trying to paint atheists as "shrill", "militant", "radicals", etc... It's basically conceding defeat that if the world was really full of the supernatural, real convincing evidence for it wouldn't be so impossible to find and we could talk about that instead, and the old texts wouldn't have to be constantly reinterpreted and parts of them dropped over time as we learn better because that's not what a divine revelation is supposed to be. What you said is true about religious people persecuting basically anyone who didn't agree with them. Sunni's and Shiite's still kill each other over what appear to be petty differences. I don't think this is the nature of religion but a reflection of the nature of man. The communist's did plenty of persecuting sans religion. I don't have a problem with atheist's speaking out as long as they respect the other side viewpoint. I've watched Richard Dawkin's debates with John Lennox and they are generally respectful. They both make good points and I believe an intelligent party can respect the merit of each of them. I think most atheists are far from militant. I think of the ones that are bent on removing religion and mocking those who believe as militant. I find those type of people generally distasteful whether they peddle politics, religions, or a local sports team.

I'm the same way in that I don't care who believes what. I don't even tell my kids what to believe. I sent my son to a pre-school down the road ("All Saints By The Sea") and he came home talking about the baby Jesus. I didn't correct him, I don't want him to not fit in with his group. I just let it be. I don't want him over at a friends house rudely telling them that Jesus stories might not be real. He will be old enough one day to make up his mind. Interestingly, I was walking around the yard at that school and came across a tile mosaic in the garden with donors names inscribed on the tiles. There was Charlie Mungers name -- just a bit unexpected to see when you are standing around waiting to pick up your kid from his preschool. Regarding what you said about the relatively polite Jehovah Witnesses though. Have you ever had an atheist come to your door in an attempt to convert you? They may seem polite and soft-spoken, but I feel like they've no place walking up to private homes trying to convert others to their beliefs. Put an ad in the newspaper and be more respectful of our privacy. I've never seen a Bitcoin -- do we finally have a hope for a currency that doesn't explicitly proclaim we trust in God? There are a few obvious ways in which the devout could take the lead on being respectful to others. I have not ever had an atheist come to my door to preach, I doubt many have, but I fear religion is on the wane. I think there are some atheists out there who are trying very hard to spread their own gospel and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it happens in another 15 years. I believe this is a bad thing and it worries me as some atheists are very disrespectful towards believers. I think on whole, despite the fundamentalist crazies, religion brings more good than bad. There are certainly many evil men who have used religion for evil purposes, but there are also the Stalin’s and Hitler’s who opposed religion and caused their own evil. I think when bad people come to power bad things happen and they will use religion, nationalism, atheism or any other tool that helps them control people. I think your view is a healthy one and if there is a higher power my money says he'll judge you by your life and works not by your faith. Towards that end I don't see much point in trying to "convert" anyone. I also believe a healthy faith in something greater than yourself makes for a healthier and more peaceful life. I believe being humble and trying to serve a greater good leads to happiness, something that can be accomplished with or without religion, but religion provides an excellent framework for just that.

Debates about religion can be distasteful. But I'm not sure how it's the people who believe who are ruining it. I think the Atheists haved worked just as hard probably harder to push their beliefs. Those who are choosing to post, are all willing participants, just as those who choose to keep reading whatever is posted in this thread are choosing to read it. Hitchens ignores all the good religion has done and focuses on the bad, it's anti-religious propaganda. Not much different from Limbaugh or Bill Maher. All three are selling Kool-Aid and are best ignored imo.

And you do it again :( . Quantum mechanics suggests nothing about humans being 'spiritually connected' or about 'a sense of belonging'. Let me repeat that: absolutely nothing! QM is just a set of formulae describing the behavior of very small particles / waves. All the other stuff: you made that up. Arguments like these really make me cringe. In fact, I would not even call the above an argument. It's just gibberish. Please note again that I didn't state that QM invalidates your arguments. I just said that it doesn't validate them. Do you understand the difference? It's like we're talking about soft drinks and you try to prove that Coke is superior to Pepsi because of .... the Pythagorean theorem. A^2 + B^2 = C^2 ergo Coca Cola tastes better. You bring up a completely unrelated subject that serves no point in the discussion, except for trying to convince people (yourself?) by sounding very intellectual. Unfortunately that is a strategy successfully employed by priests and charlatans all over the world. And again, you totally avoid any mention of your research on theism. ;) Doesn't QM suggest that everything in the universe is interconnected? A simple yes or no will suffice. The problem with your question is that 'everything and 'interconnected' are very vague terms. Depending on their interpretation you can answer this question either way. I assume you are referring to quantum entanglement and similar effects. Do they exist? I think so. Does that mean that all humans are connected on a spiritual level (which I think is what you imply)? No, absolutely not. That's a very big 'leap of faith' you make (of course that was to be expected). In other words: just because A could in theory explain B does not mean that A implies B. The fact that Loch Ness is large enough to hide a monster does not imply that the monster exists ... Why would I look for something subtle? As far as I am concerned gods and yetis are uninteresting fairytales and I'll change my mind if somebody catches one. I don't see the point of wasting my time to try to find vague footprints in the snow. Others have been trying that for centuries without any tangible results. I'd rather do something more productive for society, like having this discussion. I've got no issues with whether someone believes or does not believe but I worry that atheists are getting more militant. Yesterday I had Jehovah Witnesses knock on my door and while I'm sure others have had other experiences, all these gentlemen did was hand me a flyer. The modern Richard Dawkins style Atheist is pushier then any Jehovah witness I've ever met. I think respect for anyone’s belief should be obvious. Comparing someone’s faith to Yeti's is I think a little too disrespectful. I understand it is a logical argument and I think it is a fair one. I'm just hoping the intent is more to argue a point and less to mock. Watching Dawkins construct and tear up straw men doesn't do much for me either. God is not something you can prove or disprove. I've read all the mainstream arguments either way and I've yet to come across one that doesn't have some holes in it. Ultimately the fact that a universe spontaneously poofed into existence is fantastic enough for me to not discount any possibility out of hand. I'm firmly with the believers, I think it's likely there is something more to this existence then we understand. I tend to think it highly unlikely that we are the pinnacle of intelligence in this universe, that its more likely that a superior intelligence has preceded us and quite possibly shaped and created us. I choose to live my life believing this existence is more of a test then just a random occurrence on a small dab of mud circling an insignificant star. I totally understand how many of you can feel that God is unlikely and I respect that opinion even if I don't concur. I think Socrates whipped all of us fools when he wisely said. "I know one thing: that I know nothing" I hope you all realize that while you believe many different things there is much to this existence we do not understand and probably never will.

Both Norman Asbjornson with AAON and Valentin Gapontsev with IPGP have doubled my money and continue to outperform their respective industries, though both are currently quite expensive.

I always find religion a fascinating subject and fun to discuss when people put their agenda's aside and just discuss what they believe and why. Too often people want to push there views whether it's a specific religion or atheism. Which just usually causes people to entrench and belittle. It is also a subject on which I don't believe you can ever definitively prove much, at least not in this lifetime. I haven't heard many arguments from either side that didn't have substantial holes in them. I do after spending a stint as an atheist subscribe to the notion that there is a higher power and this is all some sort of test. I don't think anyone will be checking to see what religion everyone is at the pearly gates but I do think there is more to this existence then the 5 senses can detect.

I don't think the value or stickiness of old economy brands has changed much. I can't imagine Heinz not being dominate 50 years from now. With tech companies it's a little different. Apple was cool, nearly died, and was reborn. Myspace and blackberry are still iconic brands they enjoy great recognition but they have been supplanted. There is just a rush into and then sometimes back out of the iconic brands on the cutting edge of technology. For a technology that has peaked a brand name is pretty important and can provide a good moat. For a technology that has not reached it's peak a brand is only as valuable as your latest product. Nothing much has changed in the world of Coca Cola, Wrigley, or American Express in decades. Todays smart phone though we all expect to be junk in 5 years.

My top 5 would have to be 1. Buffett Letters to shareholders (I'm convinced reading them has taught me more than my MBA) 2. The Warren Buffett way by Hagstrom (It was really my introduction to Buffett and value investing it did a great job of indoctrinating me, my first introduction to so many concepts) 3. One up on Wall Street by Lynch (Lot of good basic information by a truly great investor) 4. Poor Charlies Almanack (A lot of good concepts from mental models to human tendencies) 5. The Outsiders by Thorndike (introduced me to some great CEO's and their methods) I tallied all the books listed thus far that have mulitiple endorsements along with my count. I think this makes a fantastic reading list and I'm going to get started on the ones I've neglected so far. 21 Graham Intelligent Investor 17 Buffett Letters to shareholders/Essays of Warren Buffet 14 Greenblatt You can be a stock market genius 10 Lynch One up on wall street 9 Klarman Margin of Safety 9 Greenblatt The little book that still beats markets 7 Graham Securities Analysis 7 Lowenstein Buffett "The Making of an American Capitalist 7 P. Fisher Common stocks uncommon profits 7 Marks The Most important thing 6 A. Schroeder Snowball 5 Munger Poor Charlies Almanack 5 N. Taleb Fooled by Randomness 3 Mandelbrot The misbehavior of Markets 3 Pabrai Dhando Investor 2 Gray & Carlisle Quantitative value investing 2 Greenwald Value Investing from Graham to Buffett 2 Hagstrom The Warren Buffet Way 2 Dreman Contrarian Strategies 2 N. Taleb Antifragility 2 Clason The Richest Man in Babylon 2 Lefevre Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 2 B. Franklin Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 2 Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

His record was very impressive, but I'm even more impressed that he retired from a very busy schedule to spend more time with his family. He is along with Buffett and Graham on my Mt. Rushmore of investing greats. Haven't figured out who to put in that fourth slot yet. It's not a deeply technical book, but a great early book to read for someone interested in investing.

Human nature being what it is, management will almost always in some way big or small put their own interests first. The best way to avoid this is to invest in owner-operators, though they still can over pay themselves. You have to look at their pay structure. Buffett has famously paid himself a low salary. Salidar Biglari has shown that he puts his own interests first via his hedge-fund style compensation package. Most owner operator CEO's fall somewhere in between those extremes. From my experience CEO's tend to make about 1% of net income and I usually weigh their track record vs how much and how they pay themselves. I do feel that a CEO can be worth a tremendous pay package if they deliver, but I'd rather they get paid that package after they have proven their abilities.

I really like the two qualities you identified. A disproportionate number of truly great investments have owner operators. I keep a list of companies that have been tremendous investments and about half were new industries the other half are often growth industries like Steel during Carnegie's time but they just as often fit more into the McDonalds, Walmart, or Starbucks types. None of these were growth industries necessarily until Krok, Walton, and Schultz transformed the way we looked at dining out, discount retail, or a corner coffee shop. I think very old industries that are being transformed by new thinking or technology can be just as fruitful as new industries. An industry that comes to mind for me is booming in the Dakota's as we speak and helping to boost Burlington Northern's profits. I'm reading Oil 101 currently trying to broaden my circle of competence into the energy sector. There could be a Rockefeller out there rising from the Bakken formation. I'd be interested if anyone has any interesting companies in this sector identified. It's an old industry but new technology is being used so it's a fertile ground for a strong growth story.

My question. Berkshire Hathaway is a conservative company and is designed to survive and even thrive in rough economic climates. This understood going forward what is your biggest fear for Berkshire, or what do you think is the biggest threat to it's continued success?

A small town in South East Kansas, but moving to Kansas City, MO in a couple of weeks.

"Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.” ― André Gide Too many on both sides of this debate think they have found the truth. Both those who would have us implement economy crushing environmental restrictions based on climatologists who can't accurately tell us what the weather will be next week and those who assume that there are absolutely no environmental consequences to pumping several kajillion pounds of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere. If we could kick everyone who has ever held any political office and anyone who works as a journalist out of the debate I'm sure we could get this thing figured out within a couple of hundred years.

You got my 1% as well, hats off to the full 100%'ers This website is an oasis in a desert. I ceased looking at all my old idea generators for a full 6 months after I discovered this website, and I can link a good chunk of my portfolio to it.