Pauly

Oh right, Google Wallet. I remember hearing about that when it was launched...3 years ago? 4? Does anybody use it? Maybe the same people who use Google+ And from the Google Wallet website : "All purchases are ensured with MasterCard’s Zero Liability protection."

Mark Steyn? Why not link to a comment from breitbart.com. I support my country bringing in refugees as I see it as a fundamental duty to help fellow human beings in need. There's no religious belief behind it, just common decency. Do proper background checks, but then do the humane thing. History always favors doing the humane thing. And if terrorists have turned you into a coward, then they've beaten you already.

Why would it be 'cooler' to use a payment system run by a company whose sole reason for being is data mining for directed advertising? Saving a fraction of a percent won't be enough if people think their financial transaction records are for sale. I'm not saying that things won't change, but doesn't Apple have the upper hand so far? And even they're accepting that they have to work with the big 3.

Do you have children? Your lack of pathos suggests that you do not. You can use statistics to argue for a lot of things, but to suggest that school children being murdered in class is 'no big deal' because we need self driving cars is being almost laughably callous. To better illustrate Pauly's point, take a poll of your friends asking "Would you rather stop school shootings forever tomorrow or have fully autonomous cars by 2025?" It will be well over 50% that choose school shootings, when in fact that would save farrrrrrr fewer lives than having autonomous cars in ten years. Again, that is dumbing down the situation to being an either/or proposition, which it is not.

I agree that humans/humanity in general are very bad at making statistics based decisions. There are numerous issues that are not focused on even though working on them would yield huge benefits and vice versa there are numerous issues that consume huge resources even though they are statistically insignificant and the resources are wasted. Edit: Just for illustration to Pauly: Assume that a chance of your child getting killed in school shooting is 0.00001%. Assume that a chance of your child getting killed in auto accident is 0.001%. Assume you can vote only for only one solution: A. Reduce a chance of your child getting killed in school shooting 10 times. B. Reduce a chance of your child getting killed in auto accident 2 times. Would you vote for A or for B? Why? You are welcome to change percentages and numbers yourself. Why would I assume that I can vote for only one solution? That assumption is what makes the argument asinine. Are engineers being pulled from Tesla so that they can work on solving school shootings? Like I said, statistics are obviously useful for many things, but if you try to use them to make school shootings look insignificant in a zero sum game with car accidents you sound ridiculous.

Do you have children? Your lack of pathos suggests that you do not. You can use statistics to argue for a lot of things, but to suggest that school children being murdered in class is 'no big deal' because we need self driving cars is being almost laughably callous.

Really interesting guy, but there is zero I can learn about investing from him... Step 1: Be a math genius ...well I'm out.

And of course after Greenspan's comments the dot-com bubble promptly burst...four years later.

Floyd Mayweather is a despicable human being so I hope he loses, but it looks like Manny is past his prime and Floyd is unbeatable. Still, Go Manny!

Indeed. My son's middle name is "Feynman" 8) I've watched a few of his lectures online but haven't ready any of his books. Are there one or two in particular you'd recommend?

Right, so a decent (at least) return for the holders of the preferreds could be more palatable to the politicians than a windfall (lottery) payout to the holders of the common...especially if Icahn et al. are major holders of the common.

I think I'd prefer to hold what the 'fat cat' hedge fund guys aren't holding. Seems to me that the gov't would be loath to reward guys like Icahn and Ackman with a 25x-100x payday. The optics on that would be terrible.

Or, if you're extra bullish on India, own both. Whatever FIH pays to FFH will accrue to Fairfax shareholders, will it not? So if you own both you're kind of paying yourself 1.5 and 20...

My local Costco is Mastercard exclusive now...I assume that goes for all of Canada? I'd like to see Visa win in the US...being that I'm a V shareholder.

Did anyone buy in today? There doesn't seem to be a way to value this besides Prem Watsa + India = $$$. I'm tempted to start a position soon for two reasons. 1) Prem Watsa + India = $$$ ;) 2) This has the faint air of a spinoff of the Fairfax brand. As such it might take time to be recognized properly by the market. The less than explosive debut today reinforces this feeling. Speculative? I suppose it is since it has no holdings. But it's FFH, how speculative could it be? Can anyone dissuade me?

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/fairfax-india-prices-us-500-154800683.html Looks like it should start trading soon. I'm very optimistic about India's future and having Prem directly running some money there sounds pretty good to me.

Any thoughts/opinions on PSX? Their midstream, refining, and chemicals segments could all benefit from lower oil, could they not?

That's why I love this board. Where else would you find something like this posted! Very nice job!

Hey, that's great. I just started reading the Manual of Ideas book and was also searching for good investment podcasts, so this is perfect. Thanks for the heads up.

So Watsa jumps in and out of positions and makes huge commodity bets with shareholder funds while charging them 2 and 20? I really don't like his BBRY involvement, but I wouldn't resort to name calling :P

I'm keeping an eye on the Sberbank thread, but when you read stories about how the Russians have managed to run up a $50 billion bill for a Winter Olympics it makes you think that Russia is a great place to make money vanish into thin air. I'm sure it's that risk that's keeping their market cheap. My guess is that it's a market that will produce some big winners, and a lot of catastrophic losses.

I use Dropbox frequently. They've done a nice job of making the program easy to use across phones/tablets/desktops. But, I only use the free services so they're losing money on me...and I actually don't know anyone who's upgraded to a paid plan. I'd be interested to see their numbers. Do you think the YouTube guys are kicking themselves over selling too soon? With these difficult to monetize startups being valued so highly, what would a YouTube IPO have looked like today?

SBUX is also very good at training their employees. They tend to be really chipper and genuinely seem to enjoy working there, which makes for a more pleasant consumer experience. They have good quality cups and lids (unlike Tim Horton's where I resign myself to the fact that I'm going to burn myself when their cheapo lid malfunctions), and, as everyone else has said, the coffee may not be the best, but it definitely won't be the worst. And when you're craving a coffee there's nothing more disappointing than a hot cup of dishwater.

Great show, great final season, and great final episode. I don't know any other Tv show I could say all those things about. But Warren isn't writing those tweets himself, right? I mean, 'Warren is in the house' ?? And he wouldn't actually refer to himself as The Oracle, would he? Gotta be a ghost writing BRK staffer...?

My first post after officially joining the board so I guess I'll start by writing my confession here: RIG : Bought not too long after the Mocando spill. Figured the market was punishing Transocean too severely and once BP was thrown under the bus it would be smooth sailing for RIG. Well, after 3 years of disappointment and growing disgust with management I finally swallowed a 20% loss. Mocando dragged the whole industry down and rather than putting my money with one of the guilty parties I should have looked at who else was being punished just by association...maybe I would have gone with SDRL. COCO : Jeez, I don't know what I was thinking with this one. Again, figuring that legal pressure would ease up and let Corinithian Colleges return to its former 'glory' I bought in at about $5 thinking it couldn't go much lower (it had recently been at $20+). The financials looked decent and the P/E was obscene. I'm sitting with a 60% haircut at the moment. It's a very small position dollar and % wise so now I'm just letting it sit in my account as an unpleasant reminder that a great company at a fair price is much, much better than a horrible company at a terrific price. Paul