Ham Hockers

I've found very few acquisitions that are clean (i.e. no collection operations acquired). Pretty much none by the three you mention.

I'm trying to get a ball park estimate of the acquisition cost of a typical landfill, preferably in cost per cubic yard airspace remaining. Any help would be appreciated.

Seems like it's time to find a loan: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=EDS+Key+Statistics I would be careful with chinese -EV stocks. isn't this one about to be acquired? Its being taken private for U$60M I beleive. Interesitng to note that Mr. Ding is the brother-in-law of the Chairman and CEO. I don't read tons of executive profiles, but that seems like an odd thing to add to the description. http://www.ir.xdlong.cn/phoenix.zhtml?c=217204&p=irol-govmanage This is a pretty cool situation on the surface, buy a company for U$60M and get U$85M in net cash (I think from my quick look), but since it is in China you'd have to do some serious due diligence. If you're interested in Chinese Law and all the various shenanigans that can happen, check out Dan Harris' "China Law Blog". http://www.chinalawblog.com/ It seems like investors are getting screwed. Am I missing something here? If you buy shares now you're going to get taken out at a roughly 5% premium.

Seems like it's time to find a loan: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=EDS+Key+Statistics I would be careful with chinese -EV stocks. isn't this one about to be acquired?

Whitman's books have some good ideas in them, but they are painful to read. The writing is terrible and they scream out for a better editor. He uses tons of weird acronyms, but then goes ahead and defines them over and over again. For example, instead of shareholders he calls them Outside Passive Minority Investors (OPMI) to distinguish from activist investors, control investors, etc. But it's a painful term. Despite having a defined term, he will sometimes write it out. Whole chunks of text are repeated verbatim numerous times. He also has a thing with Graham and Dodd and rails against them constantly. He says Graham stands for things that for the life of me I can't see even though I've read Graham numerous times. All that being said, if you dig through the crap you can find a few diamonds. I don't know what you mean (IDKWYM), Whitman's books are not confusing (BANC) at all due to the acronyms. Maybe he's a great investor because he thinks in acronyms. Marty's thoughts: TSIUV, IHBVGAGE Translated: This stock is undervalued, it has book value growth and great earnings. I can just see him now running around the office IFACS, IFACS, IFACS. All his employees are quickly looking the term up on the reams of acronym translation cheap sheets hanging on their cube walls..."ah, he found a cheap stock.." I guess you think you have both know-how and know-who. I imagine you'll be talking about Graham and Dodd (G&D) and saying that Graham and Dodd (G&D) only talk about outside passive minority investors (OPMI), that is only outside passive minority investors, and believe in the primacy of the income account as opposed to net asset value (NAV). After that you'll be talking about taking SOTT (something off the top) in the NTM (next twelve months) as opposed to the LTM (last twelve months). Perhaps you will discuss E&P (exploration and production) companies that engage in E&P (exchange and purchase agreements). I bet too you are not just a GARP (growth at a reasonable price) investor but a GADCP (growth at dirt cheap price) investor. It all makes perfect sense. I'm laughing out loud (LOL). Despite the terrible writing, I do find Whitman's stuff more useful than Greenwald's, which seems like hand waving a lot of the time. His core ideas are a bit more innovative too, in my opinion (IMO). Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Boy, Marty Whitman really did not like Greenwald's book

Given the terms he's described, I think the rate he proposed (TSY + 1%) is insanely low. Just to be clear, I agree this would be a disaster. But not because I think it's a bad deal economically, but because of the inevitable conflict with the relatives.

This is what happens when families have disagreements over money http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/asia/north-korea-purge.html?hp

A callable loan, secured only by income and not assets, with an indeterminate term? Can I borrow from them, too? :) How much are you thinking of borrowing relative to your earnings?

I think to read stuff that brings new ideas... and this is a great one! I think what Buffett means when he says cash is like call options is: - a call option with strike price $10 will expire if it doesn't move, and will net $10 if it goes to $20 - if you hold cash and a stock is $20, it will do nothing if it stays at $20, but you will net $10 in VALUE if it drops to $10 i think schroeder explained it pretty well. option price of cash is opportunitiy cost less interest earned on cash holdings. underlying security is EVERY sercurity. strike price is whatever you want it to be. term is forever. cash has been a very expensive option for a couple years now.

thanks all

a lot of people i know in the area have backup generators. but that may be a luxury rather than a necessity.

Looking for book recommendations about CEOs who blew up businesses in legitimate ways (i.e. not Enron). Basically the opposite of the Outsiders.

for what it's worth, i'm around +16%. that's time-weighted, accruing dividends (not cash accounting). monthly avg. cash balance around 25%. long stock only.

ignore me. i'm a moron.

Would be curious how many of the yesses get paid to manage other people's money.

agreed Not a chance. I never try to calculate my returns myself. I just go by what Fidelity tells me every year. This is their disclaimer on their rate of return calculation: I'm sure someone saying that their return is over 100% would still show great returns even if a different method was used.

would be interesting to see one more stratification at the top end. > 15 mm perhaps.

what's the chance all these returns are being calculated the same way :) ?

Full article: http://feedly.com/k/1bhBwZo If you're interested in this, there's been a good debate going on in the last several days between Williamson and a bunch of others on various blogs. I'd recommend checking out Williamson's blog directly, as well as Krugman, Nick Rowe, and Scott Sumner.

Another perspective http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25145

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/12/02/philanthropy-stock-picking-and-presbyterian-frugality/

Two worst ones: There's a company that I understand about as well as you possibly could, and I didn't buy shares when it traded below cash during the crisis. No debt, assets falling in value but still worth some non-zero amount. Could have made several times my money. Most frustrating was probably K-Swiss. Learned to never bet on a jockey if he's riding a run-down horse. And then I really got a kick in the groin when he sold the company AFTER I'd liquidated my shares.

Thanks for the color on Vito, Parsad. Coincidentally I just read the entire thread on Fortress today. Some really fascinating stuff ...

Maybe he never sells? Anyone know the details? Regardless, you'd expect someone, somewhere, to achieve this. You get enough people flipping coins, someone's bound to come up heads 100 times in a row.