Ham Hockers

I wish he had given more detail on why he thinks most markets are overvalued based on historical valuations. The S&P 500 is around 17x earnings, that neither screams cheap nor expensive to me.

I agree with Kraven. Give it a try. And maybe this goes without saying, but if you do give it a try, don't half-ass it because you don't like it.

I'm surprised Glenn Greenberg isn't on this list. I guess he'd be one of my two. Still thinking about the other.

Whoever wrote this quote is clearly missing your point.

I got your point. Your point, that a HWM may misalign interests, partly hinges on your belief that a manager should not be punished for having poor performance which is undeserved (2008). So I asked if you would return your fees in a hot market. i.e. why should you be paid on gains that are not deserved?

So do you turn down your fees when you benefit from a hot market?

Can't I have a third option? :)

Yes but the fact that things are never equal is really really important! In addition, context matters a lot! I doubt that you ever use such a generalized approach when you look at stocks

The WSJ article is horrible, but typical. See attached. They deal with all of this head on. I've never seen a cogent reply to the points the BLS makes in their paper. Critics just keep saying the same thing over and over again (steak for hamburger!) art1full.pdf

Anyone have experience using Fidelity Charitable?

Related: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/the-changing-income-distribution-for-lawyers-average-is-over.html http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/11/10/bimodal-lawyers-how-extreme-competition-breeds-extreme-inequality/

Unclear if this would be bad or good for BRK. Tighter margins could kill competitors. Aggregate industry & profitability could shrink but BRK could offset with larger market share.

From the article you posted: "Cripe agrees, though, that in the long term, 'car insurance goes away.'" That doesn't sound like he's just worried about falling premiums.

People insure things that are expensive. If I spend $50k buying a car I'm not leaving it uninsured, even if I don't think I'll get into an accident. Plus, there's always the chance a tree falls onto my parked car. Nothing AVs can do about that.

Sounds reasonable that you have oversupply/overpayment in some areas but shortages/underpayment in others.

I kind of doubt that you could persistently overpay teachers for years without anyone finding out. My point is, maybe a market interpretation would lead you to the conclusion that teachers aren't paid well enough. If you think they're overpaid, you have to be able to explain why the supply of teachers doesn't reflect that. I don't know if this is correct. Just thinking out loud.

Not to get roped into this thread again (which is fun, but really isn't helping any of us make money), but just a thought: if teachers are so extravagantly overpaid for what they do, why is the quality of our teaching pool generally poor? Why do we have teacher shortages and overcrowding? Shouldn't high salaries attract the "best"? Why doesn't everyone go into teaching, where you can reap huge salaries and be lazy in the summer?

Re: PDRX 2012 AR "Our net worth increased this year to $8,356,459 from $8,171,709 in 2011" Just nitpicking, but this is wrong. That's their total assets, not net worth.

I'm not an expert (yet ... my kid is still in diapers) but that's more or less how it works here in NYC. And it's totally insane. But that might just be due to the sheer number of people living here.

Education may be a product but not all products are the same, right? You wouldn't solve problems in one industry exactly the same way as in another. Also, do we really want to think about education as a product at all? It's fine to have massive "inequality" in consumer products like shoes. It doesn't seem like that's an acceptable outcome for educating our citizens.

Good stuff Would be curious to hear about your conversations on Canada's housing market

[amazonsearch]Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West[/amazonsearch] Not an investing book, and not a light read. But there's a lot of interesting stuff in here about the rise of Chicago, the relationship between cities and the countryside, and the history of commodities markets. Get it on Kindle, because it's heavy.

cable companies? but that depends if you mean accounting profits when you say "profits", or if you mean no accounting profits and no cash flow either

Not to take a side, but it's sort of ironic Hussman mentions Bayesian learning. I wonder if he's adjusting his priors for each year that passes without any blow up, despite the Fed's actions. My sense is he's only doubled down on his beliefs. Which means he's not Bayesian at all.

24% but slowly coming down