bargainman

Ok, I was surfing the web and found this: http://jobs.aol.com/articles/top-10-companies-hiring/#photo-1 Sears is #1 on the list! Supposedly they say they have 2,552 openings! And get this quote: "My favorite thing about working with Sears.. is the stability. The company has been around for over 100 years.. has great benefits.. work life balance is excellent. They have really great quality people who are easy to get along with"" That's borderline hilarious. I wonder if it's true or if it's a statement provided by SHLD's PR department...

For all those food fans, an interesting look at the power of the food lobby: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/27/us-usa-foodlobby-idUSBRE83Q0ED20120427

Are you taking account a decline in sales/profitability? Or are you assuming that the stores will continue to sell at their current level? Do you think their brands will keep their current market share with a smaller store footprint?

One of the articles linked to this one: http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor?page=1 I don't know how much of it's true, but it's pretty brutal. It's really got me thinking twice about amazon and the products I buy from there. It's clear they are using every unfair disadvantage they can, from not having to collect state taxes to using temp agencies to keep a distance from the pretty brutal working conditions described. This is kind of hard to read for someone who was loving being an amazon and amazon prime customer...

good points. I like this article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/ There are some very interesting points in there: "The change had the opposite effect from what was intended The proponents of shareholder value maximization and stock-based executive compensation hoped that their theories would focus executives on improving the real performance of their companies and thus increasing shareholder value over time. Yet, precisely the opposite occurred. In the period of shareholder capitalism since 1976, executive compensation has exploded while corporate performance has declined. “Maximizing shareholder value” turned out to be the disease of which it purported to be the cure. Between 1960 and 1980, CEO compensation per dollar of net income earned for the 365 biggest publicly traded American companies fell by 33 percent. CEOs earned more for their shareholders for steadily less and less relative compensation. By contrast, in the decade from 1980 to 1990 , CEO compensation per dollar of net earnings produced doubled. From 1990 to 2000 it quadrupled. Meanwhile real performance was declining. From 1933 to 1976, real compound annual return on the S&P 500 was 7.5 percent. Since 1976, Martin writes, the total real return on the S&P 500 was 6.5 percent (compound annual). The situation is even starker if we look at the rate of return on assets, or the rate of return on invested capital, which according to a comprehensive study by Deloitte’s Center For The Edge are today only one quarter of what they were in 1965."

Engineers are attracted to cool technologies, interesting projects and challenging problem sets. There was a lengthy discussion on an engineer-heavy forum earlier last year comparing Google and Amazon cultures, which might be interesting to some here. Several former Amazon employees shared their views: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 perhaps, but clearly they left. There are still better options than Amazon for brilliant engineers.. Looking through that thread, read what "nirvana", simplekoala and others say. I think long term getting rid of brilliant engineers is going to hurt them bad. "Everything Steve says about Amazon is true, only, it was much worse. Amazon was, by far, the worst employment experience I've ever had. I'm not saying that lightly, I worked for a dozen startups, a couple of which crashed hard in the most gut wrenchingly painful way you could imagine." "It was by far the worst employment experience I had at a tech company. In my 10 year tenure, I fortunately didn't come across any company as bad as Amazon, when it comes to how it treats its employees. The management doesn't have any value for the lives of their developers, and use them as tissues." "Attrition at Amazon is at horrific rates. I know the actual number, though I'm pretty sure that'd violate my NDA to reveal. It's high. It's really high. Guess a really truly terrible number. It's probably higher than that." "You can sustain such an illusion only for so long, however. In seattle, as far back as at least 1998, everyone know that Amazon was a terrible place to work and an even worse place to do business with (as a supplier, etc.)"

Yes, while I love amazon.com as a customer I don't really think much of their culture, and would never ever want to work there. It seems like they reward their customers but pay no attention to their employees who are the ones who are supposed to serve those customers, or any of their partners. Whereas Bezos seems tremendously long term oriented and visionary in many ways, the way he treats his employees is not one of them. I'm a bit surpised given their culture and rewards that they are able to attract top engineering talent.

Dumb question.. if the current Chanticleer doesn't have the cash flows to sustain expenses, why would the future one have them? presumably the current management will be running the future Chanticleer.. What sorts of mistakes did they make that lead to their not being able to cover expenses?

Good call on the D3 by the way. Vitamin D is supposed to be one of the most important vitamins. It's supposed to be a prohormone, and it's supposed to be involved in all sorts of immune functions. Especially in influenza. Guess why most people are deficient in vitamin D? Well check out the dietary sources: http://www.algaecal.com/vitamin-d/vitamin-d-sources.html basically to get 100% (and several recommend that you get > 3x that), you have to go for cod liver oil or Salmon, Tuna or sardines or fortified milk. So what is going on? How could our body need a vitamin so badly that it can only get from a very limited type of food? Well we're supposed to synthesize it from the sun! Oh but wait, we don't go out in the sun anymore, and when we do, they tell us to put on 30 SPF which prevents our bodies from generating any vitamin D at all! I also remember reading that people were still getting the same amount of skin cancer even after SPFs went through the roof. The explanation, which made sense to me, is that you don't get skin cancer from tanning, you get it from burning. So when people use SPF 30 all the time, they don't build up sun tolerance, and the one time they forget to put it, they burn, which is what causes the cancer. So how crazy is that? We sure live in a wild wild world filled with unintended consequences! So.. take your vitamin D pills folks! Unless you eat a lot of fish, or go out in the sun a lot, you're probably low.

I think that if you had every company try to pass off an investment in technology as an asset Sears probably would not be that far ahead of anyone else! I mean compare them to amazon, target, walmart. Do you think any of those companies are investing any less in technology? I seriously doubt it. That said your point is one that is brought up in the book "It's earnings that count". If I remember he looks at earnings as defensive and enterprising (I think). The enterprising earnings he capitalizes R&D and marketing efforts to some degree. That's an 'aggressive' way to look at the earnings. It also assumes that they'll somehow be able to derive significant future benefit from that technology, and with technology it's always a toss up.. You never know if those millions you spent on web servers will be worth a lot or will be a lost cause... Especially for a company like Sears which really does not have a history of tech wizardry.

I think some of this article sums up the complexity of this argument very well: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Scientists are still arguing about fat, despite a century of research, because the regulation of appetite and weight in the human body happens to be almost inconceivably complex, and the experimental tools we have to study it are still remarkably inadequate. This combination leaves researchers in an awkward position. To study the entire physiological system involves feeding real food to real human subjects for months or years on end, which is prohibitively expensive, ethically questionable (if you're trying to measure the effects of foods that might cause heart disease) and virtually impossible to do in any kind of rigorously controlled scientific manner. But if researchers seek to study something less costly and more controllable, they end up studying experimental situations so oversimplified that their results may have nothing to do with reality. This then leads to a research literature so vast that it's possible to find at least some published research to support virtually any theory. The result is a balkanized community -- ''splintered, very opinionated and in many instances, intransigent,'' says Kurt Isselbacher, a former chairman of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Science -- in which researchers seem easily convinced that their preconceived notions are correct and thoroughly uninterested in testing any other hypotheses but their own. What's more, the number of misconceptions propagated about the most basic research can be staggering. Researchers will be suitably scientific describing the limitations of their own experiments, and then will cite something as gospel truth because they read it in a magazine. The classic example is the statement heard repeatedly that 95 percent of all dieters never lose weight, and 95 percent of those who do will not keep it off. This will be correctly attributed to the University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Albert Stunkard, but it will go unmentioned that this statement is based on 100 patients who passed through Stunkard's obesity clinic during the Eisenhower administration. Personally I think it's a number of things at work. - genetics - different people will react differently to different diets. Some will tolerate wheat without a problem, others will have a major auto immune reaction (and to varying degrees.. some will tolerate small portions others large). - exposure - having to do with portions. If you are healthy and eat a bit of crappy food, your body can tolerate it, but the large the portions the larger the problem. - food industry - Ever heard of pink slime? look it up. The food industry is incentivized to get you to eat more food! They do it very successfully. Not sure what the answer is here. Regulation of crappy food in schools might help, so would education. - sugar and fructose in particular (see the earlier post about its toxic nature in anything more than token amounts). - exercise I think that due to the complexity of the problem, it's almost like religion, or economics! The dismal science. I mean, any complex open system is going to be provably impossible to explain. I think there are just certain limits, and when you bump up against them you run into problems. I think of all the research I've read, the only thing I think that is indisputable is that sugar in large quantities is very bad for you. White flour and carbs too. Everything else has proponents one way or another.

Here's an interesting blog post about 2 studies, comparing the outcomes of high carb vs high fat diets: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/02/25/the-science-of-fat-loss-why-a-calorie-isnt-always-a-calorie/

Interesting research at MIT: http://www.process.org/discept/2011/11/17/draco-death-to-the-virus/

I've read some mixed things on cooking olive oil. I think because it's mono unsaturated that the fat itself is relatively stable at higher heats (it has a highish smoke point since it only has one oxidation point "mono"). But I believe the other compounds in olive oil, the phenols in particular are damaged at pretty low temperatures. So you may want to reconsider cooking that olive oil since the phenols are apparently responsible for a lot of olive oils healthy qualities. On the other hand I've read articles saying that it has a low smoke point like this: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=261 But then wikipedia puts olive oil's smoke point around coconut oil's, which doesn't make sense since everyone says coconut oil is good for high heat!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point Then again there seems to be a difference between the virgin and refined coconut oils! More confusion! Another thing I read about coconut oil is that it too can grow mold and hence mycotoxins. I put mine in the fridge as soon as I open it. it's a pain because it solidifies, but I just scrape some off with a knife when I need it. Looks like grass fed Ghee has a really high smoke point as well which might make it good for cooking.

Yeah, sorry I should have been more specific about the ratio of Omega 3 vs 6 being the real problem. The thing is that given that we're in the US it's such an obvious issue, like you said (15-25 to 1 ratio), that saying omega 6's are bad for you was easier and more self evident in the US. Wow, someone else who puts coconut oil in their tea! Amazing :) I actually take it with green tea, although sometimes I'll just take some off the spoon before mixing it in. I've tried some pharmaceutical grade MCT as well but I didn't notice it as much as the Coconut oil. Maybe the taste of the real coconut oil has a psychological effect or something? I would be careful with omega 3 eggs. What I've heard is rather mixed. One source claims that the chickens are fed flax seed and maybe flax seed oil, which is *not* suitable for human consumption (ie the crappy stuff that won't make it onto store shelves), something that is not part of their natural diet. Apparently Flaxseed oils tend to get rancid fairly quickly, meaning that the stuff that ends up in the omega 3 eggs isn't necessarily high quality, and in fact is less DHA than is implied: http://www.cspinet.org/new/200706211.html With regards to nuts apparently one big issue I've learned is that they are a stomping ground for mycotoxins, which are produced by mold. Rather, mold can grow on them, which can produce mycotoxins which are very dangerous poisons. I get my nuts and put them in the refrigerator right away. Wrt ALA though, I've read some interesting research specific to walnuts, which are high in ALA. As you said ALA is very difficult for our bodies to convert to DHA/EPA.. however somehow Walnuts have been shown to increase cognition: http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=news_110507b With regards to fish, only get wild caught fatty fish since farmed fish can have the same crappy omega ratios as grain fed animals. And you're totally right about grass fed vs grain fed from what I've read... I know of some people who eat grass fed butter by the tablespoonful! Oh, and to make things more confusing, grass fed butter is high in a transfat.. but a *good* one! Yes folks, apparently there is a good transfat. It's called CLA, and has been shown to reduce stomach fat in humans, and have anti-cancer properties! Food is soooo complicated :-)

The problem with a lot of the high fat studies is that they often don't talk about the kind of fat. Was it transfat? omega 3? 6? Medium chain triglycerides? Saturated LCT? Oxidized? lard? It's sort of like saying "minerals cause x problem" What kind of minerals? There was a long thread on high fat diets and that book good cals bad cals a while back.. There's so much we don't know. There was a recent study that apparently showed an increase in the rate of prostate cancer from higher omega 3 consumption! Yes, the good fat..

From a guy who doesn't know much about this space at all, I've been looking at putting some money into VCVSX, which is vanguard's low cost convertibles mutual fund. As is usual for a Vanguard fund, it's the low cost one in the space (0.59%), and morningstar ranks it as a "gold" pick. Looks like it's subadvisor is Oaktree, which I have heard quoted on this board on several occasions. Looks like they are trying to go from 15->30% foreign exposure. Yield is listed as 3.95% which isn't much compared to your 9%+ ;). But I suppose it's a good way to get some general exposure to convertibles... Minimum is 3K which is pretty low...

The interviews I've read say that Buffett stopped taking her calls and basically stopped talking to her at all after the biography came out, and *after* his relatives said they disliked it. Notice that Buffett himself apparently did not dislike the book and he did supposedly read it before it came out. (If I'm remembering the interview/article right, it's been a while). But he reacted only after people close to him reacted to the book. So as much as I admire Buffett to me, he did bring this on himself *to some degree*. If he had maintained a more cordial relationship with Alice even after the book came out I doubt she'd be writing such one sided articles. I really didn't like that article. I think she missed out on a lot of important points and counterpoints. That said it is true that Buffett, like many other public figures, does tell others to do as I say not as I do, with some shades of gray. I think that's just a natural outcome of being quoted so many times, and generally being superior intellectually and otherwise to us mere mortals. (I say that honestly and sincerely, even though it might sound tongue in cheek :-) ). All said I think Alice could exercise some better judgement and maybe present both sides of the argument more clearly. That said a lot of journalism these days is designed to be click bait. That's how medias gets paid these days, so things have to be inflammatory otherwise they don't get enough clicks to attract advertisers. It's a sad reality of the world where everyone wants their media and news for free..

Read this article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1118384,00.html It gives a lot of insight. I like the concept car parable.

Also what are the issue around owning a home in a different state? I presume there are a number of tax issues on top of the pain in the neck real estate management issues?

There is a difference between denting BH's overall IV, vs denting Biglari's potion of BH's IV, vs denting the minority shareholder's portion of BH's IV. Your statement holds when applied to the first and the second, but not to the third of those. We can only invest in the third, so that is what we have to evaluate. Note that given the incentive structure, the third shrinks as the second grows.

Does that date take into account the recent 3D Tri-Gate transistor tech? http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2032 Anyone know much about this?

Sanjeev, the link you sent discusses the profitability not the energy required, if I read it properly. But I did some more research and I'm probably wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands#Input_energy looks like the number I was looking for was EROEI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested and it looks like it has turned >1 for oil sands. I must have read that it was <1 many years ago...

Right but with oil sands doesn't it still require more energy to get the oil than the oil produces?

The iPhone and iPad don't. Check the number of sales of macs vs iPads/iPhones in Apple's 10K and you'll understand the importance of that. Also, there probably aren't many Android or Windows phones that do either. Not saying Intel isn't a good buy, but just make sure you understand where we are and where we're going. And most of all what is Intel's competitive advantage?