rmitz

I would argue that the actual inventory is somewhat *lower* than the books indicate. Vacant housing is deteriorating as we speak; a lot of the value of those houses has already been destroyed, and will only be back with further improvement investment, which will go directly to the economy. Many of them are probably already approaching tear-down status. Delinquent housing is actually the safer investment, since people are still living there and at least doing a basic amount of maintenance (the heat is kept on...)

Funny you should say that, since WB actually went and started buying tailored suits a few years ago...there is something to be said for how one wears a suit.

Also, something I haven't seen mentioned here yet...usually the bigger/nicer homes have a more limited selection in a given area, so there might just not be any equivalent properties for you to rent. Add to that the fact that in most cases rentals are not taken care of nearly as well as owner-occupied houses, tax benefits, the fact that moving is costly and a pain...(I don't trust any movers with my fragile stuff). What about the ability to make improvements or changes to the house to make your life better? Owners have very little incentive to have efficient appliances or good insulation, in most cases. To me, I can see these things as easily being worth a premium (all costs considered).

Yeah, this is the really infuriating part. I always expected the main part of TARP to eventually be profitable, although of course they're trying to screw that up too. That was part of why I supported it at the time (along with the consequences of not doing it), but to then take and spend this "found" money, it makes me sick. Politicians are not idiots but they have perverse short-term incentives.

There is some confusion because you can have two different levels of margin. One is a strict 2:1 margin based on older regulation calculations, and another is a more lenient 4:1 calculation (this is all grossly simplified). Now, even if you're under the first margin type, your "available liquidity" calculations seem to all be done under the *second* type under the interface, so it looks like you have plenty of room, when in fact you don't. If you're over the 2:1 ratio towards the end of the trading session things will get liquidated. You can day-trade up to the much higher liquidity levels, though. I could be wrong on the reasoning here, but effectively this is what I saw when I ran into the problem, then changed my account type and could use higher leverage. I've learned my lessons about leverage since then though. :) Also, I must comment that I've had at least a dozen interactions with their customer support, and they've all be positive, so I don't really understand what problems people are having. Sometimes they can't do something and they explain why, but they've always been courteous and helpful.

I'm not going to defend the valuation of AMZN, certainly wouldn't buy it myself. However, book value is a really misleading number for this kind of company--I'd go so far to say that book value is almost entirely fictional. This is true for most companies where their value is more in intellectual property, people and brands rather than assets. Similar to google, if enough of the right people left, the company starts to struggle and essentially goes into runoff.

"What would you do if you had a million dollars?" "I would relax... I would sit on my ass all day... I would do nothing." "Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit."

Now, I wouldn't say it's that bad, but here in Pittsburgh we have a 5-guys as well as a few Steak and Shake locations, and while I think the burger at 5-guys is better than S&S, it's certainly not a better value. (Nor is it what I think of as a "great burger"--I prefer thick patties). The fries are miles better at 5-guys, but you better have someone to share with.

Sanj - you make the exact point I was trying to make when I expressed my shock (and yes, disappointment) in the BRK B-split on the Burlington Northern thread. cheers Zorro Honestly, though, I'm not sure it matters. Mr. Market still gets his thing wrong since the price is set by the margin--despite having more people with a long term investment focus. There's also always been plenty of turnover in Berkshire amongst investors who buy it on value principals rather than long-term investment principals. And doing it this way means you can be fair to smaller investors in the BNI deal, so that they can get the same terms as the big boys. For any investor, $300-400 for a share of fairfax is not an unreasonable chunk of money. Back in december, brk was nearly $5000, which is really pricing out those small investors getting started (or those who want to invest income at regular intervals). In short, other than the slight increase in commissions, I don't see this as a particularly big deal. It surprised me at first but thinking about it has lead me to this conclusion.

While Berkshire has trimmed positions in the past in order to maintain a basic level of liquidity, it seems like he's sold enough at this point that this is a pull-out.

If you mean it sounds like Warren's voice, that's because it is.

You seem to think that WEB is more hands off than he actually is. He gets daily reports from some subsidiaries, and at least quarterlies at a high level. He will only step in if there's a very high magnitude error being made, true. But he is pretty familiar with operations on a daily basis. He's talked about this at least tangentially during several interviews at least.

Actually, silver is a better conductor than gold. The problem is that it corrodes much more easily, and thus is harder to use in many practical applications.

Seems to me that the biggest difference between Singleton and Buffett is pointed out right in that article.. I don't dismiss the other concerns, but I don't really see it as a similar "post leader" situation at all. Roman.

I would add that the leverage is less dangerous. If you're using traditional leverage, you have to deal with margin calls, being forced to sell at inappropriate times, and you can ultimately go broke. You can only go broke with options if they all actually go to zero. Not as safe as pure equity on the time-scale, but better than raw leverage in my experience, at least if you're dealing with LEAPS. You could still get burned of course, but you'll never get burned to the tune of massive negative equity.

I just disabled the real-time market feeds. I get my real-time data from google or my other brokerage account, and I generally only place limit orders anyway, so that's close enough. Thus I have an account at IBKR with no regular fees at all.

I can count on one hand the times in my life when someone ordered a Coke in a restaurant and the following dialog happened: "I'll have a coke." "Is Pepsi OK?" Did not end in "Yes." And I do have a fair number of data points. Personally, I don't drink either anymore, though I did like RC Cola for a time.

Your statement seems to be self-contradictory. Not that P/E is useful in figuring out overall valuation...but 1929 is clearly far lower, which is what you said you expect.

I believe part of it is that he can't by more without dealing with "Bank Holding Company" stuff, I agree with Rabbit. Also, he has held in the past companies that became overvalued (particularly Coke during the .bomb). His positions are so large that he cannot get in and out quickly, and even if he did, the taxes on the sales would negate a large portion of the overvaluation. Even *then*, he has said that he made a mistake in not selling Coke at the 2000 level valuation.

This, I think, is the big question. It may not mean that much since the credit spreads were already going up on Berkshire's debt anyway, so I don't think they were going to be interested in issuing more. I don't know about the financial covenants, though. Will it cause problems? Nothing insurmountable, I'm sure, but it could hurt other opportunities.

Actually, I had an iRex a couple years ago (tested it out for work). Still not big enough for me, and frankly the construction was clunky and rather difficult to use overall. But I am looking forward to the latter product! That's essentially what I've been waiting for.

In my opinion, the screen on the kindle is too small to display a whole 8.5x11" page legibly. I am still waiting for an eink based reader which has a physical size of at least A4 for the screen.

I wonder if the attendance numbers might be down this year. I need to get down there at some point.

I don't think it should cause much of a problem, though I don't know the details of your hosting provider (in terms of what hardware this board is running on). I'm really excited to have a full feed available! Though the bboard interface is significantly better than the old one, and so it doesn't seem too bad to me.

A few interface things which will take some getting used to aside, this seems like a reasonable forum, and it was easy to set up email notifications and such. Also, I second your plan for the determination of other folders coming down the line.