rmitz

Ah, good. Then I think we can have a good conversation about our differing experiences. I've been at Carnegie Mellon for 18 years, 16 working full time, and many of my friends here are faculty in the Computer Science department, which may be skewing my perceptions. Many others have gotten their PhDs (or BSs) and gone into industry. I don't see a huge difference in quality, in fact, some have gone back and forth. That seems to me more a matter of time. There seems to be more pressure these days to produce research, and quickly, so that reduces time available for other activities. Hell, just having a family by itself can use up all the time outside the business day. So, since much of our education system has deemphasized breadth and these younger faculty have been on a sprint for their entire education lives and subsequent education career, that is a natural consequence. I posit that it will change as they get older. I think that a household with two Professors--in the scientific fields--at a top university are still easily upper middle class. That doesn't mean they're in the 1%, and I don't know that they ever were. Housing is a red herring as that observation is true across most careers--housing has appreciated much faster than income, at least in high-demand areas, which may tie into the whole arc of education institutions itself. There are some discontinuities in pay scales depending on what a particular institution focusses on. Some people may end up leaving the field since it's just so much easier to go into industry and make at least as much, if not more, money. So I agree that there is at least some sentimentality required, or at least a particular attraction to education. What I haven't seen, though, is that these people are zealots like you describe. Everyone I know could easily go into industry and be successful, and there's no particular lack of well-roundedness either. Your anecdote is shocking to me, but I'm sure that crazy things have always happened. I would not compare it to politics in the real political world, but in my discussions with folks, it does seem more than a match for corporate politics. There is the old joke that people fight harder when they're fighting over scraps... So, in summary, I don't really have stats to back this up, but I wanted to write that my experience and observations have not matched yours.

How many scientists do you know personally? I know plenty of young scientists, and disagree with you completely. You’re creating an exaggerated caricature here. Sagan wasn’t a brilliant scientist either. Some of this is just an increase in specialization, not “Aspergers” or anything else. That’s not to say that your caricature doesn’t or can’t exist, as it certainly does. But the politics involved in being a scientist do not lend themselves well to the kind of people you describe, either. I think there are waves of focus in particular sub-fields, then counter waves where people bring together scientists in different fields to collaborate and work together. That’s just how it goes.

On the Mac and iOS devices, I use Reeder exclusively. I use it with FeedWrangler, but I believe it can interface to Feedly.

Parsad is absolutely right, and in this case, WEB is also in the wrong ... consider he admitted during the KO compensation debacle that in his many years on 17 Boards he never ONCE saw a compensation plan NOT approved ... I felt sick when I heard this ... makes me admire Richard Kinder all the more It’s really quite simple. Buffett is a flawed human being like all of us. Less in some areas, perhaps more in others. You can’t fight every single battle all the time—that is just a recipe for burn out.

Munger isn’t dead yet. And it was a great deal from AOL’s perspective. :)

I also have Coverdell accounts for the kids, and they're nice. Would be nice to have a higher contribution limit of course. They're great if you can hit it like Eric. :) If opened at birth and you have reasonable returns you can still pay for a decent chunk out of it. There are also interesting rollover rules for the accounts that would be really complex to take advantage of, but there's potential there. I really don't like the investment options so I've stayed away from the 529 plans. This is mostly true, though filing the taxes can be done very simply and cheaply if you're under that 2k limit, and you don't file taxes at all if you're under 1k (talking about capital gains only). I also use these accounts but for a different reason--this is for money that I truly consider "theirs"-gifts from others, work income, etc. I also use it as a teaching opportunity, so I match their savings elections, depending on age we talk about the account and how it works, investments, compounding, etc. I don't consider it savings for college at all, and I don't really contribute the accounts directly other than as noted.

It's also important to note that what the directors said is not really substantially different to what Buffett and Munger have said previously. Media just wants to spin it differently. Far from it. Obviously he's not his father...who is? But he's been on a number of boards, runs his own farming business, is a published author and photographer, and has met all of his father's friends over the years...not to mention probably learned a thing or two. For people who think Berkshire will be the same after Buffett, it just can't be. The primary capital allocator will be gone, and they will rationally decide whether to reinvest all of the cash flow or distribute it in some fashion. By distributing it, it simply reduces the number of mistakes that can happen. Cheers!

I've actually been thinking about the new Galaxy Note 12 for this purpose. And I say that as a die-hard Apple user. I am annoyed with not having a real digitizer on the ipad for my scribbles.

If you get no extra utility from owning a home, then yes, that's the right decision for you. My home is not an investment.

My #1 stock return ever was/is with ATSG. It's about 40x in 5 years, though it really was at that level a couple years ago, so it was better than that. The key to the investment was seeing that with a careful analysis of the bankruptcy (which seemed as if it was a strong possibility at the time) it was still worth maybe 5x what it was trading for (20 cents to $1--actually, I think it was more like $1.20). Then they avoided bankruptcy and everything else was gravy.

I agree with you, but what you wrote there really should have been in the content of the letter. There's nothing magical about 5 years, but explaining a change clearly is always a good idea.

If you're only 30% above what you'd be making at a job, you're basically making the same amount. A rule of thumb we use for benefits is add 1/3 onto base salary. Then you have to consider work pipeline, stability, etc. If you aren't at least 50-100% above what you'd make at a regular salaried job, you're not really compensating for the risks.

Across many documents, I have run into some rare issues with the Mac version of Office, though the newest version is much better. Assuming you don't need to use Exchange/Outlook, you'll be fine. Also, if you actually do need to use windows, I'd recommend VMWare Fusion over Parallels, much better in my experience.

Maybe at some point. But in the next 5 years, absolutely not. She has very little experience and is just getting her feet wet. Maybe I am reading too much into things, but in one article they stated she likes to listen and ask questions rather than be a focal point during meetings. IMO, I interpret this as she does not have the experience or knowledge yet to be the leader. I can't imagine her running a meeting with Rose, Ajit, Tedd and Todd, etc. I'd also like the next CEO to have some history of capital allocation, whether through investments or tuck-ins or insurance or something else. If she keeps excelling and makes the most out of the opportunities she has (which it sounds like she is), I could see it happening in 10 or more years. I agree with you in general, but specifically, listening and asking questions is a huge component of a CEO's job. A good one, anyway. Lots of good leaders lead not by being a focal point or celebrity but by managing the direction of the group in less direct ways.

This is actually how the law is written. In the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007#B._Lighting_Energy_Efficiency

That doesn't make sense. Tires are a consumable. Even in third-world countries you need to replace the tires eventually, and here we replace them all the time. So that cannot be true. Indeed, Planned Obsolescence is a big issue. Generally speaking if people go about this by tossing old light bulbs instead of reusing them, we probably aren't saving energy, really. I'm guessing on that. I'm moving on to LEDs when possible because I've had issues with CFL failures long before they should have, not to mention the mercury content and such makes CFLs very dubious for the environment.

Yes. In either case, you have compounding. You need to grow to a certain size before you can work on certain problems, at least with your own capital, but education, sanitation, etc, have real (and arguably huge) compounding effects. Easily in the multi-bagger territory, though any specific number I would pull out of thin air. They just don't flow back to you directly. Obviously, this is BillG's approach. Philanthropy can definitely be done poorly as well.

A very important observation. My personal inclination here is to not hold back on things you need or want, but with an eye to possibly paying more for things if they are manufactured in a way that supports people you want to support, ideally with better quality as well. One of the things that rubs me wrong about the list of capital hoarders above is that having good clothes (i.e. not worn, without holes, stains, etc.) is not only a sign of respect for yourself, but also a sign of respect for others. I believe most of those folks came though the depression, thus were scarred in their mentality for reasonable consumption. Now, I don't believe consumption is a sustainable way for a society to live; given the level of automation, we simply don't need everybody working to supply a ludicrous amount of material goods, so there will have to be another solution eventually. I think the biggest hurdle to overcome is the viewpoint that people need to work to be valued to society; we simply do not need that many workers. Regarding another point; if you live long enough, you don't have to be good at capital allocation to gather a lot of capital.

+1

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. Intelligence tests for kids pre-k are extremely non-predictive of eventual "giftedness". I don't have the article handy but there have been some studies on this recently. Locking kids into this pattern bbased on a static test very early is almost worse than doing nothing.

Well thanks for the info at least. Now I can try to prevent this ever happening to me. I believe they do pay fees from margin, this really seems like a tripped bug in the system given that it was a near-zero balance or something. I mean, if you've got a margin, it is impossible to *not* pay fees from margin, and they certainly don't liquidate in those cases.

Not that it stopped us (we also have no cable and watch the Steelers OTA) but the Pirates aren't available OTA (or the Penguins, but I've never been a hockey fan). I imagine there are other situations like that. There are ways to work around it, but it's not quite as simple.

Thanks. I thought Daily Reckoning was just a small business, run by a small team. Difficult to understand how they can earn several hundred million dollars a year and have 400 employees. Is it from advertising and/or subscriptions? Where did you get the "largest in the US" and revenue figure from? That's only one of their many newsletters, they have all sorts of deals with other companies in terms of promotions and what not, as well. Those numbers seem high to me even so, but I suppose it's possible.

Given how quickly valuations can change, I wonder if a small window might be more appropriate for voting, anyway.

Thank you LC and wachtwoord. My only worry is what would happen if IB's real time margin algo went wrong and thought I would need real time liquidation, but I actually didn't even buy on margin? Or what would happen if I mistakenly put in one more zero for the number of shares to buy, and caused a big margin call? Perhaps I was just being too extreme and frightened myself. Yes these things could happen. To take it to the extreme, the entire SIPC could shut down, our brokers could raid our accounts, and we'd all be left penniless. Obviously an extreme example, but this is a question of where your limit of reasonableness is. As far as I know, they are a pretty reputable broker. For what it's worth, I have only seen margin calls happen towards the very end of the trading day. They seem to give float during the day, so you should have time to make any corrections for this kind of fat-fingered thing.