rmitz

The location probably makes a difference, I grew up on the east coast in a lower-middle class (at best) area, so we kind of knew that wearing OP meant that we were just following what was going on out west. That, and there were many kids who couldn't afford it, not just one or two. Same thing with Nike, it was cool to have it if you did, but most kids didn't because it was expensive, so no one got made fun of. Yes they do start young and it isn't always with clothes. In my daughters elementary school, this had to be 3rd grade, they had a big problem with a group of girls calling themselves the "3CG Club" harassing girls at recess to tears over the fact that they lived in a house with a 2 (or fewer) car garage. My daughter didn't get harassed because we have 3, but some of her friends did. This certainly would never have happened in the town I grew up in. Ridiculous. But kids will look for any differentiator they can find to construct "in" groups and "out" groups--it's natural and unless the parents talk to their kids about this sort of thing it's going to happen.

I have really had very little problems with IB's customer service. I can get someone online for chat immediately if there is an urgent issue. The main issue I have is ongoing fees, which have caused me to move the most inactive accounts (mainly smaller tax-deferred accounts) elsewhere. I went with Tradeking for these accounts, but it sounds like I should have explored larger firms and negotiated the fees.

That was the first thing I noticed when I started to read them yesterday. To be fair, they have. The downward slope was just rather more gentle than he expected.

Crazy. Slightly off topic, but stuff like this makes me think that places like China, India, etc are going to be responsible for some awesome cost savings across a range of industries during the 21st century. A bit like the story (true, as far as I know) that during the space race NASA spent 1 million dollars developing a pen that could write in a zero-gravity environment. The Russians took a pencil. Not that that is generally representative of American industry by a long shot, but when I see needless expenditure somewhere that tale usually pops into my head along with Enron and a few other stories from throughout global history. That story is not true. http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp Summary: private industry did the research, sold the pens to NASA cheaply, and sold a bunch to people who wanted a "Space Pen". As well as the russians, since there were real drawbacks with pencils in space.

I keep watching lots of things that I've been involved with, but two of the ones I'm watching most closely right now are PVD and PKX. AAPL may be interesting too.

Feed Wrangler. I like the simplicity, though it needs a couple features. I mainly expect to use it through other apps though, so the interface isn't something I cared about too much.

First one, i dont think there was any restriction on investing in HF like it is now. I think if you want to invest in an Investment partnership now, you need to have $1mm or high earner. During 50s-60s, i guess you would these middle class earners as your clients. Second, lottery winners dont earn money over time like buffett's clients. Plus there is survivorship bias with buffett's investors. I am sure there are so many who held BRK for couple of years and sold it for various reasons. Of course, calculating inflation that 70k then is like 500k today.

It has seemed obvious for 10-20 years. Beware the widowmaker. :)

Actually, just use the atom feed, it shows the author and should be compatible with any modern rss feeder. I don't have the URL handy but a quick search on the board should find it.

Whether they are logged in while you are logged in is not private. But, when they last logged in is indeed private - as far as I remember. Yes WarrenWatsa, you are correct. Which answers the question asked by Valueorama. It was a privacy breach...the reporters should have known that...unless it was sanctioned by Bloomberg. Cheers! If that is true, though, by having a bloomberg terminal connected all the time, it would be very easy to set something up to log whenever certain people were online or not. There's no logical difference.

Congrats. I think it'll be a ton of fun. :)

So, I personally feel we're just as easily in the early stages of the rise here, as having any sort of "shock" with a turning point. I have lost significant money in the past trying to hedge the overall market with s&p puts--I was more than a year early, so I don't play that particular game. In terms of individual stocks, I agree with Cardboard completely. I also agree that it's a consistant problem. I have not changed anything in my directly-managed portfolios except I have only bought into special situations with new money for a few months. In my 403b, I cannot invest in individual stocks, and I just recently cut back my markets allocation by 10%, and new funds are just going to stay in cash. As things rise more I may cut back farther, but as I said we're just as easily early as late.

Gives a certain perspective on aging, doesn't it?

I expect to be there as well.

There is an element of that, particularly what we see in some politicians and movie stars. Liz Taylor had been rotating marriages for how long, though? Henry VIII? I'd say getting into new marriages is always something people have wanted to do, but most couldn't, for a variety of reasons, starting with the ones I previously mentioned (economics, or not strong enough to deal with societal pressures). Happiness *is* a choice, definitely agree with you there. With the right compatibility it shouldn't feel like sacrifice very often, and I am personally very lucky in that area. I also had the luxury to not get married for a while. I don't think moral problems are the core of the issue--or maybe it's exactly the opposite of what people think. If you date a number of people, practice safe sex, never think you "need" to get married, then you learn what you can and can't live with, and your chances of a good marriage goes way up. Be well educated, your chances go up again, and so on. I don't like the "old" viewpoint on marriage because I have seen too many cases of marriages where at least one of the parties is abusive and/or unstable, where it is damaging to the other person (and/or their children), and it's hard enough for them to get away even when they *can* get a divorce, because of emotional abuse and baggage. This issue has a very long history as well. Our culture would be better of if most people didn't feel that getting married and having kids is just "the thing you do."

Have you looked at what's on TV? Divorce rates? Single and unwed parents? Acceptable drug use? A book that talks a bit about the change in culture is "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking." She goes in some depth about how, at one time, we were a culture of character (Buffett's generation and prior). Doing the "right" thing was championed. Now, we are more of a culture of personality (people like Kim Kardashian). Where we value what gets are attention compared to what's intrinsically motivating. I don't see a lot of value in unhappy marriages. Divorce rates in the past would have been much higher if it weren't for two things: 1) a huge stigma against it, and 2) marriage having far different purposes than it does now (i.e. economic rather than a relationship). Single and unwed parents have much the same cause. TV may in fact be a moral decline, but a different one than you may think; I think it's the willingness of the corporations and producers to make whatever crap that sells to make money. The almighty dollar rules above all. In our recent past, the evils were simply different; let's not whitewash things. It wasn't that long ago, historically, that women were nothing but accessories to men, with few rights as people. Do I need to go into slavery, racism, and so on? Look back at chicken and dog fighting being much more common. Not that these things are gone now, but the areas, the emphasis was different. The main reason people think things are so awful is sensationalism, and a rose-tinted glasses look at the past. Drug use--depends on the drug. Alcohol has always been a hugely popular drug in this country, and it has much more harm than does something like cannabis. We tried prohibition before and it failed, we were just a bit slower this time since it isn't *quite* as huge a section of the country that uses weed. Harder drugs do have bigger negative effects, but we have gone about solving the problem with guns and prisons rather than trying to rehabilitate and remove the need for the drug. Guess which one would be cheaper and more effective? Overall though, crime is in a multi-decade downtrend, though you wouldn't think that if you watched the news. There are real problems in this country, but we *have* come a long way, in fits and starts.

For my kids I've set up two accounts each; a Coverdell (which I fund) and a regular taxable account. When they have earned income I would look at a Roth. All of these are at Tradeking--I can't say signing them up for the esoteric accounts was the most straightforward thing, but after they're up I have no complaints. I was able to associate all the accounts with my login ID so I can access them via my account.

I would like to say that Biglari is starting to reap what he has sown (a lack of trust). But it's probably just the usual market randomness.

I don't like it either, but I really doubt it will happen; it's political posturing and meant as a negotiation point to be given back (I think).

I must say that I reacted badly to hearing this, but after running the numbers, particularly if the 3M is indexed to inflation, it does not look like something which will be very common; it really seems like a pot shot at Mitt Romney and his engineering of his kids' accounts with dramatically undervalued private equity holdings. Let's say you started at 21 with two earners and magically were able to contribute the maximum to your 401ks and Roth accounts. I'm simplifying a bit; I'm going to assume that inflation is 3%, and that contributions are allowed to increase at the rate of inflation (not historically true). I'm also going to start from today's contribution numbers, which are 17500 and 5500 per person per year. This also does not count employer contributions which can vary a great deal; the maximum employer contributions per 401k are 33,500* per year per person; that's a quite rarified level indeed if you can get that. At age 65, with a 10% growth rate (something many people would be very happy to get!) These two earners will not max out the inflation-adjusted 3M cap (though barely; 11% and you're above the threshold with three years to spare). If that's actually supposed to be 3M per person, then you've got a ton of room left. While there are people out there like eric who have done exceedingly well, I really don't think this is actually targeted at them. I hope one day I'd be in that crowd. :) Regardless, I doubt this will pass. *Edit, corrected employer max contribution*

Does anyone have data on the percentage of corporate profits of all corporations vs the GDP of the earth? That would eliminate a rebuttal. GDP also has some things in common with those accounting fictions Buffett was talking about in his letter this year.

Well, the reader website had not been glitzy, but it has always been very fast and very reliable, and a large number of client applications use Google Reader's API as a way to synchronize state. Personally I do more of my reading in Reeder than any other application, so I'm waiting to see what they are going to use for a backend, and will likely just switch to that.

I just want to point out that in the US, a great deal of prices/cost of living have been kept lower by keeping worker salaries lower, particularly at the lower end of the service economy; much lower than comparable salaries/benefits in Europe. Huge differences in vacation time, the US workers normally have no health insurance, etc., etc. Also, regarding Warren and Prem's different views, I think I've said before that it's readily explained by a different time scale.

Regarding the loan: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/early-repayment-tesla’s-atvm-loan Or is that a different one?

Please don't misunderstand; I have no axe to grind at all; sorry if it appeared that way. But I do spend a fair bit of time dealing with some areas of intellectual property (though I'm not a lawyer). All you need to make that work properly is to note in your agreement with contributors which indicates there are more ways their input/data/contributions may be used.