KinAlberta

Interesting: Libor: Bank of England implicated in secret recording By Andy Verity BBC economics correspondent 10 April 2017 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39548313

bump Best of luck!!! Today, my best friend (since we were 5 yrs old) who has long had crohns is now fighting cancer in his lungs. He's never smoked but had kidney cancer which after being given the all clear, returned in his lung. I chalk it up to a horrible domino effect of colitis, then crohns, massive amounts of drugs, multiple surgeries, multiple stresses, loss of a good job (where he was highly respected) and life slowly approaching poverty due to LTD insurance that doesn't protect him from inflation... I think Buffett's quote below could be modified to include: equally worthy but unable to work hard citizens. (Through no known fault of theirs, society still seems to punish them):

I seem to recall what you are talking about. Googled Buffett and asinine for some numb'ed down mind of mine reason. Maybe something here will bring you closer to it: https://valuebin.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/warren-buffett-on-investing-small-sums-of-money/

Brk - about a quarter century now. Return? - It's been ok - bought it thinking that if it did better than a GIC return I'd be happy. I've been happy. Held some other positions, like FFH, Cdn banks, etc. for a long periods too. Finally parted with last of FFH just last year (so maybe close to 20 yrs on a few shares). Bailed on long term positions in banks (TD etc.) by the summer of 2008 and never went directly - foolish me. (Bought back via low performing more diversified products like ETFs, dividend funds and a closed end bank fund and now out of them all for several years now. )

Here's a couple Zacks generated stories on shares I owned in the early 2000s and periodically check in on. Eight days and a few pennies movement in the stock and no other operational news that I could see yet Zacks flips back and forth... just like my post here - it's all more clutter. :-) Absolute Software (ALSWF) Cut to “Sell” at Zacks Investment Research Posted by Lucas Kauffman on Mar 24th, 2017 Absolute Software (NASDAQ:ALSWF) was downgraded by Zacks Investment Research from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Friday. https://www.chaffeybreeze.com/2017/03/24/absolute-software-alswf-cut-to-sell-at-zacks-investment-research.html Absolute Software (ALSWF) Upgraded at Zacks Investment Research Posted by Joanna Charbonneau on Mar 16th, 2017 Absolute Software (NASDAQ:ALSWF) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning. https://www.chaffeybreeze.com/2017/03/24/absolute-software-alswf-cut-to-sell-at-zacks-investment-research.html

"My claim is that Canadian banks basically created this money out of nothing." Don't confuse the banking system with individual banks when it comes to money creation. The old; loans beget deposits which beget loans which beget deposits... Also, I can't recall what has happened over the years to the reserve ratios in terms of expanding and contracting money supply. However, any buying of banks' crap holdings at a "mark to maturity price" (as was discussed in the depths of the 2008/09 crisis) by the central banks raises a lot of questions in my mind about gifting value to the banks - aka money creation.

"Capital gains only arise because someone has taken a fair amount of risk to earn them." Maybe. Based on the "risk/return dogma, best read the thoughts of the guy that in looking at his returns must have taken more risk than near anyone else on the planet:

Low taxes on the rich are often predicated on the assumption that the economy that generated the returns, and very likely assisted in generating those returns, will eventually see some benefit. However, if you keep people's taxes really low and they accumulate a lot of wealth, and then pack up and leave in retirement, the tax jurisdiction basically lost its opportunity.

While now in retirement, I hope he keeps offering up his opinions: Additional cross-references: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/fpa-capital-robert-rodriguez's-final-commentary/ http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/robert-rodriguez-retires-fpa-capital/

No not at all. That's not the point though.

Interesting I'd say, in light of the earlier Imprimis article I posted about the lack of mobility in the US compared to Canada.

Three Ways Warren Buffett Is Not A Typical Billionaire JAN 31, 2017 1. His home: 2. His car: 3. His diet: “In my entire lifetime everything that I spend will be quite a bit less than 1% of everything I make,” Buffett explains in the documentary. “The other 99%-plus will go to others because it has no utility to me, so it’s silly for me to not transfer that utility to people who can use it. It’s doing me no good.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2017/01/31/three-ways-warren-buffett-is-not-a-typical-billionaire/#67ab0ce03610

Still, instead of holding cash, holding the market generates fairly stable dividends and that market position can be readily sold to purchase other specific assets as needed. What about the optionality of the market position plus it's higher probability of growth (in simplistic terms that is).

This was a good read. I've looked back over my adult life and now see that many of the things I hitherto viewed as "big mistakes" were really instances of me being a master negotiator. I'm going to call Tony Schwartz and see if he'd be interested in another ghostwriting gig. I don't support Trump but I respect that there are a lot of intelligent people who do. I simply fail to see how his supporters continue to pretend that his mistakes are actually "masterstrokes" of strategy. He is an intentionally ill-informed contrarian who makes decisions quickly and without much detailed analysis. This leads to big mistakes and they should be viewed as such, however good the intentions may be. Incidentally: Whenever I imagine Steve Bannon whispering in Trump's ear I think of Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings. Which begs the question.... who is Saruman? I didn't vote. Just wanted to comment that his decisions could turn out to be both big mistakes - or big wins. Randomness does that and I suspect that a whole lot of highly informed, carefully strategized decisions still go off the rails and turn into huge mistakes. (It's a bit like trying to beat the S&P500 over time. Almost no one does it successfully. Life is just too complex and interactive.)

A couple years ago I was astounded to learn that most social work is very much "rescue" orientated too. Apparently any service intervention that lasts more than six months is unusual.

You say it wasn't a terrorist attack but a hate crime. I always get so confused on the semantics of all this. Sounds to me like the guy tried to kill a whole lot more than the six he did kill. According to this article terrorism now has to be aimed at an entire nation. Recognize the Difference Between Terrorism and Hate Crimes By Frederick M. Lawrence • 06/14/16 http://observer.com/2016/06/recognize-the-difference-between-terrorism-and-hate-crimes/ However, the Oxford dictionarydoesn't set that broad of a standard: "The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims: ‘the fight against terrorism’ ‘international terrorism’ " https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/terrorism Definitions of terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism When is a Hate Crime not a Hate Crime? When it’s a Terrorist Act… 18TH JUNE 2015 BY JOEL DAVIDGE https://www.scenesofreason.com/hate-crime-vs-terrorism/ It always seems like splitting hairs to me but I know the intent really does matter, though, if a hate crime strikes terror into a group, I'd probably label it it terrorism.

After big concentrated investments in RFP, SD, BBRY, and SHLD, I can't believe he's still in business. Has SHLD actually been a dud? Some investors have got the remains of SHLD, Seritage and $32 in other distributions according the Berkowitz. Not sure what that amounts to though

Or like the anti-free trade (anti-capitalism) shift Trump represents, maybe the world is just getting less ideological and more pragmatic or practical. Alberta's experiment only survived the good economic times and as soon as the the downside of economic markets hit, so did the realization that markets can create not only a whole lot of winners, but also a whole lot of losers.

For those that are unfamiliar with Canada and see it as heavily left leaning, some more trivia: My province had a flat income tax, one of only a few in North America. Plus our province also has no provincial sales tax (just the 5% federal sales tax). I used to agree with the flat tax but no longer agree with it and think the Conservative and NDP governments were wise to end it. The left leaning NDP has raised larger corporate taxes but also cut small business taxes. (Personally I'd work towards eliminating all direct corporate income taxes but the NDP was wise raising them in the current economic environment and within the current tax regime structure..) Eight states had flat income taxes, not sure if they had zero state sales taxes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax

A different orientation: A maturing colony being treated as such by the British Privy Council when it overruled Canada's own Supreme Court: Bolding above is mine

Surprise! We’re more conservative than Americans - The Globe and Mail Excerpt: Despite our cherished liberal Canadian values, our behaviour in family matters is a good deal more conservative than that of Americans. Our marriage rates are higher and our divorce rates are lower. Twenty-seven per cent of American children live in single-parent families. And the number of children born to unmarried mothers – especially to women in their 20s – is soaring. In 2010, 40.8 per cent of births in the U.S. were to unmarried women. That rate is growing fastest among the white lower-middle class – the very people who tend to vote Republican and loudly thump the tub for traditional family values. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/surprise-were-more-conservative-than-americans/article4555404/

Hillsdale College Imprimis Restoring America’s Economic Mobility September 2016 • Volume 45, Number 9 • Frank Buckley Frank Buckley Author, The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America Excerpts: So it is with Canada, a country that beats the U.S. hands down on economic mobility. Canada has the reputation of being more liberal than the U.S., but in reality it is more conservative because its liberal policies are written over a page of deep conservatism.... "There’s a top ten percent in Canada, of course, but its children are far more likely to descend into the middle or lower classes. There’s also a bottom ten percent, but its children are far more likely to rise to the top. The country of opportunity, the country we’ve imagined ourselves to be, isn’t dead—it moved to Canada, a country that ranks higher than the U.S. on measures of economic freedom. Yes, Canada has its much-vaunted Medicare system, but cross-border differences in health care don’t explain the mobility levels. And when you add it all up, America has a more generous welfare system than Canada or just about anywhere else. To explain Canada’s higher mobility levels, one has to turn to differences in education systems, immigration laws, regulatory burdens, the rule of law, and corruption—on all of which counts, Canada is a more conservative country." ...With its more traditional legal system, Canada better respects the sanctity of contract and is less likely to weaken property rights with an American-style ... The paradox is that Canadians employ conservative, free market means to achieve... ... https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/restoring-americas-economic-mobility/ Frank Buckley is a Foundation Professor at Scalia Law School at George Mason University.., He is a senior editor of The American Spectator and the author of several books, including The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America and The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America

You'll read that portfolios are hedged but you never know whether it's a perfect or imperfect hedge. Often it's far, far from a perfect hedge where a portfolio doesn't match the market but the hedge does. So some 'hedges' can generate lessor gains than that lost in the portfolio and other times more profit well above the value of the portfolio, but only if the right pricing/market conditions are met. Then those hedges have to be closed out and that's just one more variable. (Think of those doom and gloom people that buy loads gold and when things look rough, they hold it even tighter, riding it up and then back down. Same for cash rich companies that hold tight during time of maximum opportunity.)

I believe I've posted here on the Corner before on this but, my other long standing curiosity is why Buffett builds cash and not a temporary but growing position in the S&P500 while he waits for opportunities. So... He doesn't time the market but I would guess that the greatest values coincide in down markets and so the cash has greater 'optionality' plus simple value retention to an indexed position. Otherwise though, he misses S&P500 returns and dividends in up markets. So the benefit of having cash at the ready seems to indicate that he sees cash optionality during 'normal' to rising markets as greater than a diversified equity holding. (I'm ignoring all the other opportunities such as bonds, bolt-ones etc) Anyway, is cash that powerful? I assume he sees (or more likely calculates) greater value between the two in cash in some probabilistic sense. Holding cash for an extended period vs just holding the market... Or of course returning cash to shareholders.

Berkshire’s Decker Says Buffett Can Take His Time With Cash by Noah Buhayar, January 18, 2017, Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-18/berkshire-s-decker-says-buffett-can-his-take-time-with-cash-pile