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nelis

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  1. My only take in this argument is the following: It appears that Broglaboy is involved! That's right ... good old Mr. John Hempton. And he was sooooooo right about Fairfax?!? :) http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/06/paulson-sino-forest-loss.html It reminds me of a Munger quote: "Those people who say that they've never done it before and will never do it again; have done it before and will do it again."
  2. So I get this Pre-Paid VISA card in the amount of $35.00 for a Christmas gift. The shmuck who bought it paid a $4.50 activation fee. I can't believe they're that stupid! Now here's the really annoying part from my end. So I'm at a restaurant and I tell the waitress to make the bill + tip equal $35.00 so I can use the card. She puts it in - and it's DECLINED. So I figure maybe she did something wrong. So I pay in cash. So now I'm at a fast foody kinda place and I do the same thing except I add the tip to the bill to make it $35 and it get's DECLINED. So I pay in cash. So I call the Pre-Pay VISA people and they tell me that Restaurants or Tipping retailers will add 15% to the authorization and that's why it gets declined. So I say, is that in the Card Holder agreement and she says yes. So I read the Card Holder agreement that comes with the card and there is absolutely NO MENTION of this rule. So I call there customer service again and again they state that they were told it's in the Cardholder Agreement. But it really isn't. I finally access there Web Site and in there it's mentioned but in the "Merchant Resource Center". So to be clear ... it is NOT in the card holder agreement that comes with the card. I wonder if I have a Class Action Legal Case here? :) Bottom line is ... why would anybody, in their right fricking mind, purchase this stupid item?????? I mean really, a 12.9% service charge to activate it and the chance that the person who uses it get's stuck after a meal unable to pay for the food. To top it all off of course, the card cannot be reloaded, so the "idea" from VISA's side is that most people wouldn't use the extra bit left over and they get more money out of this business arrangement. Further to that after 7 months they start charging a fee of $2.50 a month until the card is out of money. I can only speak for myself though - I would never, ever, ever, ever purchase this item for anybody for any reason. Unless I hated them ... Have a lunch on me ... don't bring money ... Visa is accepted everywhere. Ha ha ha!!! Then again; maybe that's why I got it :)
  3. This rule would suck if your name really was "Warren Buffett"; I guess he wouldn't be allowed to join - wouldn't that be irony :)
  4. I'm a Canadian with an RRSP account with RBC Action Direct. When I look at my holdings now, they show my Farifax shares as FFH-U. This seems odd to me; why wouldn't they just keep my shares as the Canadian ones? What really stokes the steamer is that if I "sell" some Fairfax; I would have to pay a conversion to Canadian dollars. Has anybody else encountered this or inquired why? Or am I missing something?
  5. Thanks for the thoughts! One more query: Does the number of total clients the "prospective adviser" have ring any alarm bells either way? Too many, too few? I'm gathering they probably set up one strategy for each type of individual (low risk, med risk, high rish) and apply that to his/her account so in effect they're not technically giving personal advice - so number of clients might only effect "face time"?
  6. If an investment advisor uses a fee based model based on a percentage of assets under management that is "tailored" to an individuals needs. How does one as a prospective client of such a service determine if the advisor is any good? It appears to me that they don't have to publish any "rates of return" because the advice, in theory, is per person. Nor do they need to publish what they've bought, sold, etc. Is it just a "shot in the dark" or do these professionals have to publish something so one can persuse to see if they know what they're doing?
  7. Gee what an honor; puts him in the same camp as other notable winners like Yasir Arafat :) But seriously, this is purely a politically motivated award and has very little to do with what he has accomplished. To me it seems it has more to do with what they would like to encourage him to do. It's like getting a Nobel Prize for "Attempted Chemistry".
  8. Nodnub, I concur with most of what you write; I just think that the timeframe for obsolesence is optimistic. But then again, I still own shares in the Ice-Truck :)
  9. "In 5 years this information will all be on google. menus too. " As I said before, the information is already on the web, it's just a matter of collating it and presenting it in a fashion that allows for quick casual browsing. It might exist in google now but the effort needed to find it and present it in a fashion that allows for me to quick-scan will probably not be there in 5 years and /or it will take too long to set-up. The only point I'm making is that there is more uses to the paper version than just looking up a specific number and I believe that peoples predictions of its demise are generally optimistic. Remember the idea of the paperless office 20 years ago - funny - I still see lots of paper. "Most computers these days support sleep functions and can wake up within a few seconds." Really? I've been in the software field for a quarter of a century and didn't know that; I usually shut my computer off with the power breakers :) But budget consicous pensioners know that sleep mode still consumes vast amounts of power and since they use the device so rarely, they shut them down. "In ten years, most of the people ... and you will speak your search query into your phone instead of typing it. ..." I understand this argument, I heard it 15 years ago with respect to typing things into a computer (Dragon software, etc); that really didn't pan out at all. For the most part, after 15 years of research and development; I think they have about a 90% accuracy rate. No one in there right mind is going to use that system knowing ahead of time that they are going to have to manually correct 1 in 10 words. I foresee very little progress in the next 10 years due to the complexity of the problem. I do agree though that eventually, the paper versions will ultimately be a rare commodity and that the long-term prospects of the business will require rethinking. On the other hand - I still have a phone land line and they were supposed to have dissappeared 5 years ago as well :)
  10. I also hear this argument about how "paper" is on the way out; and maybe it is, but I personally am a tech person, who has access to computers and online search applications almost 24/7, and yet I, still use the traditional Yellow Pages for many things. Don't get me wrong, finding a specific entry is fast online (and incidentally, I use YLO's), but if I want to quickly sweep through say, a bunch of Pizza places, I can do that in the Yellow Pages Book a 1000 times faster then online - why, because they have the menus in the book; whereas online, I have to visit each bloody site and then find said menus (which in some cases is almost impossible). I also tend to find that the older generation, those over fifty, on average, are more prone to check the book than online because it generally is faster for them to navigate something they've done a million times rather than head to the computer, turn it on, wait for the OS to load, start the web app, click the URL, read the page, enter the information, and hope that they get what they wanted because if they've used google they may still get several million sites that have nothing to do what they're looking for in which case they get frustrated, turn off the computer and go for the book :) Next time around - you know what they're going to do. Furthermore, back to the pizza example, I find it ironic that I prefer that method because I don't get inundated with stupid cross advertisements popping up trying to sell pimple creams or how one stock a month is all I really need :)
  11. "Right. That's the solution. Get rid of people you disagree with." At times like these, I think Munger might say: "Sometimes you have to throw some raisins away in order to get rid of the turds". Besides, Mr. River can always start his own site and enjoy the benefits of his sparkling personality. I'm sure people will clamor to join his site when it starts - maybe, as a good sport, you could provide him a free link from here. :)
  12. Funny you should state that - I was in the same boat, and to be honest, a very good and durable boat for the last 12 months. I have managed however to cut my FFH holdings to slightly under 50% of my portfolio; I figure I will keep it at that ratio - Prem Captains these boats better than I do :)
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