Parsad

+1. There are not very many companies at all who truly pass this high bar. BRK stands out here. (other names welcome). I view handing out stock options, year after year to management as failing the test. Would much rather compensate management for their real contributions (pay above market) and let them buy stock with their own money. Just like the rest of us. Why is that difficult to understand? Because people inherently value themselves very highly! No one ever stops to think...maybe I'm not worth that! ;D We've indirectly acquired about 20% of a company through a convertible debt deal we just made in Vancouver, and I added the caveat of a director's seat to close the deal. We had our first board meeting last week, and I emphasized that the CEO should not be sitting on the compensation committee...they made me Chair of the Compensation Committee! Now this is a nano-cap company, just returning to form as they ran out of money to get their operations up and running. The CEO is a large shareholder, but some of the costs that the company has been paying in compensation is mind-boggling. I can't say much else, as we are in the process of dealing with this, but unfortunately corporations, big or small, are run with a culture of entitlement. I'm already rocking the boat on this one and I know it. Things are going to have to change. I don't know how CEO's justify their compensation in such matters to shareholders. Shareholders who have lost considerable money! And then you have CEO's who create a ton of shareholder value, but inherently think they deserve a fatter and fatter piece of the pie. It isn't enough to be well-compensated or enjoy your work...you just want more and more! Sad really! Cheers!

Thanks for the information Eric! That'll give Paul a little more to work with when I get him to investigate a bit. By the way, what the heck are you doing surfing the site while driving your Tesla? ;D I know it's an interesting site, but c'mon! Cheers!

A handful of people have had one-off or recurring unintentional bans from this forum over the last couple of months. If for some reason, you find this happened or happens to you from time to time on your laptop, desktop, tablet or phone, please clear out the cache. Sometimes stored pages or info won't update as they continue to go to the same stored page. If it still happens after clearing out the cache and history, send me your IP address for your phone, tablet or computer? Someone I banned was using hundreds of IP addresses…some of which belonged to other boardmembers. Not sure how that occurs. Let me know if that works. Thanks! Sanjeev

Jason Zweig writes about Guy Spier's upcoming book. Cheers! http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303749904579580173018598720-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwMzEyNDMyWj

What no "Black Keys" or "Yeah Yeah Yeahs"?! Who am I going to hire for Corner Market Capital's 10th Anniversary in a couple of years. ;D Cheers!

Stansberry & Associates May 2014 report talks all about Fairfax's foray into Greece. See attached report. Cheers! Stansberry__Associates_-_May_2014.pdf

Agree. Hate that business. Do you feel the same way about niche branded cars such as Ferrari, or does the fact that it is part of the Fiat family kill the idea for you? No, I think niche branded cars behave less like commodities, because regardless of demand, there will always be a supply issue. There is much more elasticity in pricing and margins. But if the business becomes part of a larger company, with more commoditized products, it's pricing power becomes irrelevant, since it is so much smaller than the overall company. Right now, we can see this clearly with smartphones...the Apple brand is being diluted by more commoditized products they are bringing out...margins are shrinking, pricing less elastic for Apple products. Cell phones are now very much like cars or computers. So Ferrari on it's own is a great business, but that doesn't make Fiat into Ferrari. Cheers!

This is part of the reason why we've stayed away from automakers, yet every value manager I see is loading up on them. Automobiles are commodities and their price will ultimately be decided by supply and demand. Not too mention the tight unions that undermine their profitability, and the price of the underlying materials needed to produce them. Cheers!

Hamblin-Watsa's committee members are given a certain amount of the portfolio to look after, and the analysts are also given portfolios...but much, much smaller. It could very well be that one of the analysts was buying it in his/her portfolio...not unlike what you see in Berkshire's filings when Todd, Ted or in past days, Lou Simpson would buy a position. Cheers!

New plate on a new car...guess what it means! Cheers!

Floyd Mayweather is an interesting example to use because he exemplifies different expressions of arrogance. You are referring to the "Money" Mayweather cartoon that we see between fights. But in the ring, he is a more disciplined fighter than past talents like Sugar Ray Leonard and Roy Jones Jr. Every move he makes between the ropes in intended improve his odds of winning. And, of course, he is always in shape. So you see the practitioner's humility in knowing that he is only exceptional in so far as he behaves smartly, and not due to some inherent characteristic of being special just because. Agreed. The fact remains, he probably would have even bigger box offices if he got rid of the schtick (arrogance or act) and stuck to boxing. Cheers!

Well, look at guys like Floyd Mayweather, tweeting about how much he made, including per second, in last week's fight. Then having two women lie on his bed and count $100K cash. These people are just idiots to begin with or try and maintain that bad-boy persona because it sells tickets. Then you have people who always think that their success is solely dependent on them, and not others...but then you get such a nice contradiction when you have someone like Kevin Durant, who gave an amazing MVP speech last week, relegating himself to the last person who deserved all of the credit and put his team-mates, coaches and his Mom well ahead. I think if you just step away from the whole thought-process of your own success, and simply focus on the work at hand, that would help you the most in avoiding this...in other words, just try and let go of your emotions, good or bad, and play the game for fun...easier said than done though I suppose! Cheers!

From what I hear, Prem was an IIT table-tennis champion! Also, my father was a Simon Fraser University and BC Champion back in the 70's. I can play too...not as good as my father, but I was pretty good. Alan, we should play next time in Toronto...I'll get a table set up before the Fairfax Shareholder's Dinner. ;D Cheers!

Sure, but plenty of good examples as well...Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, P Diddy, JayZ, Paul Anka, etc. Cheers!

Terrific notes by Peter Boodell of Boodell & Co. Thanks to David for sending it! Cheers! Peter_Boodell_-_Berkshire_Hathaway_Annual_Meeting_May_3_2014.pdf

What the heck does that mean? I think he is using that as a proxy for how popular the guy is with the ladies which is another proxy for his net worth I must be getting old! Thanks for the explanation. Cheers!

What the heck does that mean?

One of Indirectinvestor's friends who I met a few years back did the same thing during the dot-com era. Daytraded his way to $150M! At one point, he was accounting for several percentage points of total daily volume traded on many of the big dot-com stocks. No idea what he is doing now. Cheers!

Nice article Norm! And yes, Francis is a class-act and fantastic person. Cheers!

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!

+1! So if he read 500 pages a day, with a plum up his bum, would everyone here attempt that too? ;D Build your circle your own way folks. It's not how big the circle is or how fast you get there, but that you stay within it and make good bets! Cheers!

Nick's correct here. They mean that they help employ or staff 65,000 people in various businesses and industries. The older figure on their corporate website says that, but was at 50,000 people staffed. I think Prem just didn't phrase it adequately, and so it sounds a little like they have 65,000 actual employees working for them. Cheers!

Hey Parsad, I got a feeling we would never fully agree on this subject. Hempton seems eccentric but I would never say he is a dick. If I genuinely believe someone is holding a stock I believe has accounting gimmicks and could go to zero -- I hope I would do exactly what Hempton did. I think it's the right thing to do. Definitely wouldn't consider Hank Greenberg or Jim Chanos "retards". They both have a long history of uncovering frauds and warning investors about bubble'ish stocks. I know you know this. The foreign subsidiaries (Fairfax Gibraltar, nSpre Re in Ireland) and NMS Cayman transaction + all the characters involved make it a fascinating story. So you feel comfortable with an analyst calling up large institutional shareholders and smaller private shareholders and trying to persuade them into selling their stock in a company without any proof? And you are ok with this when you know that analysts like John Gwynn were also releasing their reports early, and a group of journalists were colluding in writing stories about Fairfax at specific points of time when information was going to be released? Even when one of these journalists, Herb Greenberg, is on the record that he had never read a Fairfax quarterly or annual report? This is ok with you? I find that people have short-term memory as long as people make them money or provide any other useful analysis. Make me a buck or save me a buck and I'll forget your sins! Cheers!

He's a dick! He would actually call shareholders and try to convince them Fairfax was going to fail. Why would any analyst do that? When you discuss Wall Street behavior and how things like "The Wolf of Wall Street" occur, it is because you have unethical conduct that occurs beyond what would be considered within the duties and job description of specific occupations. These guys took way too much upon themselves and the lines they were willing to traverse to prove they were correct were scary and absurd. Combined with the zeal of certain Wall Street's more famous retards...Herb Greenberg and Jim Chanos...you had a very dangerous mix of slander and libel targeting a specific stock. My personal opinion is that there were participants in the short attack that were fortunate to have escaped incrimination, unlike their insider trading colleagues who were hunted down in the last couple of years. How Stevie Cohen was taken down, and not these dipshits, I have no idea. All I can say is that the government went after the biggest fish, even though many smaller fish deserved to be gutted and fried as well! Cheers!

This post defeats the purpose of having individual book reviews...it goes on the "General Discussion" area! Cheers!