Parsad

Mohnish has put the autographed copy of "25 Years of Fairfax" on Ebay! There is no reserve price, as he wanted to let the free market work its magic and decide the price. The auction proceeds will go to his charitable foundation "Dakshana". Prem is totally supportive of the idea, as he is on the board of directors of Dakshana, and has committed one million dollars a year for the next five years. Cheers and make your bids! http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120788235393&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1123

Mohnish has put the autographed copy of "25 Years of Fairfax" on Ebay! There is no reserve price, as he wanted to let the free market work its magic and decide the price. The auction proceeds will go to his charitable foundation "Dakshana". Prem is totally supportive of the idea, as he is on the board of directors of Dakshana, and has committed one million dollars a year for the next five years. Cheers and make your bids! http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120788235393&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1123

Extensive article about the Koch brothers. Once again, Bloomberg shows they are head and shoulders above the reporting on CNBC. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

I've been looking at various government and corporate bonds for the fund, and it is just crazy what is happening. Investors and institutions are just snapping up anything, even with little or no yield, and locking their money up for anywhere from 6 months to years! This is the complete opposite of what was happening in 2008 and 2009. You could load up on quality short-term or long-term bonds at huge discounts. The herd is going the wrong way and it is going to cost them dearly! We may not be far from Buffett's "harem" quote when equities were no longer liked by anyone for years to come. They may continue to tread sideways as their earnings continue to build for the next few years. Cheers!

They'll get eaten alive in BC. They'll have to contend with some 40 gangs here, with the big ones being the Hells Angel, Independent Soldiers, Red Scorpions and various offshoots that control the drug trade. These guys unfortunately, have no problem taking a gun and blowing someone's head off in public. If someone pulls a machete, these guys will just shoot him from ten feet away. Cheers!

Yup, I think you are right from what I can remember. Cheers!

The other thing they do is once they come up with an idea, they have everyone politely tear it apart and tell you why it's not a good idea. If it stands that test, they make an investment. The analysts do all the grunt work, but it's the investment committee (six people) that make the final decision. And that doesn't happen until there is some agreement for the big ideas. Smaller ideas, the principals are give a certain amount of capital, and they invest accordingly...as do the analysts, but way smaller. Big ideas like Dell, etc...the group of six has to come to some agreement. Cheers!

No, but it was an activist target, and he forced management to sell the company at a price (if I remember correctly) 80% higher than his average cost. Cheers!

I would not be surprised to see Sardar make a bid for it in bankruptcy court. He'll get it for a song now. Cheers!

You sent Justin Bieber!!!! Build that damn fence!! Actually wait until he goes back north and then build it high enough so he can't climb back And don't forget Celine Dion! But don't blame us for terrorism...we just have bad taste! ;D Cheers!

Hi Kilt, Google+ and "+1" are two different things. Google+ is their social networking option and "+1" is just a new recommendation for websites, so Google can rank them better. You can't get out of the latter. It's part of Google's search results now, and website operators can add the "+1" all over the place so that people recommend something. Cheers!

That's quite amusing, since there still has been no terrorist event in the United States where the terrorist arrived via Canada. Even the idiot who planned on blowing up the space needle a few years ago was caught at the border. In fact, all the recent terrorist activity were homegrown in the U.S. or arrived via that bastion of morality and political correctness...Saudia Arabia! Some poor lady is going to get 10 lashes because she was caught driving there a couple of days ago. Talk about the U.S. speaking out the wrong arse! Cheers!

Actually a good, accurate article by Alice. I think her assumptions in this article are correct. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/buffett-put-gives-a-hint-of-what-s-coming-commentary-by-alice-schroeder.html

He reminds me of the guy parodied on Saturday Night Live all the time, who ran for Mayor of New York..."Because the rent is too damn high!" Cheers!

Damn funny! ;D Cheers!

Sanj, speaking of hedging, if you only own FFH is that in itself a hedge or will Fairfax's stock also tank in a stock market crash despite their own hedges? It would depend on what the general sentiment is in the market. If people are seeking liquidity at any cost, not unlike the crunch time in 2008/2009, then Fairfax stock will tank too. But usually, a stock like Fairfax would fall after much of the market, because investors finally give in and start selling the stocks that have held up, because they need the money or want to buy cheaper investments. The thing is, investors shouldn't confuse stock price with intrinsic value. They see the stock price go down and they panic, when really they should only panic if intrinsic value is decreasing. Fairfax's stock price today is nearly 33% lower than its peak 12 years ago, yet intrinsic value (book value being an approximation) has increased about 300%! So at some point, investors would recognize that the hedges prevented serious damage to intrinsic value, and the stock would eventually move back closer to intrinsic value. Cheers!

It's a regressive plan. Those in lower income tax brackets will see a greater percentage of their income go to sales tax, as they spend more of their income on necessities. Wealthy individuals who set up personal corporations would be down to 9% tax rates and then they could just dividend themselves an income. Or, they may find a loophole and their income could be treated as capital gains. In the meantime, they'll run most of their expenses through the corporation, writing off much of it, and paying 9% tax! I'd like to see lower tax rates across the board, but unfortunately you can't do that because someone has to pay down the debt. So, the burden has to be more equal. You have staggered income tax rates, with a slight reduction for all; no change on dividends or capital gains taxation; a modest national sales tax...5-6%; estate taxes on estates valued at over $100M in all states. Cheers!

I'm so disgusted when I read about executives blowing wads of cash on such luxuries. They all have the Microsoft or Google campus mentality, yet those guys had money coming in when they built their offices. Executives like this should be held accountable and their own personal assets should be seized. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/solyndra-s-733-million-plant-had-whistling-robots-spa-showers.html

When I first saw the title of this article, I thought it was about Sam Antar or Barry Minkow. Instead, there seems to be another felon who has the ear of investors and the media. Munger should enjoy this article about economic cycles. When I read the bit below, I nearly choked on my bagel this morning! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/felon-forecaster-blogs-on-8-6-year-economic-cycles-after-11-years-in-jail.html A New Jersey native who didn’t graduate from college, Armstrong said he built a theory of “confidence cycles” when he discovered in the 1970s that financial panics from 1683 to 1907 were separated by 3,141 days on average. He later realized that number was equal to 1,000 times pi, whose value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Here's an article on the Samsung deal. Microsoft, the old gal, still has some tricks left in her bag...making profits out of thin air, where somebody else did all the work. Cheers! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576598661866214854.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

No, it doesn't. I always said that if you are fully invested, then hedging would be a good idea. We are rarely ever fully-invested. Our hedge is cash, and we move in and out of cash as the market gives us opportunity. I don't hedge otherwise, and I won't do it ever, other than the occasional purchase of market puts when things seem completely out of whack. The other circumstance in which you may want to hedge, is if you are close to retirement or require a significant portion of your nestegg in the near future, where you would be in some distress if your investments fell dramatically. Otherwise, no point in hedging because of the frictional costs. What Prem makes completely clear in that article, as I've always said, is that they hedge because their capital levels would decrease if markets dropped, which would mean they couldn't write as much business. If markets fell enough, and they are leveraged 4-1 asset to equity, they could lose their qualified credit rating for property casualty insurance, in effect putting the whole business into run-off. So there is a very distinct reason why Prem hedges, and that is because of the insurance business. Cheers!

Pretty darn good interview! Cheers!

Here is the interview with Prem on Gurufocus. Cheers! http://www.gurufocus.com/news/146628/gurufocus-interview-with-fairfax-ceo-prem-watsa#

This other article shows exactly how full of crap this guy is, and exactly what type of "cancer" is presented through the media to investors. Cheers! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8792829/BBC-financial-expert-Alessio-Rastani-Im-an-attention-seeker-not-a-trader.html

They thought the guy was part of a hoax, but after the BBC investigated, they couldn't find any evidence to prove so. This nutjob does think that way! But there alot of people that think that way right now. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042291/Alessio-Rastani-Claims-greedy-dealer-praying-recession-FAKE.html?ito=feeds-newsxml Cheers!