Parsad

Oh geez! I'm sure Sam Antar and Gary Weiss will finally crawl back out from under their rocks to write about this! Like I said before, what the hell is wrong with Americans and their obsessions with guns? You just have a frickin' loaded Glock lying around in a gym bag in your closet? Loaded...no trigger lock...and just sitting in a bag where anyone can get their hands on it, not to mention a relatively high-profile CEO accidentally packing his luggage in it and trying to board a flight. You guys are retarded down there! ;D Cheers!

I felt the same way. Nothing wrong with it...just didn't feel right. Cheers! The man who sold the claim (evidently he had offered the claim to distressed debt or claims investors at the highest bid) wasn't a victim, but an offshore owner of a Madoff feeder fund. The managers of those feeder funds, unlike the victims, we're generally sophisticated operators who didn't ask too many questions about how Madoff made his remarkable stated returns. Once the fraud became known, a prudent, sophisticated manager should have waited for price discovery to see how much his claim was worth, given that the world's best attorney for recovering money was aggressively persuing restitution to victims who lost money. That he did not wait for price discovery to run it's course, suggests that other time sensitive motives a may have influenced his decision to sell the claim of his feeder fund for what was almost certainly going to be a discount to the value of the ultimate recovery. You're probably correct Tim. Just too bad the actual investors are getting screwed over by their manager. Cheers!

I felt the same way. Nothing wrong with it...just didn't feel right. Cheers!

Re-opening of the 2022 debt offering. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fairfax-launches-250-million-opening-195600081.html

Thanks for posting that Hellsten! Cheers!

I've got to tell you that Preet Bharara has done ten times more in his time than hedge-fund crony Spitzer ever did. Kinnucan gets four years! Cheers! http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/companies/kinnucan-insider-trading/index.html?source=cnn_bin

I think they should look at cross-selling insurance and other products. Berkshire's been doing that for some time. I'm also still waiting for another non-insurance acquisition. Hopefully there is something in the fryer and they announce it before the AGM. The more booths I get to visit, the better! ;D Cheers!

No, that's what I thought as well. I had one hotel booked in late December, but when I was doing some searching, it looked like some cancellations may have popped up at some hotels. I ended up getting some really nice rooms at the Doubletree for a nice rate. They may still have some rooms left. Check Expedia as well, as their allocation wasn't completely exhausted. Cheers!

Hedge fund leverage the highest since 2004. Retards! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/hedge-fund-leverage-rises-to-most-since-2004-in-new-year.html

HSBC tells clients to avoid SAC. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/hsbc-said-to-advise-wealthy-against-more-sac-investments.html

The reason I don't typically do much online is that I can't stand short form analysis and snide comments (i.e. trolls). I hope this forum has none of that. Hi Kyle, You'll get the occasional snide comment during debate, but no trolls...don't worry about that. As for analysis, just check out the BAC thread in the "Investment Ideas" section. That should give you some idea how in depth boardmembers get into analysis. Also, many board members are fund managers, analysts, executives or investment industry-related, as well as we have some very knowledgeable private investors on here as well. Enjoy the forum! Cheers!

Article on ECRI and Achuthan. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/inside-the-market/worlds-leading-authority-on-business-cycles-gets-recession-call-wrong/article7226133/ Like I said before, his call wasn't wrong...just too early. He'll be right at some point in the future. ;D Cheers!

Hi Kyle, Welcome to the board! You'll get to know a lot of the regulars pretty quick. Cheers!

The music has stopped playing I guess! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sac-bracing-big-exodus-funds-071600406.html;_ylt=AirDCnTm_bbBnaZxIxjcPXyiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTRwb2NrNGdqBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIFRvcCBTdG9yaWVzIG1peGVkIGxpc3QEcGtnAzllODI0ODhjLWY4MmMtMzZmMi04NjMyLWZlOWM4MDk1M2M5OARwb3MDNQRzZWMDTWVkaWFCTGlzdE1peGVkTFBDQVRlbXAEdmVyA2NjMWYwMjkzLTViZWMtMTFlMi1iNzk3LTdmODlkZWNkYWI5Zg--;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

He's a turkey. A mini version of the accidental billionaire...Paul Allen. Although, it may just be the fact that I didn't like him giving up on Nash years ago. Cheers!

I'm really starting to get unnerved by some technology companies. It's bad enough that the government knows every little detail about our personal and financial lives now, but it's quite disturbing that Google Ads will change automatically to something I just did or searched for. For example, I just booked my hotel for Omaha, and automatically the Google Ads on here change to Hilton Doubletree ads. This happens almost every time I open a new window and search, or complete some sort of transaction. They have cookies on everything we do now on the internet. Even if you empty and delete your cookies, they are back tracking you the next time you open your browser. Very frightening in a way...to imagine these companies know so much about our daily movements and habits. There is little the government is doing to stop them, because it just makes it easier for the government to track us as well. Cheers!

Interesting little article on Berkshire's businesses and investments. Cheers! http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/01/09/berkshires-business-in-one-great-picture.aspx

Part of the Fool.com interview, but specifically on Buffett & Berkshire. Cheers! http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/01/08/mohnish-pabrai-berkshire-after-buffett.aspx

The vast majority of people who have been involved with Herbalife have lost money. The company claims that anyone who loses money is really a customer (not a distributor), but the truth is there are millions of failed distributors. They lose money because they did not execute on the distribution...an actual effort has to be made on the system package material provided to new distributors. A similar argument could be made that some universities are ponzi schemes...students pay fees to attend the university and receive their degree. What if the student has paid fees for four years, fails some of their courses and does not receive a degree? Should the educational institution be categorized as a "ponzi scheme" because the student lost money? Ironically, what about failed hedge fund managers...should their businesses be deemed ponzi schemes? As they charge 2&20 fees on other people's money, run aground, and then close their funds after realizing they will be a long ways from receiving another incentive fee. But they are at the top of the pyramid and run away with all of the fees they've generated over the years. I like Ackman some of the time, but his hypocrisy stinks big time on this one...that Target fund was one of the stupidest things any hedge fund manager has done in some time and his investors lost a bundle. Cheers!

Nope. And some of the MLM players are better connected than these hedge fund managers. Does anyone think the Van Andel and DeVos families (Amway) are just going to sit around and twiddle their thumbs? What about successful financial institutions like Primerica that are well reserved, very profitable and have clean records? No CEO is going to sit around and wait for fat, money-shifting, "2&20" hedge fund managers who want to destroy their reputation and their livelihood. Cheers!

LOL! Cheers!

The stock will move again as the stress test and capital return results start to leak out to the markets. Cheers!

MLM is just a compensatory tool, like anything else...be it options, interest fee loans, bonuses, etc. It's how it is applied and enforced, and should be exmained on a case by case basis like any overall compensatory plan. Not all businesses applying MLM structures operate the same way. Cheers!

Should make our lives and portfolios better over time. The institutions realize they are the dumb money and are now trying to index the smart money. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/100360543

That's a silly article. That's a pretty long list of professions already. It seems as though more recent and prolific psychopaths have been video-game playing, Nazi-sympathizing, white males. And where do psychopaths like Willie Pickton from Vancouver fit in...Pickton was a pig-farmer who killed over 50 vulnerable women, and even fed some to his pigs? I don't think there is any clear cut way to define what makes a psychopath. We're animals born of specific genetic material, mutated by the environment we live in, shaped by the experiences we endure. It's far to complex for any idiot to generalize in an article! Cheers!