Parsad

I don't get Buffett's rationale for the op-ed. The policymakers don't need more praise; they need more advice from a wise man. I also agree with that. Rather than him write these pieces or show up on CNBC every month, I would rather he take a more aggressive and poignant position where he forces government to listen to him before intervention is necessary. It would have been nice if someone had actually listened to him on derivatives years ago, and created a central clearing house for them, as well as put the kibosh on the more intricate structural products that were subsequently created. It would have been nice if regulators had listened to Munger years ago, and forced banks to focus solely on lending and deposits. Cheers!

Bernanke, along with Greenspan, led to the mess in the first place, so I'm not sure about the accolades Bernanke gets, but Paulson, Geithner and Bair all did a great job. Taxpayers not only will get their money back from TARP, but it looks like eventually the money for the auto companies and AIG will also be repaid. Steps taken to reform financial institutions, stabilize the banking system, enforce new SEC regulations, refinance the FDIC with injections from the banks...all are positive steps. Were there mistakes? Of course. But this isn't a perfect world and things were moving so damn fast at that time. Buffett is right, and I think he's been 100% correct through this whole debacle. He was dead on years ago when he wrote about derivatives. He was right about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was right about the credit markets seizing. He was also correct on the effects of the trade deficit. If his reputation is fading, I would hate to see whose reputation is rising! Cheers!

Netjets will offering direct financing for commercial clients. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-17/buffett-s-berkshire-to-make-loans-for-luxury-jet-customers.html?cmpid=yhoo

I'm sure the last year and a half has resulted in Chanos retracing his historical returns from shorting! Oh, but then again, he's providing negative correlation to the indices for his institutional clients in return for those fat fees he charges. Cheers!

Ha, ha Bronco, very funny! Pittsburgh and Washington will kick your butt in the playoffs. And we'll play one of them in the finals. 40 years and no cup! This is our year baby...Vancouver all the way. Cheers!

Yup, that is notional value of out of the money puts. The actual dollar amount is nowhere near that amount. Cheers!

That can't be right! Must be a typo. Cheers!

Well, actually a few more changes than I might have mentioned! ;D Cheers! http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1527533220101115

Not alot of changes. Did add a little more WFC. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095012310105654/v57789ce13fvhr.txt

No, he filed last quarter, so I suspect he sold his position. Now he can come to the Fairfax AGM! ;D Cheers!

I do sometimes wonder, with Bill Gates as Director of BRK, why they don't take this sort of action more seriously. Surely Gates gets value investing and allocation of capital to durable businesses after being so close to Buffett.. why not apply this model to MSFT? I really don't know. I wish all these guys on CNBC, Charlie Rose, etc would ask that question when they interview them together. If the Gates Foundation's goal is to provide the most amount of money to future programs for the next 30 years, then would it not make sense to put that capital to work in businesses that will be around for the next 30 years? That goal would not be contrary to the interests of Microsoft shareholders. The present bang for the buck may be a bit less, but the long-term bang would be considerably more by moving excess operating capital to non-technology related businesses with durable competitive advantages. Cheers!

I can't recall is it BV/share, BV or ROE they target at 15%? It's 15% ROE they've specifically mentioned, but I think the assumption is 15% growth in book value per share for all the shareholders. Assuming Fairfax manages risks adequately, and writes about 100% combined ratio, all they have to do is get 6% on that $22B and hit their target. That's a far cry from what Longleaf has to do. If I had to bet one way or the other, I don't think Longleaf will do 13-17% (mid-teens) long-term going forward on the size of asset base they are managing. Cheers!

Todd Combs sold off his positions in BlackRock and Leucadia National. Cheers! http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10921045/1/buffett-protg-dumps-blackrock-leucadia.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

I don't buy Apple products because they're cool. I buy them because they simply work better; I can get my stuff done quicker, more reliably, and more easily. The hardware is easier to deal with. Mac OS X being UNIX under the hood is also a bonus for me. Cool is just a small bonus after all that; if I could run OSX trivially and legally on non-apple hardware, I would. I think there are two separate "cult-like" groups that buy Apple products: One group buys them because they DO truly work better than Microsoft products, as well as most of the competition. The other buys it because the products are cooler, more stylish and make people's lives better. I have to say, my two previous phones that operated with Windows and Office mobile, sucked compared to my iPhone. When it first came out, I thought that the competition would catch up to the easy to use interface, and that cheaper competing products would become available. I was wrong! Over five years later and the competition still can't get the same feel, so about six months ago I finally relented and bought an iPhone. It's fantastic! Head and shoulders above the competition still. Syncing, updates...so easy. And guess what...it hasn't crashed, nor have I had to reboot or do a hard reset. Finally something that works without ever crashing! Cheers!

Ballmer should have just beat Buffett and acquired BNSF! ;D Really, their excess cash flows need to be put into other businesses. They will make some further inroads with Kinect, cloud computing, their phone, and continued updates of Windows, but for all intents and purposes, they should be looking at other, more durable businesses. Businesses where they sustain their economic advantage, rather than come late to the party in areas where it will cost a fortune to take market share away. Cheers!

That's kind of a crock! Fairfax has only $3.5B in equities and $22B in investments. Assume that their equity portfolio falls 50%...ignoring the fact that it is hedged...the investment portfolio would still be at over $20B! - Now if the markets are down 50%, do you think going forward Fairfax's risk profile is better or worse? - Do you think that going forward they would be able to recover that $1.75B in equity losses? Surpass it handsomely? - Would the drop in equity from $8.9B to 7.2B indicate that their claims paying ability going forward would be better or worse, if they could now deploy more capital into a depressed market? - Would they have difficulty refinancing their debt with $1.25B in cash in the holding company? The ratings agencies are simply awful at their job. I think many boardmembers would have a higher probability of rating the credit worthiness of most businesses better than the analysts. The reason being is that the ratings agencies are very much like other analysts...they look backwards not forwards...they rate based on parallel levels of capitalization, instead of looking at the underlying capital composition and risk profile. During the credit crisis, we invested in a fair amount of corporate debt. We did not even remotely consider what the credit rating agencies had graded the debt. We made our own estimation of the credit quality, risk and commensurate return. On average, we made a 40%+ annualized return and batted 100%! All the companies we invested in had zero financing risk for the ensuing 12 months, as they had ample cash or credit lines on hand to refinance. Yet, they had various ratings given by the rating agencies, and many, many higher rated companies went under. Go figure! Cheers!

% increase in S&P = 0.042% increase in GDP 1.47*(10^13)*(0.042%)*(1/100%)= 6.17*(10^9); 6.17 B ________________________________________________ The math is correct Actually, it's not correct, but neither were we earlier. $14,700,000,000,000 * 0.00042 = $6,174,000,000...but you have to multiply that by ten to get the change in GDP with a 10% move. Thus the correct number for change in GDP in the first year would be $61,740,000,000. Cheers!

Munger, if you plan on using my board, please have the courtesy to not butcher my name. I think a couple of people corrected you on this in the past. If you disagree with any comments I make...fine! But I operate using my real name and not behind some moniker, so I would hope that you have the decency to respect that.

Now let's see if you are honest -- you are basically asserting that if two assets are overvalued, one greater than the other -- buy the lower valued asset regardless of absolute value...no? This has nothing to do with Buffett style value investing -- period. Munger, you have a tendency to put words in people's mouthes. If you are talking about ABSOLUTE values Munger, then the assumption would be that you left the market somewhere in 1998, returned in 2003, left again in 2007 and returned in March of 2009...is that correct? Unfortunately, that's not how the world works. You have various degrees of overvaluation and undervaluation at any given point of time. Capital will always move to where it is utilized most efficiently. Thus capital moved from overvalued assets (fixed income instruments) to undervalued assets (equities) in the last two months. Institutions need to cover their cost structure, generate income and qualify their existence. The same institutions will move from asset class to asset class...bouts of rationality balanced with bouts of fear and panic. Did I ever say I was fully invested in the last three months? Did I say that I hold no cash? We have over 35%...almost 40% cash right now, and we were never less than 20% in the last 3 months. But you take one comment and assume I'm espousing investors go all in at any given moment. Perhaps, if you just calmed down and interacted with people on a more social level, you wouldn't have this desire to prove everyone wrong. Hussmann's math is incorrect...are you going to email him? Cheers!

Yes, Hussmann's math is incorrect: - 1% increase in S&P500 equals 0.042% change in GDP: Assuming a 1% change in total stock market valuation increases GDP by 0.042%, 0.042% of $14.7T would be $61.7B. Therefore, a 10% move would be $617B in the first year alone. Cheers!

Have you lived in a cave for the past two months -- I believe the Nasdaq is up close to 18% in two months simply because of speculation/mania around QE2. Did you not see the WSJ yesterday, which showed that investor bullishness on equities has gone parabolic? This will all end terribly for equity investors in general -- guaranteed..just a question of when not if... They haven't moved into equities because of QE2...the media loves to talk about that because they get their information directly from Wall Street traders. The truth is that institutions moved in because yields were so much lower elsewhere. I told you that over two months ago, and said it was a certainty that capital would eventually move in looking for higher yields...you disagreed vehemently...guess what? At some point in the near future, you will see a natural correction in equities. Further down the road, we may see a large scale correction. But there is little in the way of that happening in the near term. Some investors are overly optimistic, and many are overly pessimistic. The truth lies somewhere in between, which is a territory that few seem to inhabit these days. Cheers!

It's not too late to get into commodities, precious metals and other companies who's income can be measured in real things. Its not too late to get out of investments that pay off nothing but fiat currencies and its derivatives. It's not the real economy that's collapsing... it's the currency. Time to get real. I may be wrong, but this only drives the nail deeper into my skull telling me that this is a bubble. Every ounce of my sensibilities tell me that trying to monetize these things and make economic sense is the DUMBEST thing I could do...thus I will remain incorrect for the foreseeable future on gold. The funny thing is that I deal with mining companies every day through Quantum. Some are making money hand over fist, and their stock prices are following suit. Yet, I think it is fool's gold! The same thing happened in 1999 and early 2000...everyone was buying tech stocks. Today...they buy resource companies! And the more companies that pop up, the smaller that pie becomes. There is a limited aggregate demand and utility for gold. Presently, the demand is artificial...due to speculation, rather than utility. At some point in time, that will correct - quietly or perhaps violently! I will continue to own investments that I can buy at a discount to their intrinsic value. An intrinsic value that I can calculate by discounting the future cash flows, or at a discount to the liquidation value of the underlying assets. I'm ok with the rest of the world owning gold and giving up on equities. They did that a year and a half ago, and we had our best year thereafter. Cheers!

Mary Schapiro, SEC Chair, says they are working on preventing computerized trading platforms from destabilizing markets. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/40072553

Here is Seeking Alpha's transcript of the Markel 3rd Q Conference Call. Cheers! http://seekingalpha.com/article/235584-markel-ceo-discusses-q3-2010-results-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo

Hi Bronco, No, not at the moment. We are currently in the midst of the proxy solicitation. Once this is all complete after the AGM is over in December, the board is welcome to discuss the company, but I would ask that members refrain until then. Thanks very much. Cheers!