Parsad

Is this a good contrarian indicator?? Almost certainly! Cheers!

Signs seem to point to the uptick rule being brought back. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/31719408

What happens when people refuse to accept the IOU's? Will the government then step in? They are already beginning to cut services...I would imagine property taxes will go up if Prop 13 is repealed? What if they can't repeal Prop 13, as they need a two-thirds majority? Do commercial taxes go up...but businesses will relocate head offices. So many possibilities. This is not a situation I have any comfort with! Cheers!

I'm more concerned about these situations than I am corporate America itself. California, Michigan, Eastern Europe, Iceland...etc. Bigger systemic issues? Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/31706621

Apparently, they are selling quite a few: http://www.cnbc.com/id/31708955 Cheers!

I would hate to see the current FFH share price if FFH didn't realize $2.1B on the CDS portfolio (thanks in large part to Brian) Prem's the best at giving out credit rather than ever taking any for himself, but our fearless leader also deserves significant credit, as does Francis Chou. As both Francis and Brian told the story at our dinner, they were dry for ideas at Hamblin-Watsa, and Prem asked everyone outright if anyone had any good ideas...anything! Francis and Brian sort of looked at each other and then brought up the idea of the credit default swaps. Prem was astute enough to take a shot on the idea considering what they expected to happen to the financial industry some time in the future. Then smart enough to hold on to them as they reaped just about all they could from them. Cheers!

Spending 2008 bonus? He deserves at least that. Hope he doesn't read this. ;D Yup, they do. Brian will probably ask for a bigger bonus now next time. ;D Cheers!

While long-term I think Buffett can still beat the S&P500 by a couple of percentage points, size really is starting to be an issue, as is the permanent ownership of more and more companies. Still far better than owning the index thought! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/31670203

Hi Folks, Please have all your questions in by Friday, as I will be compiling them and setting up the interview over the weekend. Thanks very much!

Totally agree Crip! If he really does want to turn over a new leaf, stopping others is probably the best place to start. Albeit, not like Sam Antar's bullshit reformation. Anyone else notice Sam hardly posts about Overstock anymore? Cheers!

Globe & Mail has a story on what Madoff's life will now be like: http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090629.wmadoffjail0629/GIStory/ While he won't be allowed conjugal visits, I suspect he will now be the boytoy of some guy named "Butch" in cellblock D. Cheers!

Maybe they can keep him on a respirator and heart/lung machine, but hopefully Madoff lives long enough to serve at least half that sentence! ;D Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCaVUDaGGcAY

What are they talking about...that BHRG cut capacity in the 2nd Q? In the 1st Q, revenues at BHRG were up three fold, so I don't understand exactly what they are referring to. Cheers!

Story on Zhao Danyang, the fellow who bought last year's "Lunch With Buffett" auction. Cheers! http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/26/magazines/fortune/lunch_buffett_danyang.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009062610

We normally stick to value-investing related topics, but I thought this story of a woman in New Jersey, who uses the power of capitalism to assist small business owners was a great story. Cheers! http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/06/18/cnnheroes.alfa.demmellash/index.html

Completely off-topic, but because he was such a huge influence on pop-culture and music, I thought I would mention it. Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack at age 50. Sadly, a girl I had a crush on as a young boy, Farrah Fawcett, also passed away today. Should probably wait till CNN has said it, but these guys are pretty good when it comes to this stuff: http://www.tmz.com/

I wonder if this issue impacted any institutional investors from buying FFH or ORH? Almost certainly to a degree. I'm sure the ones who also bailed once most of the CDS gains had been reaped, paid particular attention to that paragraph. Cheers!

What is left of the thesis anyway? - Excessive leverage - Nope - Lack of Liquidity - Nope - Underreserved - Nope - Unethical Management - Nope - Offshore Accounts Hiding Problems - Nope - Investment Returns Can't Be Maintained - Nope - Debt At Subs Is High - Nope - Insurance Businesses Are Crap - Nope - Runoff Will Require Capital Over Time - Nope - SEC Investigation Into Reinsurance Activities - Nope What's left? - So-called "Warren Buffett of the North" - Well, he one-upped the master in 2008 - Jim Chanos Says "This Thing Is Going To Zero" - Priceless! Cheers!

So does the SEC now refund all of our legal costs? ;D I expect a minimum of a pint of blood when Fairfax goes to trial against the hedgies! Cheers!

Looks like everyone caught the news right away! About friggin' time. Cheers!

This story in the National Post a couple of days ago, also discusses some of the same players that Mark Mitchell covers. The SEC is investigating them. Cheers! http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1722023

How are you able to determine the reason for the withdrawal- Truth serum? No, we are a small group, so we talk to our partners regularly. You can get a pretty good idea of why a partner would want to withdraw capital if you are honest with them and ask them. If a partner is desperate to get out, they aren't going to care whether or not you let them back in, and they will just tell you flat out that they want to get out and now! Cheers!

Hi Folks, I've made a couple of changes to Corner of Berkshire & Fairfax. The first is that we have a new home page at www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca. It's cleaner and less blog-like. The old link of www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.com will now redirect to the new homepage. Basically, the new homepage is just for me to post a few key stories from time to time, as well as any interviews we do. On the right hand side of the homepage, you'll find a few links. One is to Berkshire, and another to Fairfax, since the board is named after the two of them. Another link leads to this Investor Message Board, which will continue to run exactly as it is. The new addition is the Ben Graham Exchange. After a boardmember here wanted to sell his Kindle to another value investor who would appreciate it, I thought about all the Berkshire and Fairfax memorabilia I have. That if I ever wanted to get rid of it, I would want it to go to another value investor who really cared about what it was. I thought about all the annual reports that people are always looking for, as well as various books people seek out on value investing. As such, I decided to create this free classifieds for anyone who wants to buy or sell stuff to other value investors, but I don't want those posts cluttering up this board. So if you are looking for a specific Berkshire annual report you are missing, feel free to put up an ad on there. The one request is that no photocopies of copyright material are allowed on there...so no selling copied Buffett Partnership Letters. It's still in the beta phase, so there are a bunch of kinks that probably need to be worked out. Also in the past, I've had requests from investment managers looking for analysts, or people looking for investment management positions. I thought I would add a category where these ads could go in there, which would faciliate value-minded professionals to find other value-minded professionals, as it is a very small group. Hopefully, some of our boardmembers can find industry-related work with great people. Cheers!

I have reached out to several friends, family members and co-workers to gauge interest in an investment partnership I am contemplating, similar in structure to the early Buffett Partnership. Interest has been encouraging, though more moderate than I would like with some trepidation due to our current economic malaise. A couple of the responses indicated a willingness to invest but questioned the relative lack of liquidity. “What if I really needed to access the money?” was the question asked. As it turns out, the people who inquired about this would look to have a disproportionately large percentage of the partnership’s assets. Because of this, selling to cash them out could impact the performance of the rest of the partnership. For those of you running these partnerships, is this a concern and how do you address it? You have to decide the culture of your fund. If you believe that you cannot run the fund efficiently by being liquid, then you will have to set the mandate that withdrawals are restricted (either once a year, etc.). If you believe that investors should have the right to their capital, then that should be your mandate and you will have to retain liquidity in the type and size of assets you invest in. For us it was the latter. We allow our partners to redeem their capital at any time. We have a very good relationship with each of them. The one caveat we have is that if a partner withdraws capital because of necessity, then that is fine. But if a partner withdraws capital because of fear of the markets or our investment strategy, then we won't allow that partner to return once they've withdrawn their capital. This does two things...they have access to their capital when needed (medical, debt, retirement, etc) and it automatically purges the type of investor that would not be ideal in the fund. We have not had a single redemption in the three years of operation of the MPIC Fund I, LP, during one of the worst economic periods in the last 70 years. I did have the following thought. We could have these folks establish a separate brokerage account which I would control. It would be solely individual money so if they did need to sell, there would be no impact on the others and they would absorb fully the tax ramifications (under the supposition that there would be Cap Gains and not Cap Losses!). We would institute the same 6% - 25% compensation arrangement and could create a simple contract (though simply contract in the US is rather oxy-moronic) specifying the limitations of either party’s actions. So….the question…does anyone have such an arrangement? If so, what benefits and pitfalls have you encountered in doing so? This seems to make sense but, inverting, why does this NOT make sense? We've had a few investors in the past who wanted us to do this for them. We refused their money. Again, it comes down to what is important. For us it was that all partners should be treated the same. We also wanted the simplest way to manage the total assets, and that was through one single fund, not seperate brokerage accounts. The one thing we decided from day one is that the culture won't be compromised and that all investors will be treated the same, regardless of account size or emotional constitution. Best of luck. Cheers!

Did you put that together Omagh? Nice! Cheers!