Jurgis

Very sad, rest in peace. :'( I have to +1 Palantir. This is a second wake up call this year (the first one was the value investor killed in Omaha) for wearing seat belts in any car. I am personally bad with this when I sit in the back seat and I think there are others who only wear them in front seat. So reminder for all. Peace.

The actual scope is a breeze. You close your eyes and the next thing you know it is all over. It is the prep that is a bitch. Actually, I have a relative who had such bad cramp reaction/pain during colonoscopy that they came out of anesthesia during procedure screaming. Of course we can write it off as botched procedure - perhaps they should have sued - but assuming this is due to sensitivity that might be genetic I'd be worried. :) Also there's periodic push not to cover full anesthesia, although clearly this might depend on health plan, etc. (I seem to remember that US is one of few countries that cover full anesthesia though I'd have to dig for the source) Anyway, thanks for positive comments. I'll evaluate when I get to it.

LOL OT: I really hope they invent something else before I have to go for colonoscopy, since I am so f&(*ing not doing it. I'd rather die. ;)

Agreed. What you say is true if you assume that the life quality of the bottom 10% has improved. The data above does not show that. If housing and medical inflation is higher than net worth increase, the life quality of the bottom 10% might have dropped. In which case the argument against increasing inequality becomes valid. I agree though that it might be more productive to measure and improve life quality measurements for the bottom 10% instead of focusing on inequality measurements.

$200K investment sounds really funny. This is less than yearly salaries for 2 qualified people. Color me skeptical about both the company and the investment. Disclaimer: I have no clue about current cutting edge fusion R&D.

Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series

That's somewhat expected, but yeah.

Good article.

This. Also love/hate does not have to be rational. That's why such topics tend to lead to flame wars when people feel the need to oppose somebody else's love/hates. So far so good here. Fingers crossed. 8)

Overall, IMHO, if one wants to follow Peter Lynch, the best way is to find someone who is on the top of trends and knows what's hot, what's not, what's a fad and what's a long term trend. And then pay half of your 2-and-20 to that person. 8) There are people like that, though not common. Following the products you like yourself is usually not good idea, even more so if you're a contrarian outside crowd person already. Although clearly people who invested in Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, TJ Maxx/Ross, Home Depot, Disney, Whole Foods, Nike, Netflix based on Peter Lynch have done very well if they held.

Adding: Love: Fidelity (except branch experience) Hate: Airline cattle-class travel

LOL Yes, Peter Lynch anecdotal investing is rather broken approach. I read Peter Lynch books when I was just starting and they definitely made a bad influence on me at the time. (Bought Iomega, got out with profit, but we know how the story ends...). I never suggest Peter Lynch books for new investors... or anybody else actually. The thread itself is fun though. 8)

That didn't take long... :'( I'll repeat my suggestion:

I wonder if this will descend into flame war at some point. Perhaps the thread charter should be: no comments on the previous love/hates. 8) Love: Netflix(mostly), Amazon(mostly), Google (for self driving cars), Wegmans(mostly), TJ Maxx, Elon Musk(mostly, man crush :o ), DSW, Trader Joe's(when they don't discontinue products I love), Lindt chocolate, T Mobile (for international roaming, USA coverage is a bit crappy), iRobot Roomba. Hate: Apple (snobbish attitude, price gauging), Google (for ads and privacy invasion), meat industry, cigarette industry, sodas and soda companies (mostly), professional sports, unreliable Internet providers: Verizon DSL made me swear I'll never use Verizon again.

The above might be a good reason not to invest in companies that are promoted as water plays: as soon as the water becomes scarce/expensive, they can be forced to give up some of their rights. PICO, BWEL should be running high on water shortages, but they are not. I still wonder if someone will try to pump-and-dump these using the water theme... Disclaimer: I've looked at PICO, BWEL in the past but have not done in depth DD recently.

NY, NJ, & MA are some of the bigger markets for resi. solar. snow typically is not a huge issue for solar production (they price this into your rate typically, and solar irradiation is much lower in winter anyway, so you'll still save money). Finally...typical solar leases come with warranty on roof penetrations. They won't install if your roof is too old/wrong material/poor condition. If you were doing rooftop solar in MA, would you do lease or purchase? Any good companies to consider and any bad ones to avoid? I'm still not convinced, but would like more info/ideas/feedback. :) Thanks

If I was in non-snowy state, I'd probably get rooftop solar. Losing 3 months during snow cover and potential panel/roof damage in New England winter scares me so far. I'll be late adopter and see if solar tiles/slates will become cheap enough soon: http://www.solarcentury.com/uk/c21e-tiles-and-slates/

Xi Jinping does not like your implications here.

Thanks

Can you elaborate why GLRE and TPRE should have higher valuations? They are subpar (re)insurers with subpar investment results and 2/20%-headwind costs. Why should market value them higher?

This is true in USA, but not so true in (a lot of?) other countries. People have to pay for credit/debit cards, disputing fraudulent transactions is not easy, etc. I don't think this negates your points, but just FYI. :)

Can't comment on 1. It mostly perplexes me too (which means that I am definitely not sell-my-business-to-Berkshire material :) ) Regarding 2, I understand it more. There are people who like to be a part of larger whole and/or don't want to spend their time on things Buffett takes care of: publicity, marketing, public appearances, etc. Not everyone wants to be top dog even if they have intelligence/integrity/energy, etc. Of course, every situation is different: someone like Todd and Ted might be fine with publicity, marketing, public appearances, but want to be a part of Berkshire for other reasons. Also when you say "uncommon", you have to realize that there is a pool of millions of smart people and only one Berkshire. So the fact that 20-100 of these people go to work for Buffett is not that amazing. I am sure even Sardar Biglari can find 10 or so great people who would like his mojo and would work for him. ;)

I doubt he'd disagree with you that there are exceptions. I think his point is that majority of companies are borrowing money to buy back expensive shares. When downturn comes they might be hit with double whammy: stock drops but they don't have money to buy back cheap shares and they have to pay interest on debt.

I am not sure if you are aiming this at what I said, but my point was that even "I want to play a guitar and have a nice house from doing it" might be unrealistic. I know too many musicians who are programmers because they would not have a nice house otherwise. OTOH, a friend's daughter at roughly GYPSY age went to college, majored in something like art (?) with year of studies-abroad archaeology in Greece, then wrote YA book and got published. So apparently some of the special things happen even in very tough fields... Anyway, I mostly agree with you. You did read the article a bit differently than me - that's cool. :) I see. That's not my experience in Facebook at all. Different crowds I guess. OT. I also don't get envy from trips/cars/weddings/houses. I do get envy from other things - professional achievements mostly - that are not on FB. I also read waitbutwhy article about FB etiquette and I think I disagree with him in certain cases, but again that's OT.

Not bad. OT: Facebook for me works as curated set of links to interesting articles on the web. Similar to Liberty postings in CoBF. 8) I look there once a month or so and read some articles that people linked to. I think Facebook figured this out and the top posts are now pretty much people linking to articles.