Jurgis

OK. This discussion is not about destroying the thesis of the article. I did not say the article was wrong - although it is a bit one-sided and now that I think about it self-contradictory. I said it was shallow (compared for example with his articles on AI, Fermi paradox, Elon Musk, etc.). You did very well on your own. Couple thoughts: - Self-contradiction: Author says that "GYPSYs Are Delusional" and then goes with "Stay wildly ambitious. ... Stop thinking that you’re special." solution. Unfortunately this is quite contradictory. Wildly ambitious implies that you think you are special. If you evaluate yourself as a so-so-violin-player and yet stay wildly ambitious about being world's top violinist, you'll likely have a problem when your ambitions crash with your actual skills at some point. Yeah, it's possible that you have hidden talent and that hard work will make it happen, but likely if you're not special, your wild ambitions might be too wild. Anyway this goes into reduced expectations bucket that you and others have mentioned separately. - Fulfilling career. This is another tougher one than couple lines afforded it in the article. BTW, Buffett (and Munger I think) also suggest that you should do what you like to do. Yet, this is another "I want to play guitar all my life. (But society does not want to pay for 10M mediocre guitar players)" situation. This is not an easy one to address: I feel for people who want to work in fields that are not appreciated by society, but it's unlikely that society will change for them anytime soon (maybe when robots do everything and there's no productive work for humans at all). - The taunting. I have a feeling that author here just had a thought to connect Lucy with his Mammoth article. I don't know if this is really a widespread issue. Anecdotally speaking, none of my friends complain about "everyone else is doing great, my life sucks" phenomenon. But, yes, I don't know many Americans in their 20s, so I might be in wrong crowd. "ignore everyone else" is also too generalized suggestion (I might write another post about the Mammoth post, but this is OT here and I need more time to read it :) ). I think that other people on this thread have other thoughts that nicely complement the article. And the article would have been much better if it addressed some of the things people said here.

Yes. Both of these are actually very important points. 8) And I think you are still upset about what I wrote. At least that's how it comes out.

Way to be a hipster and feed your Mammoth* by publicly putting down something that someone else liked without actually saying anything ;) * http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run-life.html What is your non-shallow view of the issue? So you are saying that I cannot express a negative opinion on this forum without writing a dissertation? Ericopoly had two great observations about health and about generalization. I also made two points that you ignored. If you want more thoughts, ask nicely instead of writing snarky replies. Have fun with your expectations.

I think it's one of the weaker waitbutwhy articles. I'd rate it at C+. It has some important thoughts, but handles them in a very shallow way.

You should tell that to Elon Musk 8) ;D :P .... BTW, if Expections = 0, then Happiness = Reality Here we go Grasshopper. Fixed that for ya. 8)

Correct. And this has been the case since before the 2008.

Completely agreed. :)

Right. Apparently B&M were more positive about AXP at BRK annual than M was at DJCO annual. I guess Buffett is just overall more positive. ;) This has been discussed in the past on this site and I am not sure this is true anymore in US. I don't think there is consensus, but it seems most people don't see cachet in Amex. Perhaps there is still some feeling of exclusivity with Amex in other countries. Anyway, I looked at AXP valuation again and I think that it has a relative value in the current market. On absolute it's not cheap enough, but investors might do better in it compared to a lot of other stocks.

Buffett has hit the limit on AXP ages ago. BRK might have been keen to buy it numerous times since then - we will never know. My reading on Munger and Buffett comments on AXP is "luke warm". But I might be wrong. It's not cheap enough for me.

How about human driven cars that have been hacked? Or where malicious people cut brakes? Or put mirrors across the road at night near a cliff? We should definitely ban human driven cars!

Maybe. But I wonder if their results might not be better. ;)

If people want to invest in a country that is run by a fascist dictator, is seriously considering annexation of big swaths of Europe and possibly nuclear war, that's their choice. Perhaps they should instead think about how to strengthen NATO and EU. Cause at some point it might be too late.

Thank you Master! /bow

In Soviet Russia oil invests in you! 8)

I may be wrong but banks are linked to the credit cycle and look cheap at market tops. Autos the same, AAPL is hugely dependend on one product, its only cheap when they can sell more iphones every year. Maybe that happens, but i am not so sure. IBM has huge problems and still trades at an FCF/EV yield of around 6.4%, thats hardly very cheap when you compare it to JNJ,GIS or MMM (~5% FCF/EV, most consumer staples are around 4% FCF/EV.) VRX is cheap when you believe in the story, but only the future will show if it was cheap in hindsight. Haha. Of course companies are cheap for a reason. If there was no reason, they would not be cheap. ;) And of course there are people like you - hey, not putting you on the spot or anything ;) - who can prove in a paragraph that they are not cheap at all. 8) (Even worse: I agree with you on couple of your arguments ;) ) So sure, you has your moneys and you takes your choices. If you think it's a bubble, that's your choice. :) Honestly, I'd be fine with 10-20% drop myself. I just don't try to predict it or call it a bubble. Have fun.

The market is not cheap. But is it in a bubble? A bunch of people above are saying that everything is expensive. But then we have BAC/JPM/other banks trading at book value low PEs, we have (re)insurance companies trading at book value, we have IBM, AAPL trading at low valuations, we have crash in oil and commodities companies trading at book values or less if levered (of course, almost nobody here is interested, but that's irrelevant), we have large pharmas trading at "reasonable" valuations: VRX, GILD (I may disagree, but that's also irrelevant). These are huge companies in billion/multi-billion market caps. So, what bubble? IMHO, people are hugely anchoring at once-a-generation-super-cheap-prices in 2009-2011. It's quite questionable whether the current prices are high or just normal with few really-cheap opportunities.

That's not a bad system, but unlikely to happen.

OT: I never understood attraction of WSJ. Luckily I was not at the DJCO meeting when Munger asked who doesn't read WSJ. :) Maybe it's the internet time / generation, but WSJ looked half boring, half wasted space for me. :) I read Barron's and find it worth the time though I skip some parts. I'd read Economist if I had time - now I glance through it before recycling. No dailies. Considering online sites of newspapers, I probably read NYT most, some FT, some Economist. Of course WSJ is heavily paywalled as is Barron's, so it's tough to compare. I might have read WSJ more if it was not completely paywalled. ;) Anyway, perhaps I should spin this off into separate thread if there's interest. 8)

False as stated. The truth is quite a bit more nuanced: http://money.howstuffworks.com/only-53-percent-pay-income-tax.htm

To be fair, Buffett is no saint either. Sometimes pro-Buffett people are really just rationalizing his inconsistencies as "nuanced behavior".

It's an interesting tangent: in some areas we as civilization have become so risk averse that it's a miracle we progress at all. How many people died during the voyages of exploration in the past. Now we want to protect at 99.9% even people who volunteer for risky missions... Anyway, I understand that the "value" of human life has increased a lot since the past. So we can't really go back. But it's still possibly slowing down progress. (On the third hand, space exploration might not be necessary for progress...). I wonder if we have to wait until consciousness uploads and copying is commonplace to get back into risky possibly-no-return exploratory missions. Anyway, possibly OT.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/tpre-third-point-reinsurance/130/

I believe that you are overestimating humans and underestimating the technology. So we disagree. We will see pretty soon though.

Yes, I believe we are heading into a jobless future long term (20+ years or so). How this will be handled is currently unclear. I have some thoughts, but I'd rather not OT too much here. ;)

This is a common argument and I believe people keep repeating it without really thinking about it. Perhaps you should ask yourself what happened when GM had faulty ignition switches and work from there.