Jurgis

One really interesting thing is: what's gonna happen when Earth's population levels off and starts declining? A lot of economic theories are based on growth and a lot of growth is based on population growth. Overcoming population drop drag is not going to be easy. Perpetual recession might be bearish exaggeration - we'll have to see. Unfortunately, we might see other drastic changes first, so we might not get to witness pure population crest without other confounding factors.

Since we are using poetic language: When driving, everyone driving faster than you (and cutting you off) is an a-hole. And everyone driving slower than you (and who you cut off) is a moron.

I think that the two sides are talking past each other mostly based on the put position sizing (which acts like leverage). If you position size so that put+cash ~= stock position if put-to, you have lowish risk but also lowish return on total amount. IMO that's where pro-this-strategy-people's "low risk" comes from - but they forget "low return". If you position size that put(s) are >> cash if put-to, then you have high risk and high return (before you blow up). IMO that's where pro-this-strategy-people's "high return" and against-this-strategy-people's "high risk" comes from. If you're expert like boilermaker75, you might be able to position somewhere in the middle of two without burning and by adding some return to your portfolio. But likely it's not as trivial as pro-this-strategy-people make it out to be.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-are-rich-people-so-mean/?itm_campaign=BottomRelatedStories_Sections_2 A bit muddled article, but IMO with some food for thought and relevance to CoBF. 8)

Morgan must be familiar with Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns (https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns). I'd be curious why he doesn't recognize accelerating technological change (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change) as the *single* most important force? Thanks. Do you believe in accelerating technological change / singularity? I think there are significant criticisms including but not limited to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change#Criticisms (Additional ones are slowdown/end of Moore's law which may in turn lead to slowdown/limited AI progress; very little progress with space exploration; very little progress with longevity/disease eradication; very little progress with air transportation. Though there are counter counter arguments too 8) )

Had to call Gekko today to resolve a question about billing. Pretty good experience once I got past the automated "you can use website and mobile app to solve the issue which is not solvable on website or mobile app" system. Gekko tried to upsell me on homeowner's insurance, but it sucks since they don't write that and they are just selling 3rd party insurance. I'd buy it if it was Gekko directly, but 3rd party just introduces additional unneeded layer, so no. Write your own homeowners insurance guys. 8)

Bing has a reward program. I use it (both reward program and Bing). It's not $200M.

My data is worth ... 200M dollars! ... and that's excluding d!ck pics ... so theoretically speaking Sanjeev could sell CoBF data and become $$$ RICH! 8)

Great observations. 8)

Quite deep and insightful post. Thanks. 8)

I still welcome our new robot overlords: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/18/boston-dynamics-latest-video-shows-herd-robotic-dogs-hauling-massive-truck-with-ease/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/25/three-years-ago-he-could-barely-walk-now-atlas-humanoid-robot-is-doing-gymnastics/ (Perhaps Masa should replace Neumann with Atlas ::) )

I think this one could go from $35B in valuation to bankruptcy in record speed. Someone twittered that with equity market closed, the bonds now start to get into trouble. Then there will be a cascade down to owners of RE too. You have got to admire Neumann here. He made hundred of millions with a total unviable business that didn’t even make it to the IPO. Almost made even more. Sometimes big balls can carry you far. 8)

Thanks. Bought it. I did too, started reading it this morning. I have seen Max Tegmark on shows about cosmology, math, etc. Yeah, I've heard some of his stuff. I also get his "Future of Life Institute" emails that discuss AI future/ethics/etc. (They also touch topics like autonomous weapons and nuclear weapons that belong more to Politics section).

Thanks. Bought it.

One CoBF member has this in their signature: I wonder what Dan Gable thinks about colonoscopy. ::)

OT In reality it's the risks that you know about that are most likely to kill you. 8) But I think you knew that. 8)

More likely it will be called Corner of Berkshire Past. Fairfax has not done well. Berkshire after Buffett ... ??? Boston-Omaha is not something special and likely won't be. Tracy Co. - we'll see.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/04/an-artificial-intelligence-first-voice-mimicking-software-reportedly-used-major-theft/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/artificial-intelligence-aristo-passed-test.html

Assigning an idea to the person who started a thread and assuming that this person invested/held that company since the thread start is really questionable methodology. After that GIGO.

I'm on a desktop. The data can not be viewed properly without having to scroll through every page and having to collapse multiple items in the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow screens. It's completely cluttered. For example: I'm not interested in seeing how much of inventory consists of "raw materials", "work in process", "other", or "finished goods" when I'm looking for a quick snapshot of a company's financials. Of course, none of the things you deselect on a page are remembered by the site, so you have to go through this for every single company you look at. This redesign was clearly done by people who never actually use the site on a daily basis. I see. This does not bother me much, but I see what you mean. You can zoom out to get smaller font or set up a monitor in portrait mode. But if you are looking at a lot of companies it might be costing extra time and effort. I don't look at many companies so not a big deal for me. I also agree that it's mildly annoying that the main items like "Total Revenue" and "Net Income" are not highlighted and you have to look for the exact line out of 5 different "Net Income..." lines. Not a big deal for me, but yeah mildly annoying.

Morningstar: I checked it out on a browser where I am not logged in. What is the issue for you guys? You realize that you can click on "Income Statement", "Balance Sheet", "Cash Flow" and you get all the details for the last 5 years the same way you did before? The only thing I see is that there's no 10 year data, but it says that this is Premium account only. Are you unhappy that you cannot select the data and copy/paste it into Excel/etc? But they have "Export to Excel" button. So I guess I'm really confused about what people are unhappy about. The only difference I see is the font and I could quibble about the old font size being more readable across 10 years of data, but it's not a big deal. I still have old interface through Boston Public Library Morningstar access, but likely that's gonna change at some point too.

The argument for some form of trade tariff isn't specific to China, which just happen to be the biggest trading counterpart with the most impact. So sure, it will go somewhere else, but should be taxed too. The argument is to slow down the structural changes that deeply impact people's livelihood, so they will have time to adjust. Years ago, Buffett proposed some form of import voucher to lessen the U.S. trade deficit at that time, which would have much more draconian impact than just a tax. And critics have long complained about the lack of a coherent U.S. industrial policy. So this argument isn't made simply because of Trump. He's an ass, but as Munger would say, he's not wrong on everything. It's also not true that the same low income people are impacted. Different people are impacted differently. How else do you explain the coast / inland political divide! The argument was always there, and regardless of who the next administration is, it will no longer be easily dismissed, as it shouldn't be. You probably have the heart in the right place, but I don't think the Trump gang does. But it is applied specifically to China. And likely won't be applied to (m)any other countries unless they get in fight with Trump for whatever reason. Furthermore, if the goal was Midwest industrial revival and if the method to achieve this goal was tariffs (I still think the method would not work, but hey), surgically aimed tariffs that are aimed to specific products across the globe and not to wide variety of products from single country would have a better chance to work. I also think that the situation with manufacturing in US is way more complicated than the simple China-screwed-us narrative proclaims. You should look into the manufacturing statistics in US rather than just watching Netflix documentaries. Even if after looking at statistics you still think that manufacturing in US is in trouble and should be supported, you'd probably should ask yourself what happens when that supported manufacturing all goes automatic and still does not employ the 45 year olds who were fired. And how much of the Midwest trouble and income inequality was caused by automatization and industry shifts vs. China. In other words, you and the populace are being mind f**ked by Trump and co. * This thread belongs in politics section long time ago. ** How nice I'm probably the only free trade person left. Gonna get hit both from the newly nationalist right and from the left. *** That being said, yeah "Screw China!". But because of Hong Kong. Not because of Trump's p371s.

Time to move this thread to politics section?

China tariffs won't rebuild Midwest manufacturing. Manufacturing will just move to other cheap countries. The only effect is going to be price increases for US customers that will mostly hit the same low income households. It's interesting to see how propaganda works. Majority of people (even on CoBF) had no issue with China 3-4 years ago. Now everyone's anti-China with very good arguments for it.

Civ VI: Donald vs. Xi I've got tariffs! I've got tariffs! I've got nukes and tariffs! I've got nukes and tariffs! I've got space program, nukes, and tariffs! I've got space program, nukes, and tariffs! I've got Greenland, space program, nukes, and tariffs! ... ... ...