Jurgis

You are way overoptimistic (or should I say pessimistic?). 15-20 years in best case. But, yeah, once it happens, zero jobs for anyone. ;)

+1 to what fareastwarriors said

NYC: Hmm, in the past I've been able to get hotels in Manhattan in $1X0 range (not on holidays). Maybe things have changed.

Cool quiz. I got 35, and "A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents" essentially describes me. I got 12. The quiz might correctly describe how much I know or connect with general American culture. OTOH, obviously I'm not "A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot.". I came to USA with exactly zero dollars in the pocket. This doesn't mean that my goal in life is to spend it on American entertainment or lifestyle. And regarding empathy: most of the people I know back in Lithuania - including some relatives - live way below US poverty level. Anyway, was interesting. :)

IMO there's only one issue people really care out of three above: growing inequality. If this was solved - not easy, but if - the globalization and immigration backlash would go to the fringes at most. Same with racism and nationalism. People hate immigrants and foreign products mostly because they feel they are poor and immigrants take their jobs/wages/etc. This happens much less if society is prosperous. (And we could argue that Europe really needs immigrants with its aging and declining population, but try to tell this to Europeans right now...) Unfortunately, you might be right that situation won't improve and we will continue to have the demagogues running the racist, nationalist and possibly authoritarian tickets. We can only hope that Europe doesn't get too many of such elected. I'm more optimistic about US for now - situation here is IMO is better (even with Trump candidacy), the society more diverse, more multicultural and more accepting (even with the anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric).

If you guys are talking cap gains taxes, you also should remember that for majority of Americans majority of investments would be held in tax deferred accounts, which pay no taxes. Very few Americans have enough money to save more than the 401(k)+IRA limit per year. Most don't save even that. Also, as we all know most investors don't outperform indexes. Even most CoBF investors don't outperform indexes. If we add cap gains taxes, I'd guess pretty much nobody outperforms indexes (which are naturally tax efficient to hold) - unless they buy and hold pretty much forever. So really if you have to invest in taxable account, just buy index fund or something that you can hold forever, whether cap gains are taxed at 15% or 25% or whatever. You'll likely end up winning.

I think there is already a movie in the works starring Jennifer Lawerence In the movie Elizabeth Holmes will probably land a plane on Hudson while being attacked by snakes and FDA officials.

Internet pron? 8)

What is really sad - and this applies not just to the current USA presidential campaign - is that in second decade of 21st century humans are still lying through the teeth to each other and also believing in outright lies that can be fact-checked easily. The pessimist in me thinks that even if people had a direct data feed into their brain and could check anything instantly, a lot of them would still choose to ignore the actual facts. How can we progress to evaluating theories and complex claims on validity if we can't even evaluate facts? To paraphrase Gandhi, "fact-based humans would be a great idea".

Fidelity. For clients only? Not great interface, limited quotes (Fido inventory only???), some free research.

QFT. 8)

You're saying Munger suggests we should buy Liberties? 8)

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This is somewhat common for couple of reasons: - Loss aversion bias. - Related to above the belief that losers will outperform the winners going forward. That's not completely wrong/biased, but somewhat. - Liquidity of winners is way higher than liquidity of most losers. It does push the fund into liquidity risk though. Especially if investors read M* and rush for exits.

The interesting things is that these issues been around since 1970s and mentioned multiple times in 1990s, 2000s, now 2010s. And very few companies (none? does GM count?) have gone under. Not saying to ignore pension issues, but so far and at least for big cos, the issues seem to have been contained or maybe kicked down the road. Apart from situations where the co was going under for other reasons already. FWIW.

I'm not a punchcard guy. That said, I'm interested in punchcard portfolios: what did you guys buy/when, what did you sell/when? How concentrated do you get? Selling is very interesting part for me in punchcard portfolios. Do you ever say "time to sell" and why? Can't be just simple overvaluation if you only have limited number of punches?

Great summary.

Purchase or sale is counted as 1 punch. We could go more liberal and count purchase+sale as 1 punch. I doubt that's gonna make much difference. I expect huge majority in "Not following punchcard strategy", but interested in people who follow it or somewhat follow it. Comments from both sides welcome. :)

Spek, I somewhat agree with the first part, but I disagree with the second part. A lot of things that were theoretically known in 1970s had "complexity ... way beyond our time" then, but they might not have it now. You could not do the first stage rocket return and vertical landing then, but you can do it now. I would assume there are somewhat similar gains in material science. In general though, I'm in the camp that sustainable non-Earth colonies require either autonomous AI instead of humans or human mind in non-human bodies. Our bodies are just not built for space and Elon is kinda brushing off the issues of hard radiation, micro meteorites, long-term living in non-breathable atmosphere, etc.

Couple hundred years is pretty enough. If we don't wipe ourselves out (or kick ourselves back to dark ages), we are very likely have superhuman-AI, consciousness I/O, body manufacture (from various materials too), etc. Might not go interstellar in couple hundred (unless there are some huge breakthroughs), but most solar system pretty sure.

Yeah, pretty much don't buy them. Why add another risk factor? There might be exceptions if you really really want to buy some specific niche and ETF is not available. But these are probably very rare.

Not true. Every organization that deals with fraud already runs everything through automated fraud detection. And there's a lot of money/effort spent on reducing both false negatives and false positives. There are humans in the loop for some of the fraud detected (although your CC gets locked without human in the loop likely), but you said "help" and there's definitely huge computer help in flagging/filtering already. Although I agree that peer-to-peer startups are likely either go BK or not pay out claims in 3 minutes as advertised.

Having cash on hand at current market level and overall situation might not be bad even if you had no concerns about election. Also since bonds yield close to nothing, cash at this point in time is almost a substitute for the bond portion of your portfolio. And bond portion may or may not be 20%-40%...

netnet, I believe you've been to DJCO meeting in LA. Then you've seen Munger already and way way way closer than you'll see him in Omaha. @DJCO you can even ask a question. (Though I should shut up before DJCO turns into multithousand people circus too). I disagree with Parsad on Omaha. I haven't been there, but IMO it's a mega circus. I hate crowds. I don't see a point standing in line from 5am, then sitting in huge auditorium and seeing pin-sized Buffett 200 yards away. TV/Internetz is much better. Even if there was no TV/Internetz, I would not go. (I should have gone 20+ years ago, but coulda/shoulda). IMO Omaha makes sense only if you want to meet people from CoBF or other places and hang out with them. Toronto makes sense for that too. The overlap of the crowd is possibly not huge. There's bunch of people who go to Omaha and don't go to Toronto and vice versa. All this IMO. If you love crowds, then maybe Omaha is for you. :) Hope this helps.

Which downturn? Did I miss anything? I think he meant up-coming downturn, but he/it won't come because of Hillary. So there is a downturn because it's not coming up. You know what I mean, eh? 8)