biaggio

"it is hard to believe that a company can make the kind of money CCME is/has so easily, with so little capital, and if they truly were making money so easily why go public?" Great point.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576104351050317610.html "Why You Can't Trust the Inflation Numbers" According to one rogue economist, John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics, if we still calculated inflation the way we did when Jimmy Carter was president, the official inflation figures would look about as bad as they did when ... Jimmy Carter was president. According to Mr. Williams's calculations, if we counted inflation under the old system the official rate wouldn't be 1.5%. It would be closer to 10%.

Only if you're diabetic it seems. Performing your original search, caffeine obesity, in PubMed will retrieve 307 records. Diabetes Care. 2005 Mar;28(3):566-72. Caffeine ingestion is associated with reductions in glucose uptake independent of obesity and type 2 diabetes before and after exercise training. Lee S, Hudson R, Kilpatrick K, Graham TE, Ross R. School of Physical and Health Education, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6. Abstract OBJECTIVE: We investigated the effect of caffeine ingestion on insulin sensitivity in sedentary lean men (n = 8) and obese men with (n = 7) and without (n = 8) type 2 diabetes. We also examined whether chronic exercise influences the relationship between caffeine and insulin sensitivity in these individuals. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Subjects underwent two hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp procedures, caffeine (5 mg/kg body wt) and placebo, in a double-blind, randomized manner before and after a 3-month aerobic exercise program. Body composition was measured by magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: At baseline, caffeine ingestion was associated with a significant reduction (P < 0.05) in insulin sensitivity by a similar magnitude in the lean (33%), obese (33%), and type 2 diabetic (37%) groups in comparison with placebo. After exercise training, caffeine ingestion was still associated with a reduction (P < 0.05) in insulin sensitivity by a similar magnitude in the lean (23%), obese (26%), and type 2 diabetic (36%) groups in comparison with placebo. Exercise was not associated with a significant increase in insulin sensitivity in either the caffeine or placebo trials, independent of group (P > 0.10). CONCLUSIONS: Caffeine consumption is associated with a substantial reduction in insulin-mediated glucose uptake independent of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and chronic exercise. PMID: 15735189 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free Article

oh no, I have to give up coffee too? I have been trying to lay off the sugar. Staying away from coffee is going to be a challenge.

I think using a discount rate=30 year t bill rate plus 6 % or ~ 10% is reasonable...but then you would want to buy at a discount to that ie 60 or 50% of that (which brings you to the 18% Parsad was talking about).

http://adventuresincapitalism.com/post/2011/01/27/Three-Types-Of-Positions.aspx Kuppy seems to have a good approach.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/66308380/ Berkowitz Says Time for AIG to `Rebuild,' Bets on Asia

lmgtfy click here :) Quote from first the link: "They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose. Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate." http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/08/fructose_and_pancreatic_cancer.php Critical writeup up re study. Author infers that conclusions noted above may be premature and maybe exaggerated.

Uccmal "What's wrong with Real Estate, specifically REITs or rental properties, such as BAM invests in?" Nothing, except they seem to be fully valued or overvalued to me. I could be wrong as I have not looked at them recently.

what do you think is an appropriate allocation for a concentrated portfolio of 10 stocks?

I am impressed by the depth + breadth of knowledge on this board. "You must be losing a lot of fluid? Are you bleeding? Fat has about 3,500 (working from memory) calories per pound. In 14 days, you haven't lost 18 lbs of fat." -I believe that if one takes away all refined carbs, sugars, junk food etc, what happens is that your glycogen stores (storage of energy- sugar in the form of glycogen for future use) decrease. Each gram of glycogen requires 4 gm of water for storage, therefore for every 1 lb of glycogen you lose(because you re burning it, instead of the refined carbs you re eating) you re losing 4 lbs of water. -also fat is burned with low intensity activity (like sleeping?) when glucose not as readily available... "Is it any accident of evolution then that while fruits are poisoning us with cancer propagation, they are also simultaneously giving us the antidote? Yes, I mean antioxidants. The fruits evolved with a given balance -- the fruit wants us to eat it in order for us to spread it's seed far and wide, but the fruit doesn't want to kill us in doing so. The longer it keeps us alive, the more fruit we will eat and the more seeds we will spread. Thus, it gives us the antioxidant for selfish reasons. It's a symbiotic relationship." -there are also a lot of other "phytochemicals" that help to fight cancer in fruits + veggies. If you eat 10 servings of fruits + veggies per day you can reduce your risk of cancer by 60-80%. There is a very good book -"Foods that Fight Cancer" by Drs Beliveau and Gingras...they have spent there careers at the university of Montreal studying the subject. I thought it was very informative

http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-people-of-all-time-2011-1#1-john-d-rockefeller-20

Good post Ericopoly. Agree 100%. I think there is a lack of awareness out there- general public as well as front line health care workers-I know as I am one of them (frontline healthcare worker + sometimes not fully informed) You would not believe the number of people who feed their kids chicken nuggets + juice honestly thing they are doing a good thing. Even at home it has been a constant battle to get my wife not to buy juice boxes or gatorades. I think a tax on every thing that will end up with higher health care cost is worth looking at. I think business do this all the time. Cost of gas goes up + all of a sudden you see a "fuel charge" on your garbage pick up bill. Cigarette tax has helped decrease smoking (mind you it has increased the value of black/grey market for cigarettes) How about fast food, processed food, pop tax? Could pay for OBAMA care. Better healthier choices, people less sick, less health care cost. Makes sense. I am sure food companies would not be too happy. I think they are in denial. They think a calorie is a calorie. When is it that they should have known? When does this begin to be a legal problem for them. I can t believe there is not a class action law suit yet.

Agree with Merkhet Have had Mac s for 10 years...recently I had to buy a Window 7/PC as my mac could not connect to the office system. I hate the annoying pop ups, reminders, + other interruptions which seem to be absent from my Macs. Luckily I don t have to use my PC very often, as I prefer to work on my Mac.

http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=119442 Warren Buffett: How To Make 50% A Year In Micro Cap Stocks- "...I called anything below $100 million a micro cap. Morningstar says there are 6,260 domestic U.S. stocks. 2,871 of those are micro caps. That’s 46% of all U.S. stocks. By ruling out stocks below $100 million, you’re limiting yourself to handicapping just 54% of all races. And you’re playing against probably 90% of professional handicappers. Yikes. Wouldn’t you rather bet just the 46% of races that only maybe 10% of professional investors spend their time on?" Makes sense. For those not familiar with Kuppy- http://adventuresincapitalism.com/post/2010/03/21/Why-Invest-In-Smaller-Companies.aspx has good explanation why it is worth paying attention (+ $$$) for small company. I have read these ideas before but I seem to always stay in mid cap range which explains my returns. I will keep more than an open mind to microcaps in the future.

Pickens plan seems to make sense. Install NG infrastructure + Convert all government fleets, large fleets of truck...is there not something you can install on a normal car to covert to NG?? Why would you not want to do this if you re operating a large fleet of vehicles? That would be a significant savings on fuel costs

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41058387 Investor RCH energy says that NG prices will probably be low for a while due to disruptive technologies. He talks about valuations--he says that you used to used to value on reserves and land, but now that does not matter as much as cash flow + return on investment. I think you should find low cost producer making money today at a current price of NG, with a decent return on investment, while getting reserves at a discount.

Enjoyed the movie. Really? I'm starting to wonder how many members listen to hip hop. Don t really listen to hip hop. I enjoy movies based on true stories.

Enjoyed the movie.

Bronco -Stores on Canada maybe a little nicer than U.S....but I think they are also keeping their cost as low as possible. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/target-snags-zellers-stores-for-18-billion/article1868308/ I can see SHLD doing a deal like this in the future. Apparently other succcessful retailers are interested in entering markets here in Canada...http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/target-j-crew-among-us-retailers-interested-in-canada/article1867807/ It makes sense for larger retailers to acquire a block of leases/retail spaces

http://adventuresincapitalism.com/post/2011/01/09/What-Happens-When-4-Billion-People-Decide-To-Wipe-Their-Ass.aspx Kuppy likes FBK. At least read first paragraph: "When I was in China this summer, I was a bit disturbed by the bathroom facilities in the rural areas—the communal poo rag had not yet been replaced by toilet paper. Even in tourist locations like the Great Wall, the restrooms had a rag attached to the wall to be used for wiping your ass. I had to ask our tour guide for confirmation that I wasn’t just imagining this—unfortunately I wasn’t. At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders and thought about it as little as possible. That was until I was alerted to the investment implications of this. Put simply, the average westerner uses over 25 lbs of tissue and toilet paper a year (hereafter simply called tissue). In most of the undeveloped world, the usage is a tiny fraction of that number, but it is growing rapidly." (Boy I take a lot of things for granted)

Packer what portion of your portfolio do you allocate to these securities mentioned?

How about a basket of pharmaceutical companies? Don't laugh, you can buy, LLY, FRX, MRK, AZN - you re buying the value of their current products at a discount (up to 40-50% in the case of FRX), decent balance sheets, getting their pipeline, research, distribution network for free. Get a dividend (4-5.5%) while you wait

"inflow has helped FAIRX " Dealraker, that might be a good point...I have wondered this before with other funds who have had large inflow. Bruce is concentrated, do you think just Fairholme buying (as well as others following what he is doing now that he is in favor) can support price of securities in his portfolio. don t get me wrong, I like him + his philosophy.

Packer, glad to here that ,as I bought some chou funds during the down turn thanks to recommendations from this board such as yourself. Being canadian I cant buy any Fairholm funds