Vish_ram

With all due respects to Sanjeev, I've to respectly disagree. A. Citing berkie and fairfax against macro focus is misguided at best. Buffett and Watsa have a built in macro meter that guides them well. They follow the "be greedy when others are fearful really well". Why in the world did prem buy CDS at the time he did? Do you think he had no idea of macro and the housing bubble? Why did buffett sell those puts? A belief that fed wont let market go to zero. Being in insurance biz they are tuned to going against grain, ie writing policies when times get tough and pulling out when ez money is in. They are experts in mean reversion. B. Lets take pabrai, he lost his shirt in delta financial. DFC was cheap on P/B , growing etc. not many could have predicted their demise. Fact is, they depended on outside funds for survival. DFC is like a strong man inside an oxygen chamber. The chamber is the macro. When O2 os great, DFC thrives. Anyone only paying attention to DFC and not the chamber would have lost the money. The prudent thing is to monitor the level of oxygen, as some biz dont generate their oxygen. Heck, pabrai's holdings are all in commodities that are subject to boom and bust. These co's depend on macro more than ever. I like the saying on some poster, "worry top down, focus bottoms up".

I think this whole Taleb black swan is bogus when it comes to making money. or at least for individual investors. It is a great mathematical concept that has practical relevance in some fields like engineering, national security etc Where are his last 20 years of returns? why is he not a billionaire yet? I can make a bet that he made more money off his books than his returns. there is so much controversy over his returns http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-nassim-talebs-new-fund-2009-6 what he is trying to sell is this. An inverse correlated returns with the market. there are lots of suckers for this kind of fund.

uccmal is right. it is the refined food that is the problem I recommend folks to watch this video by Dr Robert Lustig The coming obesity epidemic has lot of ramifications. Berkshire may even sell KO stake in not so distant future. The recipe for disaster is this, productivity, over production, portions increase, over consumption, lethargy, addiction to video games/facebook/modern technology, hawking of junk foods to kids, lack of exercise, stressed/overworked parents, modern convenience/comforts, govt policy a.k.a conspiracy (subsidizing food costs, making fresh grown vegetable 5-10 times more expensive than soda/chips), fat parents spawning fat kids... vicious cycle repeats fact is, there is no easy solution. one side there is talk of freedom to choose, other side there is talk of nanny state. I was talking to a group of doctors and one said, the sad truth is, you can let a man die in cold under a bridge of hunger. but if he is sick, he can be admitted and get treatment for free. So overweight/obesity is like finance, private profits , socialized risk. Bravo. As a Berkie shareholder & WEB/Munger fan, I'm ashamed that Buffett will drink 6-10 cans of coke and eat chocolates in front of adoring fans. Is he setting a right example? No one knows the exercise he is doing to burn those calories.

here is the 139 page presentation http://cache.dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/10/VIC2010Presentation.pdf

Dont forget MIT http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

She was probably a wrong pick when she made her intentions clear. I remember reading a quote from before the book was written, saying that she wanted to focus on Buffett "the person", not much on Buffett the capital allocator. Buffett picked her thinking she is good in analyzing insurance companies and is a better in writing about his compounding machine. Both had different agendas. Shroeder also quit her job and focused full time on this, so her opportunity costs were high. No wonder when Buffett refused to put his weight to influence the sales, she had to resort to these. At this time, when Buffett is standing tall, it is a sad spectacle to see her do these things.

Lot of articles about Pabrai are misleading. I do understand the need to be in news cycle but where is the balance and fairness in those articles. 1) You can not cherry pick returns from a single portfolio that Pabrai is managing. One of his portfolio has underperformed market for last several years (as per Jan -09 letter) and no one talks about it. A better approach is to show a composite return. 2) Pabrai has used options, he has bought PNCL options etc. 3) Why is the Bloomberg article showing returns only till 2006? 4) By changing strategy, he talks about reducing risk. Why there's no talk about potential reduction in returns? I do have a lot of respect for Pabrai but his PT Barnum side sometimes gets the better of him. Or it is possible that the folks writing about him are inclined to flatter.

http://www.leucadia.com/C&P%20Letters/C&P2008.pdf

Bernanke and Paulson played hardball with Lewis. They said if you dont buy Merrill, then we wont be so friendly if you come to us for any funds later. I think they also said they may ask for management change.