Vish_ram

The most important thing in meditation is having the right mind set. In our day to day life, we are ego-driven (ego is not used in a pejorative way, but a sense of self, esteem, sense of I). We attribute our success/failures to self. We get elated when we accomplish something and get upset if things dont go as we had planned. It all goes back to the sense of I/ego/self. In meditation mindset, the focus is on suspending this ego self. This is done by not activating the left brain. When you dont focus on past & future and just focus on the present (by observing breath, sensations etc), your activity is more on right brain. The default mode network is less active. So the mindset is all about “not having expectations”, “not expecting results”, etc. Expectations/results driven are classic attributes of ego/self. You work hard and want to get the rewards. This mindset is detrimental when it comes to meditation. The right mindset is about letting go. 1) you’ve to constantly bring attention to breath, just observe any sensations. If mind wanders, bring it back slowly. If still wanders, do conscious deep breathing 2) consistency is the key, you’ve to do it everyday for weeks to see good benefits Meditation is only something nice recently done. I did a 30-day guided meditation and now I have been doing 10 minutes a day off and on - but I don't really notice any difference between the days I do and don't meditate. I'm primarily focusing on my breathing and trying to get to the point where it's less focus and more second nature + empty relaxation of the mind, but am concerned I'm approaching it wrong if I'm not noticing a difference when I'm not doing it. Any advice for a newb?

I had a real hard time sitting for more than 15 mins before attending Vipasanna. Go to dhamma.org, book for a 10 day course. There you’ll be asked to do 11 hour meditation for 10 days. It is a good reset of your brain. They give you free food, accommodation etc. I wish I got this advice when I was in my 20’s. Any youtube video, books, tutorials?

The best of all is meditation. When I used to do for an hour a day, it was just bliss all day. Nowadays I do for 30-40 mins and it is still great.

The real concern I’ve is that we are using the Fed (monetary tools) to put a bandaid on structural issues (Curtailing growth in entitlement spending & others). It is sickening to see that we cannot balance the books in a booming economy (until Jan 2020). Giving tax cuts without offsetting spending is just pernicious. A couple of things that Trump has done is a step in the right direction - fixing trade agreements, preventing IP theft, bringing back US manufacturing etc. Both the parties have killed the middle class. If middle class is alive and well ,we would have good tax revenues and we may not have to use Fed’s credit card. Let me flip the question: IF Fed had a limited QE, what would happen? This would be even more deflationary. Treasury would have to borrow from public’s savings & from foreigners. They would demand higher interest rate. THe amount of T’s borrowing would significantly drop. They have to make painful cuts in social security, medicare, military spending etc. This would start a vicious cycle of deflation. If Treasury is willing to issue at higher interest rate, then they have to borrow more to just pay the interest. The economic output would drop further, reducing tax receipts. This further pushes us to more deflation. Just like legislators fail to do their job in enacting laws without ambiguity pass the buck to Supreme courts, they are using Fed to fix structural issues. No wonder they have the lowest approval ratings.

You are right, my comment was more about how he didnt turn to drugs or other vices. On social side, Maybe he was more on asperger side Dude, he didn't let it rule his life? His wife left him and his kids talked about how distant he was growing up.

Buffett's greatest legacy is about how to live ones life to the fullest. How to not let money go into your head, change your traits, habits, virtues etc. He was able to keep a healthy distance to money and not let it rule his life. When Gandhi was asked, what is your message? he replied "My life is my message". The same thing probably applies to Buffett too.

His portfolio should have lost 40-50% in Q1-2020. Alliance data, Spectrum, Cimpress etc lost more than 50%. I cannot think of any value investor who has outperformed the S&P 500 in last 10 years. I hope he feels better

Towards the end of the bull market runs, everyone starts advising Buffett. The same thing happened in 1999 & 2007. History repeats.

I found that I had the best sleep when I was on Keto diet. if I wanted, I could sleep for 9 hours. if you are struggling with weight loss, Keto is a good place to start. I lost 22 pounds in 3 months, going from BMI of ~26.5 to 23.8. Vegetarians find Keto hard, but there are lots of options. PM me if you want to know more.

There are so many things folks can learn from your post. BTW I don't consider myself as a value investor on a strict low P/E stuff, but try to ascertain value based on cash flows. 1) first you didn't say you were practicing value investing, you said you were learning. Lesson 1: You probably have unrealistic expectations. Maybe you were trying to beat Buffett's partnership returns. Name a high profile value investor who has performed well in last 5 years? 2) " though I am probably not beating the market." There is no rule or law that says practicing value investing will beat the market returns in any given period. You may under perform the market for 10 years and then outperform. The father of value investing Graham made bulk of his money on Geico. 3) The worst instinct an investor can have is to try to buy at the technical bottom and sell it at the top. I stopped beating myself up for leaving money on the table by selling it early. 4) Buffett has been great in giving investment advice. His worst advice probably is the concentration of portfolio. God knows how many financial lives have been ruined by this advice. Bless his heart. Money + portfolio concentration + caliber & temperament less than that of Buffett's = DISASTER & RUIN. If I have to offer you one advice, it will be to have 4 buckets. 1) Bucket 1: Non-trading assets - land, rental income from properties, etc 2) Bucket 2: Passive index funds, target life funds, QQQ, IBB etc 3) Bucket 3: High quality stocks/sectors: (20 punch card portfolio) MA, V, BRK, BAC, AMZN, APPL, MCO, SPGI... 4) Bucket 4: Speculative stocks, practice your value investing here.

Buffett knows well that that the #1 job of a CEO is capital allocation. Gates has proved to be an excellent allocator in the technology area when he was in his prime. Gates pretty much dropped the ball on the growth and importance of internet. My sincere hope is that Buffett does a better job than Welch in selecting a successor. Look at the carnage at GE. Even if Buffett picks someone who has 10% of his patience, acumen, temperament and business sense, then Berkshire will have bright future.

For a long time I was having this existential angst. I wasn't happy not knowing who we are, what we are, what is life, who am I etc. Being an atheist, it made my life even harder. Long story short, I tried Ayahuasca in Amazon jungle and apparently went into Nirvikalpa Samadhi (becoming one with God). I wrote a detailed post in Bottom line, I found out that there is no concept of time once you become merged with God (aka infinite consciousness), there is no past or future , just being now. There was also no concept of space, you just extend to infinity.

UNF explained it well, the root cause was making Pain as a vital sign. But there were several forces at play to make it worse: 1) Unscrupulous docs who practice general medicine, but keep operating a pain clinic in disguise. I personally know docs who make millions until they are caught. 2) Medical reps who push docs hard and give them incentives to prescribe more opiods 3) The legal system that criminalizes drug addiction 4) Pharma companies (insys in particular) that push the boundaries. Take fentanyl, that is 100 times more addictive than cocaine. it is given to end stage cancer patients who live for few months only. Slowly it creeps into broader population 5) FDA that takes years to get a drug approved. Any anti-addiction medication will take billions to develop and 10+ years to get approved. 6) Stupid politicians who enacted laws that made medicine like Ayahuasca illegal. Ayahuasca can cure a person of opiod addictions. It is used in Amazon regions for 1000's of years. 7) Society that looks down on addicts, this is a medical issue not a moral one. PS Not to mention, most Americans dont have a safety net when they lose a job. In the last 20 years we witnessed a tremendous upheaval all over small towns, where jobs were lost due to automation, outsourcing, offshoring etc.

Valuations might be extended. What is different this time is this. Many of my friends who traded crazily during dot coms and pre-2007 learnt their lessons and are in either cash or in ETF's. What they've seen is that, major indices fall but always go back up. This might be anecdotal, but look at cash inflows into Vanguard funds. It is likely that you may not see panic selling by retail at the end of fed tightening. When people scream bubbles, it makes me cringe. Valuations depend on long term rates. Long term rates in turn depend on inflation, growth of GDP etc. These rates have fallen for last 30 years. Higher rates to tame higher growth is not bad for equity valuations. Now this leaves inflation as the unknown factor for long term rates. Higher inflation can be caused by commodity price increase, labor shortage etc. Commodities had the biggest capital investment in late 90s and next decade. With China cooling, all commodities are in the toilet benefiting everyone else. When you had overinvestment in Oil sector after Arab oil embargo, there was a 30+ year suppression of oil prices. It is more than likely that we wont be seeing run away inflation in commodities. The rapid pace of progress in technology will ensure that (look at fracking companies adapted so fast to oil price drop). There is labor shortage in high tech & health sector areas. Offshoring/automation & lower insurance reimbursement respectively are largely containing the inflation. We are in extended goldilocks. At the end of tightening, there'll be a correction. I don't expect 50%+ drops like we had in 2007. You need run away greed to see that kind of correction. The only place I see that is in Unicorn valuations.

His funds are all closed to new investors. That doesn't mean he won't open them in the future. The funds are frequently opened and closed. Again, it is a marketing ploy. Guess who also played hard to get. You create an atmosphere that feels exclusive, above hoi-polloi, ignoring the crowd, you feel special. You feel like part of a rarified group. Also when you say we are closed, you are sending a subtle message to existing ones. If you exit, you may not come back. Last year it was a different tune. There were frequent mentions about how our assets are trading at a fraction of what they are worth (you wont find any fund manager who'll say our portfolio will triple in value in few years). If you exit, you will miss the ride... There are lots of psychological mind games. Bottom line is, buyer beware. A mouse having (paying to have) lunch with a lion doesn't become a lion.

Having an aspirational goal is not a bad idea. You send a message that you are striving to do better. No one wakes up aspiring to be a mediocre student. You aim for A+, work hard. It is a slippery slope when that goal becomes a subtle marketing message to lure in people. It becomes downright unethical when long term record is your retuns on first $1 that walked in.

As I mentioned earlier, all the big value guys are sucking right now. Why single him out so hard? Also, he's not the same as the "helpers" Buffett is talking about--Buffett singles out 2/20 and fund of funds. Pabrai is 25% over 6%, just like Buffett was, and has not paid himself for years at a time. I sincerely hope you guys never screw up and have someone judge you as harshly as you are doing Pabrai right now... The dozen: Delta financial HNR CRYP Pinnacle airlines Horsehead (zinc) Compucredit Universal alloy Lear International coal Big drops - bioscript (chronimed), Sears holdings, Cresud

It is not just Zinc, it is CRYP, HNR, Delta financial ... the list goes on and on. If I spend 10 minutes, I can come up with dozen stocks that he touched and went to literally 0. What irks me is that, he is like the mouse that has learnt to roar like a lion (Buffett) and has no killing to show for it. He constantly cites Buffett, quotes compounding. He has a Madoff like Chutzpah given his track record. He is exploiting the flaw in which compounding is measured. You setup few funds with small amounts, and take infinite risks in first two years. Some will collapse. Some will return triple digits. You close the collapsed funds. Then highlight the early triple digit returning funds to investors and start gathering funds. You underperform major indices when you add new $. But with the way compounding is shown (the growth of $1 since inception), you still show admirable returns. You then go out and keep marketing showing the incredible returns of the first $1 that walked in. No one remembers the closed funds. You can underperform major indices for 30 years, but still the first $1 compounding will show outperformance. Foolish investors are too dumb to realize that. Then you go out and give talks about compounding of that first $1.

What -> revenue, earnings and cash flow growth accompanied by continued innovation When -> Time

Fidelity has the consolidated view option. You need to add the accounts with id/pwd and fidelity fetches data real time

Wow. Not surprising when he had AZO at double digit percentage. The algos were all looking back. AZO had a remarkable run with huge buy back. It is a shame that the algos didn't consider the slowdown in revenue growth. Pabrai has underperformed all indices last 10 years. His main fund account that has bulk of assets has underperformed all indices since inception (2003). It just goes to show how far a person can go by uttering Buffett's name and giving his quotes nonstop. A+ in marketing C- in investing.

This is not being short term oriented. This is an inherent bias in some investors. A company growing at double digits and sporting a P/E of <15 gives people a lot of comfort. It trades in the comfort zone. A market P/E or less for a company plays tricks on the mind making you think there is value. A market systematically undervalues a growth company. It is warranted as the future growth is uncertain for most firms. The ones that continues to defy odds and grows gives tremendous returns to the shareholders. You can see this bias in full display in this forum. Just go through the CRM thread. Many were shorting it at 60's 2 years back. It trades at $90 today.

Thanks. Reading this fascinating book DMT - Spirit molecule. Just mushrooms, way back when, but no psychotropics since I had to start paying my own bills (except THC) Might be a good time to try this since my goalposts have been moved to another field that's set up for a different game. I remember reading in the Anarchist's Cookbook about all kinds of freaky psycho-concoctions. The book also had a lot of info on how to move a whole bunch of peoples goal posts all at once!

Has anyone here tried Ayahuasca?

America is rich, but americans are poor. Top 1% owns 35% of wealth; bottom 60% owns 4% of the wealth. It is like calling a dictator run sub-saharan African country rich, where the dictator has billions stashed in swiss banks and rest of the country are having a hand to mouth existence. Compared to their european counterparts, an average american has a substandard living, lower mobility, poor access to health care, lower life expectancy, higher gun deaths etc. An average american is just an economic slave with little prospect, no upward mobility, just given a daily dose of American exceptionalism, freedom, guns and religion and gets fucked in every orifice of his body by predatory, rapacious & unbridled capitalism. As an immigrant, I sometimes feel sorry for them. This wont end well in the long run.