rb
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Posts posted by rb
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I would hardly call questioning the presses right to do what they do just because they call themselves "the press" a bad thing. Who died & made them kings & queens.
Oh, I know this one! It was the founding fathers.
Funny how people of the right are so jacked about the 2nd amendment but so easily forget about the 1st. Oh and there's not stuff about being "well regulated" either.
Regarding checks and balances in the US. That sounds good in principle maybe it even works if powers are split between parties. But now you have a republican senator declaring that it makes no sense to have republicans investigating republicans. The chairman of the Congress Intelligence Committee doesn't seem too concerned about Russian connections and involvement in the election. In the past this would have been equivalent to a declaration of war. But I guess winning changes things - now you have people waving Russian flags at CPAC. Oh and the House Oversight Committee for the past 8 years investigated everything down to what kind of underwear Obama was wearing but now suddenly everything is squeaky clean with Trump administration and the top item to investigate is a national park's tweets. Checks and balances indeed.
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One notable comment is that the entire investment portfolio is "available for sale". Telegraphing the possibility of a giant purchase, with extended liquidity?
One of the things preventing sales is the deferred tax liability. If tax rates will go down meaningfully it'll make it easier for BRK to sell positions with huge paper gains.
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The IV calc is part of the AR not the letter.
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Yea, I'm seriously disappointed by the lack of commentary on airlines. I thought given his stance and past commentary on airlines (or anything that flies really) he should tell the shareholders why he's sinking billions of dollars in airlines now.
I think BRK's BV is 282,894 but I'm guessing you're really asking about IV/BV. I think that's around the 1.5-1.6 mark.
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Probably one of the first banana republics to do wide spread tax cuts.
I think that taxes are very low in a lot of banana republics
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[The non-stupidity is being mindful of fees/taxes. Buffett / Munger taught me that. Now as they are in their twilight years, they feel the need to educate the world about this. They are doing this with gusto and repetition. I'm with them. In my own private life, I've helped two in my circle of friends kick out high fees from their portfolios. I look forward to the day when Munger's prediction of 0.2% fee becomes the norm. Until then, plenty education is needed. WSJ is not about to do that. Neither are many of the CoBF members who work with OPM.
I'd say that the issue of fees is complicated. On one hand if the fees are high enough underlying performance doesn't matter. The client will loose. On the other hand if the fees get really low such as the dream 0.2% fee the returns will be mediocre guaranteed. In that scenario to make any kind of money you would need huge amounts of AUM. For example for $100,000 in revenue a firm would need $50 million in AUM. Smaller investment managers would not be able to exist only giant firms whose only goal is to pile on as much AUM as they can and not much concern about performance.
On top of everything a lot of the fees don't end up with the investment manager. They go to the distribution channels - advisors and what not. You would think that it would be an issue only on the retail side. But no. It's also an issue on the institutional side as well. Fees on top of fees on top of fees.
Now don't get me wrong. The industry is full of charlatans and cranks, a good chunk of them wrapped in the cloak of respectability. But how do you fix that? I don't know. I hate to blame the victim, but inside I think that the solution starts with the clients. They need to stop being so cavalier and need to invest more time learning how to make better decisions in selecting investment managers. The industry is not going to clean itself.
All that being said while I think that Buffet and Munger are contributing to the average investor's understanding of the industry (how average is reader of BRK AR?) what are they saying? Everyone sucks except for them and the fees they charged were ok because they were so awesome that actually nobody should even try to do what they did?
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Great Danes are awesome! Except maybe when they're pushing you off the bed or sofa... ;)
lol, rb! It's all about being territorital! : - )
lol, Nah, she's not territorial in the lease. Sometimes she just likes to me annoying. She thinks it's cute. Sometimes we think so too. :)
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Great Danes are awesome! Except maybe when they're pushing you off the bed or sofa... ;)
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Buffett mentioned that he would be writing "a lot" about fees charged by active managers in the upcoming annual letter.
Too many Buffett disciples charge way too much. Even the oft-touted Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb (Sequoia Fund) ... 1%+ for essentially a large cap fund. Why not 0.50%....?
Yes! On second thought, why not do it for free? Maybe they can sell ads on the investor letters and sponsor the annual meeting.
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Seems like the tech dry spell at BRK maybe over. They've increased AAPL holding to 57.4 million shares. At this size it's a Buffett investment.
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I am so fed up paying up my nose for hotels in Omaha
Here here! Between hotel rates, airline rates, and idiots using half the meeting time to ask the same "greatest hits" questions that you can answer with a 3 second google search it's not really worth it anymore. I skipped last year's and will probably skip this year's. Seriously why go through all the time and expense of going to omaha and ask a useless question. Why not ask something productive?
Ok. Enough of my rant. A useful bit of information. If you're road tripping from the east or north east there's a boat casino in Quad Cities that has a very decent hotel (they call it 4 star) where you can stay for $20 if you sign up for a players' card. You don't actually have to deposit anything or even play, just to give them an email address. Omaha is a 400 mile drive from there.
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I don't know whether DB are that big of a contributor of social mobility. In any case DB plans aren't faring much better in Canada compared to the US.
There is also so much BS around the DB issue that's become a pet peeve of mine. There's nothing wrong with DB plans. A lot of companies looted pension plans and now blame the employees for the loot. Some of these companies will end up being owned by the employees in the future and for good reason. For finance geeks out there that want to learn more I'd recommend BRK's ARs circa late 90s and mortality tables. Sigh. :(
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No worries. Happy posting :)
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@rb Can you please modify your response to my post in a formatting that is decipherable? I think you are probably trying to argue against me when I agree with much of your politics.
lognac,
I don't think that I've replied to your post. Putting all that aside, I don't know exactly what you mean. My post was in plain English text and I can see it with no problem. I don't know what you mean by formatting that is decipherable. Can you send me a screen grab? Maybe we're having a technical issue.
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I may vote for him next time because I have never been entertained so much by a real life show. There is something to look forward to everyday.
Dude, this is why we have novels and Hollywood. That way we can let Bruce Willis save the world. We don't have to play real life russian roulette. "Oh let's see what happens if i press this!"
America is a great and powerful nation. However a lot of time it tends to overestimate its abilities. Not long ago it declared that they will "go it alone". It didn't end up so well. Now America seem again to be determined to gratuitously alienate its friends.Now this version may be more exhilarating but i still prefer the one where Bruce Willis does the work.
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I think it's because it would be harder to integrate a Danaher into Berkshire. Operationally Berkshire is a bit of a mess. I don't know if it's such a good idea to integrate other mini Berkshires into it rather than than finance the acquisitions of elephants and let others to the dirty work - plausible deniability and all that.
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Only in republican circles the economy sucked in 2000 and 2016.
What?? 2000 was not even referenced in the post. The post started with Bush in office. If you don't think the weaker economy in the rust belt had any effect then you need to do more reading. It doesn't take a national issue like 2008. Regional can matter too.
Tim,
I'm sorry, I thought that the post was about presidential switches between parties every 8 years or so. You mentioned the economy so I thought it was relevant. In 2000 the economy was doing well and then republicans won the presidency with a program of top end tax cuts and deregulation and then bricked the economy.
In 2008 it was of course all about the economy. Id you weren't concerned about the economy. Also around that time regarding the mid-west I remember that it was the Democrats who supported the auto bailout and the republicans strongly opposed it. It pays for people to have short memories i guess.
In 2016 maybe it was the I'm sure it was the economy to some extent. As someone once said: "There is no such thing as a recession. If you have a job life is good. If you don't have a job then it's a depression". However if you look at the mid-western swing states: say Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa, their unemployment is generally below US average and below their 2007 levels. The 2 exceptions to that rule are Michigan where unemployment is above US average (but its been thus for a long time) but it's still below its 2007 level. The other is Penn which about even with the US but about 1% above it's 2007 level.
I know there are still issues around under-employment and such. But the economic situation in the mid-west is not as dire as put forward. Definitely a long way from being dire or apocalyptic or anything like that. In addition if one were to look at New Hampshire the unemployment there is really low but the election was really tight as well. So while the economy was probably a factor to some extent I'm sure it wasn't the most important one by far.
Now you have a new administration coming on a message of top tax cuts and deregulation. -- I know I've heard that before somewhere.... ??? Now I should say that I'm not a fan of regulation. Definitely for regulation sake. But there are some areas where regulations are heavily merited. Off the top of my head:
1. Essential services. You don't get to drive up prices like crazy with small alterations in supply.
2. The environment. You don't get to pollute the water just because it's good for business. Sorry.
3. Financial services. You don't get to destroy the financial system. This is one I know quite a bit about and I can say that as a matter of course it need a lot of regulation especially around items like derivatives and prop trading. Since we tend to be Buffett fans on this board I would like to direct members to the 2002-2005 annual reports and their descriptions of BRK derivatives adventure post acquisition of GenRe and the losses they took to eliminate that risk in an up market. If Warren wouldn't have taken those action BRK may not have been with us today let alone given up their gains from the 2008 period. I'm sorry but our financial system cannot be based on the idea the every FI head or MD is as wise as Warren Buffett.
In addition the current administration wants to remove the Obama fiduciary rule. That regulation states that an advisor has to act as a fiduciary. Every honest advisor's reaction when that was passed was "Huh? That wasn't there already?". That's the correct reaction. Every client or 4th grader would have had the same reaction. Why the rush to undue it i wonder?
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Only in republican circles the economy sucked in 2000 and 2016.
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Should there be a middle ground,.... ? .... there is only a quantum wave function of quantized information and opinions in the information universe, nothing eise. Nothing static.
Especially if that quantum wave function come from Milo Yiannopoulos and bs videos posted on youtube right?
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Just finished watching the film.
Nothing in there than anyone who's read Snowball or is a respectable member of this board wouldn't already know. However it is video and there's a lot of access to him and family and friends. It may be just me but it is nice to see the stories come from the actual people. Feels nicer than the book.
I should say it also seems a bit sad. At least to me. If feels like an ending. Much more backward looking than Warren's usual forward looking tone. Recapping everything that's happened so that it can be archived.
I would recommend it to everyone on this board. Though I suspect most of you are way ahead of me.
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"As investors, students of Buffett, ethical behaviour and in terms of intellectual honesty...this is completely contradictory to what he told supporters and non-supporters alike...he would release his tax returns after the audit was complete. Now his team is saying that they won't release them at all."
trump is doing what he said he would do, in terms of policy and governance. no contradictions.
in terms of tax returns, yes he reversed field there, but the whole notion of tax return release is to see where a potus gets income from, to flesh out conflict issues. is that really necessary with trump? you know where he gets income from cause he puts his name on the building when he does a deal.
Well if everyone knows what's in there why won't he release them? We also all know he's rich right, really rich, so seeing that he makes a lot of money won't make a difference either because we all know that he makes a lot of money.
Isn't this always the argument from the right when it comes to either government surveillance or interaction with police or whatever. Cooperate fully. If you've done nothing wrong then you've got nothing to fear. It seems it's not thus when it pointed back to the home team. Also like it or not that's what's become as accepted norm for the job of President. It's open kimono show the taxes. If I would go to work for a job in a bank (or many other place) I have to let them run a credit check and other investigations despite what other credentials I might have.
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We should start a thread on religion.
Been there, done that! Ended up with Buddha kicking Jesus in the nuts, while Allah sat on a bean bag chair and laughed his ass off. The Pope was busy on the internet looking up "Dakota Fanning", Krishana was cooking a steak, and five rabbis were kvetching in the kitchen about how they didn't have any good mustard for their corn beef and rye sandwiches!
Cheers!
Now that sound like a fun thread to read. I wish I was around for that.
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Trump's EO clearly violates the 1965 Immiration act that prevents immigration from being restricted based on nationality. The fact that many support such a power grab is concerning.
Attorney generals do not need to obey the president, the president is not their boss (though he does appoint them) in the sense that we have bosses. The DOJ is supposed to traditionally remain independent from POTUS in operations (how would the DOJ investigate a president like Nixon if it weren't?).
Trump is treating the DOJ like he's treating a subsidiary business which hurts the institution (he's causing a lot of institutional harm that may harm the country for much longer than his presidency). He is greatly expanding power of the President as if he a CEO (or dictator).
The ban was not legal according to many experts (including the federal judge who ruled on it), especially the application to legal green card holders. It's up to the courts to decide.
Of course to many on here, it's "I like trump so she was in the wrong, should have obeyed her boss, and should be fired". It's not so simple.
Let me build a bit on what Dalal said and tie it in on market impact like cherzeca is looking for.
I don't have enough legal knowledge to know whether the EO is or isn't constitutional. Though as a lay person I'd say that the inclusion of green card people in the EO would violate the 14th amendment. I know they kinda/sort moved away from that for now but the idea that it was in it in the first place is terrifying.
From a market's perspective the US is a but like the Lanisters: It always pays its debts. It also always keeps its word and behaves in a rational and deliberate way. This reputation has been earned hard over a long period of time. This reputation allows the US to have stable markets, low borrowing costs, unlimited access to capital, premium valuations and a host of other goodies.
The way they've handled the EO was clearly a screwup. Especially the part where it took them 2 days to figure out the Permanent Residents should be allowed in the country. After that instead of trying to smooth things over like a normal administration would have they've decided to make another splash (because they could) with the firing of the AG and that ridiculous press release. I'm don't know whether the AG was withing her rights to criticize or not but she would have been out of the very soon anyway.
The way they've handled the whole situation was impulsive and reckless. With that the US has made a withdrawal from that reputational account. If another country would have gone through this situation you would have see a sizeable market reaction. However in the US the market's reaction has been small because the US has a large balance in that reputational account. However that balance is not unlimited and the market will react more forcefully as subsequent withdrawals are made.
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I have a question for those who think this should be blocked. Why do you read it?
Out of the tens and sometimes hundreds of active discussions on this board there are usually only one or two political discussion going on, if any, which are confined to their own threads. Very easy to ignore and never read. There is no requirement that you read every discussion on CoB&F. For example I have no interest in SHLD so I never read that thread when I see it pop up. You can ignore anything that you feel like not reading.
"I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, and it should be banned because I can't stop myself from reading it!" is a strange position to take.
A thread is like a room. A thread like this just so happens to attract a whole bunch of people into a room to incessantly yell at each other. This isn't productive discussion, in my opinion, and it also leaves other rooms vacant.
This room is more like a gigantic clusterfuck of an argument that naturally leads to posters becoming more defensive and holding even stronger to their beliefs than when they first began. There is no middle ground left.
I know many here who have a libertarian bent and believe in freedom everything. But some things just aren't productive.
What frank87 said.
Also, this forum - for better or worse - is a community (or maybe "was").
Yeah, there are forums where I only read one thread, but not others because these forums are not communities. In these other forums a single thread may be a community. Here the whole forum was for a while. So, the participation was per whole forum and not per thread.
It's possible to say that the forum community is gone and just leave this thread (btw, politics is now creeping into investment threads too, so that might be short term solution). It's not very satisfying solution, but I'll consider that as possible choice too.
So you read every message? There are hundreds of posts to this forum per day. I'd never have the time to do that. I've been here since 2008 (the old board) and I've always picked only the threads that interest me to read.
Well when rkbabang is right he's really right. Who doesn't want to participate in a discussion clearly marked so if free not to do it. If you don't like the way it's going you're free to leave it.
As for community/other threads/productivity.... Once you start to employ censorship and try to shut people up I don't think that is conducive to productivity or sense of community. If there are a bunch of rooms and a lot of members of the community choose to congregate in one room will they be happy when you kick them out?
There have been lengthy discussions on this board on topis like ZINC and Fannie and Freddie prefs. I don't click on them (among others) because i don't give a hoot about the subject matter. I also don't go onto those threads and tell the participants to stop talking so much about that and move on to other topics which interest me more.
2016 Letter
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
Yea, billions of dollars of airline stocks popping up is definitely not business as usual. While I may understand Apple - airlines are not business as usual.