rb
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Posts posted by rb
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$12 billion net is a big a big number. Maybe he's including DOW in that. He tends to be sneaky like that when giving out numbers. Otherwise either:
1. He got the waiver from the FED to increase WFC stake.
2. They have a new core position.
3. .... Let's hope it's not an airline
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Also. I will say it again. If usa is so bad why is everyone fighting to be let in?
I noticed already some while ago, there are people currently fleeing from Western Europe to get more freedom in the U.S., since Europe isn't supporting their own citizens rights.
See this interesting...
French Girl: MILO Is Right, Europe Is Falling
I suppose you also have some data about France-US migration aside from a video on a nutjob's youtube channel. Please share.
Btw, you have to love her french accent. So sexy /s
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Folks, the left is full of violent, self-righteous individuals so for my own safety this will be my last post to the thread. Take care. Keep talking.
LMAO! Yes all those violent leftists obsessed with Berkshire and Fairfax and annual reports. Who lurk on value investing boards looking to terrorize good regular folk with.... facts.... and arguments. I'm sure ccplz is planning his rampage right now.
Hey, thanks for a chuckle on a Monday night. This really spices up the Actelion reading. :)
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Also. I will say it again. If usa is so bad why is everyone fighting to be let in?
Gotta love Americans' high opinion of themselves. Who's this everyone that's trying to get in? Do you see mass migration to US from Canada? Sweden? UK, Australia, Czech Republic, Poland? Even Mexico has negative migration with the United States.
So can you please elaborate on this everyone who is fighting to get in? I mean yes the US is a much better place than Syria. But is that really who you want as your comp?
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FWIW - Another American Hedge Fund guy looking to short Canada Real Estate:
https://betterdwelling.com/city/toronto/marc-cohodes-short-canadian-real-estate/
Nah, same guy. He's been doing this for a while
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Friday night: green card holders are included in the Muslim Ban.
Sunday night: a complete reversal...
Quality of governance: banana republic
I respect Trump for this change today. He's not a thoughtful guy, so everyone should expect many mistakes from him in one of the most complicated jobs in the world. But in this case, he could have remained rigid and let the courts fight about it for months. Instead, he recognized the mistake and wasn't to proud to correct it. That's much more than I expected from him.
Well done, Trump.
Is this the soft bigotry of low expectations at work? This sort of stuff would be commendable when it comes from a 7 year old learning how to deal with life. But from a 70 year old President of the United States? Now it's commendable that he figured out on the 3rd try that he should let Permanent Residents of the United States into the United States? Isn't the bar set a little too low? It's right in the name.
Soft bigotry of low expectations indeed.
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What we lack in the US is the common sensical middle of the road party. What we have is bunch of bigots,jesus freaks and homophobes on the right and
communist, tree huggers,uber PC on the left sucking up all the political oxygen.
+++++!
Buffett / Munger for the next cycle
Assuming there's another cycle, +100
Hey guys, this thread is about Canada. Buffett and Munger are not eligible to run. Citizenship and stuff. They would be illegals! :D 8)
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Same could or was said of Trump in the U.S. just saying...
Cardboard
Yea, different country, different people, different geographics, different system.
I must admit a part of me wants for T Lite to win Conservative leadership and run for PM. You'll get a massive turnout election and a massive loss for T Lite. The the right will get the message that they should behave responsibly. Ala Stephen Harper circa 2008.
I want to have in Canada a strong center left and a strong center right and a good dialogue between them down the middle with none of the crazy nonsense.
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What we lack in the US is the common sensical middle of the road party. What we have is bunch of bigots,jesus freaks and homophobes on the right and
communist, tree huggers,uber PC on the left sucking up all the political oxygen.
Since as a country we are to the left of the Unites States (the Democrats would be a right wing party over here) I would posit that your description of the the left applies to our left as well.
On the right we also have our bigots, jesus freaks, and homophobes. Though I would posit that there is a lower percentage up here and that they are also better behaved. But as I've said in a previous post we don't know much about them cause they weren't allowed to talk in the past.
It's just that you're not going to win elections here behaving like a knob. Our past Prime Minister (Conservative) was in the past the leader of the Reform Party which was populist and socially conservatives. However when there was a chance to win an election he dropped all of that, moved to the middle and locked the less desirable elements in the closet. Ontario and British Columbia (3rd for number of seats) are generally liberal places (Toronto especially) but they can be swingy (especially BC). They'll listen to what you have to say, won't just vote for a certain party no matter what like in the US. But you have to behave when you run or you'll be punished.
So I'd say that the political left and right in Canada are more or less the same as in the US but the people of Canada are different.
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All i can say about winning elections in Canada with Trump Lite is Good Luck!
Aside from the fact that Canadians are different from Americans the electoral distribution is much different. The Greater Toronto Area has 55 seats (out of 338) - more than any province except Quebec. Last election the Conservatives won 5 out of the 55. Then there's Quebec - another liberal place, T Lite doesn't and it's a big thing over there. Quebec has 78 seats. To win elections in Canada you have to win big in the GTA and Quebec. On top of that you have to split the left. Otherwise forget it!
The reason we had a Conservative government is because it's leader was Stephen Harper who understood all of this. He was also fairly moderate, ruled the party with an iron fist and kept the crazies locked securely in a closet. When the Conservatives went too much to the right they lost. Bigly! The lesson they got form all of that? Let's let the crazies out of the closed and move further to the right.
As I've said. Good Luck!
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This thread as all other political threads, is a shit show!
Tell me, has anyone here ever changed their opinion on any political issue as the result of these threads? And I think the average IQ and rationality here is superior to the rest of the population; so theoretically one would assume that if people can learn and change their minds anywhere, it would be here...but it doesn't seem like it lol.
Your right I don't think that anyone here has read some other posters well thought through argument on a topic and suddenly smacked their head with their palm and said, "wow, they are so right and I am so wrong, now I am thinking straight" That doesn't happen, especially among people who have considered these issues in the past.
Here is what does happen, I read someones well thought through and argued post and their opinion is different then mine, I at the time acknowledge that they do have a point and it makes me start the process of rethinking my own thoughts. For any intelligent thoughtful person this doesn't happen in 5 minutes, we would never be ready to concede that we were wrong all these years. But the seed of a new thought sticks in our heads for days, weeks, months, years. We read more topics on it that call our original thinking into question and possibly reinforce that posters point. Finally a long time later my thinking and opinion have changed but by that time I usually have forgotten all about that original post that started me thinking and I think that I have come to this way of thinking all by myself or I convince myself that I have really always thought this way.
So it seems pointless because we never see dramatic conversions but there are conversions, they are just slow.
Also on any thread like this the majority of posts are worthless but there are golden ones in there and we don't always know which ones. I sometimes get tired of sifting through the trash on a thread like this but then someone comes along and explains something that is outside of my existing echo chamber and explain it in a way that makes sense.
A very good description of how I moved on from being a die hard right-winger.
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I hate to harp on this subject, but if Trump is so detached from reality that he doesn’t understand that instituting a 20% tax on Mexican imports would make Americans, not Mexicans pay for his wall than how dumb is this guy?
Well, if prices go up 20% then the US will find those goods somewhere cheaper I guess, so Mexico will be forced to take a cut on those goods or will not be able to sell them at all.
Actually no, the adjustment will probably be made through FX rates.
But even if what you say is true. Then what the US will do is shift it's trade deficit from Mexico to another country(s). In addition Mexican retaliation will hurt the US. Furthermore the disruption to supply chains will add further pain. Brilliant!
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And Trump already announced (as expected) that he would forward the bill to Mexico by taxing their export. They simply cannot afford not to be able to sell their goods in the US.
You know, I was talking to friends over drinks tonight about how all of this will fall into place. Up to now it's been tweets, press conferences and pretty signed documents. It's a very good show. I would actually like to see the cement trucks heading for the border.
You say that Mexico simply cannot afford not to be able to sell to the US. But can the US can afford not to sell to Mexico? There is a lot of trade between the US and Mexico and trade is regional. That means that trade with Mexico is disproportionately located in Southern (republican) states like Texas more so than places like Ohio and Wisconsin. So when Mexico retaliates it will affect those states more so these southern states will suffer more. Trump cannot get all these things done without Congress. It will be interesting for me to see how willing these congressmen are to put their districts trough pain. And if congress is good at one thing is postponing things into oblivion.
Furthermore, do not assume that the US is the only country that has national pride. Americans think that Mexicans will look at the threats and will simply submit. This stuff is personal for them. They won't just yield. As Americans you also underestimate the amount of pain economic (or otherwise) poorer countries can put up with. They are used to it. So in a trade war where each country inflicts economic pain on the other I'm willing to bet that Mexico's pain threshold is much higher than the US. All this for $60B Mexican trade surplus out of an $18T economy??
Finally, I'm not by a long shot an expert in international law. But won't what Trump is proposing with Mexico run against the WTO rules? What happens if the US i kicked out of the WTO? I'm sure there's 3,000 lawyers at State and Commerce working on this very thing as I type.... Or maybe they're just working on their resumes.
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When people are coming in ILLEGALLY to hurt people, infringing on their rights, sometime killing them, how is that interpreted by Libertarian Greats?
How many people were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by these illegals?
Compare that number to how many were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by guns?
Restricting illegals or firearms...which would have more impact on the safety, livelihood and freedoms of Americans?
I'm also guessing restrictions on firearms would be far cheaper than the $25B that is going to be spent on a wall! Cheers!
Sanjeev, You are really off point here. It's not the way it works. By the way, I've made a version of that argument on this very board.
I understand your thinking. It is one of efficiency. Along the lines of Buffett and Gates. Save the most lives per dollar spent. If you're being logical it makes total sense. However that's not the way it works in America. In America if an American life is at risk from a foreigner/foreign threat the budget is unlimited. Satellites will like up in outer space, carrier battle groups will set sail, and SEAL teams will deploy. It an American life is at risk from a domestic threat it's "well shit happens....better luck next time".
It's just the way it is.
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The idea that Trump is going to bring down the regime in China is a fantasy.
Firstly, in the 80 most people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Block countries were fed up with their situation and wanted to see their regimes go. This is not the case with China. Mess around with the One China stuff and they become more entrenched.
Secondly, Russia was an isolated/isolationist country. China is a top trading partner to most of the world. Oppose it at great cost at home.
Thirdly, why would the international community go to bat for the US when the US is threatening their security (NATO stuff), intervening in internal affairs (talk about EU breakup, etc). On top of this large swaths of the world - South America, Africa, Australia have a quite happy with their relationship with China.
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I like your idea of sort-of an "activist alliance" where we pool our power to effect change. However I don't know whether your methods would do the trick. I don't think that many companies would change strategy or whatever just because we really annoy IR. I think to effect change we really would have to pool our resources and acquire a non-trivial voting block. Then we'd have real power. The reason why companies sometimes make changes without the activists getting board seats is because they wield a credible threat of getting board seats not that they're just annoying.
I like where your head is at though.
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If you're looking not to pay for subscriptions the google finance screener is pretty good. It uses reuters data. However it only outputs 30 results a page and doesn't export. So there's a lot of manual copy and pasting. Also I'm pretty sure that it leaves out some results.
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Around 2010, I found a micro cap Chinese company selling wine made out of tree frogs. Not only that, they claimed it was very profitable.
It's not that harebrained. I know people who do the "medicinal" snake wine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_wine ) and it is very profitable ... for them. TCM and other folk medicine crap is usually very profitable for sellers. ::)
No kidding. Last time i was in Beijing I went to a Chinese medicine "pharmacy". The place was huge. 3 stories - lots of floor space. There were lots of weird things. However one thing stood out for being really expensive. It turns out it was elk penis. Apparently it's taken for virility. They sold it by the sliver because of the price. If you wanted to buy in bulk to save money they were also selling the whole thing. It went for $250,000 apiece. Talk about profitability!
With all the elk we have in Canada we'd all be rich if we can sell their junk for 250 grand in volume.
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Maybe I'm missing something here, but what does this have to do with EMH vs Buffett?
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We pay for the bare minimum cable. (And aim for that goal on most other things.) Will there be other ways to watch this?
The internet is a wonderful thing.
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Busch is owned by a foundation with a charter etc... cannot be sold. I don't think the families of ALDI and Lidl will be willing to sell. That being said there are a ton of great private companies in Germany. I'm not sure how many elephants. But I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a series of acquisitions in the 5-10 B range in Germany. However as you have pointed out these days those would just be a snack for Berkshire.
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You're not interested in having a political discussion yet you're making political posts. Interesting approach.
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They were all pretty bad, but my list of the worst would be:
1) Woodrow Wilson
2) FDR
3) LBJ
None of the presidents in my lifetime have even approached that kind of evil.
Since you say they were "evil" mind explaining why you selected these 3?
Hopefully you have a valid reason to call someone "evil" beyond the usual libertarian nonsense.
+1
Unless one were draft age at the time, LBJ is not even close to being "evil". Got the Civil Rights bill passed knowing that it would destroy the Democratic base in the South for a generation, not to mention the poverty programs and science funding. FDR helped save the world from Hitler, and to all you libertarians probably saved America from socialism, even as he was called a traitor to his class. Wilson was pretty bad, a f#cking racist, who tried to destroy what little progress the US had managed since Reconstruction.
Not sure, but I'm guessing some of the evils of FDR and LBJ ware social security and medicare along with those poverty programs.
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If you have access to financing and are a local I'd definitely recommend direct ownership in premium areas of cities. I've done only a cursory look at the reits so I'm not comfortable in recommending names at this point. I guess I'll make a post before or after I pull the trigger on specific names.
BRK cash - for buy back?
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
Correct! I can't imagine the airlines being a bigger value proposition than Berkshire right now.