rb
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Posts posted by rb
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Are you adding back the excess of BRK's KHC investment at market over its carrying value? I have that as $13 billion
yep
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I fear people have become desensitised to the behaviour of Trump. I was watching a documentary on Saddam Hussein. The guy was a megalomaniac with an obsession for being a "winner" & building monuments to himself. The point is Trump fits the pattern. The same pattern of behaviour as guys like Erdogan in Turkey and countless others in history. His irrational and cruel persecution of the Central Park five for his own benefit. I see these videos of reporters being abused at his rallies and his encouragement of it. That is absolutely unacceptable in a modern democracy.
Why anyone would vote for such a person is beyond me.
Yes he was a megalomaniac but look what happened when they got rid of him, Gaddafi, and Assad (barely). Those creeps were a system of checks and balances in the region. When they disappeared chaos, ensued.
Because the US is just like Libya and Syria.
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It's called a Management Information Circular
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This idea that we should put the wealthy in charge of the country is called an Oligarchy. We've decided a long time ago that it's not a good thing.
This is not an idea that should be done in an absolute sense, but theres definitely merit to it. Truth is that there are people who simply shouldn't be able to vote, or at the least not have a vote count as much as other folks. Its, cute, warm, and fuzzy to some that everything goes around thinking they are equal. But there is something inherently flawed with a system in which some drug addict who relies on entitlements casts a vote that has the same power as Mark Cuban's vote. Because of the system, the vast majority of lower income folks only care about their entitlements and will cast misguided votes if they think it will result in getting something for nothing. How many of the "Obama iz gunna pay my gas billz!!" videos were out there? Or this gem..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJbOU4nmHQ
Then on the other end you have those highfalutin, wannabe philanthropist types in the upper middle class neighborhoods who mean well but are misguided as they preach about "giving back" based ideologies while driving 5 series BMWs and living in 800k homes. And like Trump, they're all for giving back but conveniently abuse the system when it benefits them. Sandwiched in between are the middle class that is perpetually getting squeezed by real inflation, stagnant wages, and ever increases taxes, both direct and indirect.
Bottom line, is the people contributing should have more say than those that don't. There needs to be a balance of "creators" and "takers".
So basically screw that democracy thing.
Well now that we're disfranchising folks let take a closer look at that. Technically the president is not elected by the people but by the electoral college. Now let's go ahead and disfranchise the takers. Ok now the president is elected by the following states: California, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, New York, Kansas, Ohio, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, and Delaware.
Election night headline: Welcome Madame President!: Hillary Clinton makes history by becoming the first female president in a 151-43 electoral college landslide!
Btw, i gave Ohio to Trump in that EV count.
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Book Value per B Share sitting at $109.19.
As of close today, B Shares trading at 1.31 Book Value.
Perhaps we will see shares dip into the ~1.2 (or below) range with more volatility.
Actually, if you mark the khc investment what you get P/B=1.26 on sept 30. Taking Sep 30 BV/current cap => P/B=1.24. However currently P/B is probably higher due to losses in the stock portfolio.
One of a few things is going to happen:
1. Stock will move up
2. Buybacks kick in
3. It's elephant time!
Edit: It's so amazing, after doing an elephant last year they're ready for another one. Only at Berkshire. The should change the ticker to BHL for Blackhole.
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It can't get any better than this. Look at the republican base, you have evangelicals who preaches family values and are voting for an adulterer and an extremely unethical candidate. You have deplorables who don't like illegals but the candidate's wife was an illegal immigrant in this country. Bunch of pathetic hypocrites. Hilarious.
Don't forget about the women who are lining up behind the misogynist sexual assaulter. The fiscal conservatives who are lined up behind the guys who's gonna blow up the debt and deficit. The flag waving patriots who think that Russia's involvement in the election is just dandy. The list goes on.
There's a bunch of writes in Hollywood right now going like "Damn! Even we couldn't make this shit up!"
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I think it's hilarious to see so many people here get worked up about the election yet have no control over the situation.
Second point is I also think a lot of people are foolish for putting down Trump when he's clearly been a success in life. I'm still laughing about the thread where a lot of people here were saying they would rather have Buffett's life than Trump's - which is crazy.
Well i guess it depends on how different people view and define success. For you and Trump it's glitz and glamour. Other people have other definitions. You laugh at those people and call them crazy. I don't think they really care. The truth is that there are a lot of those people. Case in point is Buffett. He doesn't have Trump's life because he doesn't want it not because he can't afford it.
This idea that we should put the wealthy in charge of the country is called an Oligarchy. We've decided a long time ago that it's not a good thing.
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Well if they sold cause they're worried about Trump winning the election that risk only came about in the past couple few days. So it's not that wouldn't be so weird. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
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Joe Biden has been criticized roundly for his gaffes when he ran for President. Frankly, he doesn't get covered because people care about the Vice President an order of magnitude less than the President.
Tell that to Dick Cheney.
I don't want to pile on Biden. I think a lot of his gaffes are really endearing. But here's my favorite one.
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RE: rb
I don't know the exact breakdown, and I imagine that total viewership is more important than the hours of content, but they do program an hour of Megyn Kelly in between Hannity and O'Reilly. I don't think that Bret Baier released his story with the intent to deceive, I think his private sources were probably overzealous and misled him.
I don't know whether Baier wanted to deceive or he was just an eager reporter. I just said that Fox seems to be lacking journalistic standards that exist elsewhere. Standards that would have prevented him from coming out with the story.
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Up here we're also beginning to clue into the fact that our neighbor and partner to the south, a nuclear armed superpower, is starting to resemble something of a failed state and that is horrifying!
It might look that way when you read it in the media but I don't sense any of that on the ground unless I'm living in my own little bubble. Ultimately the demographic trends , money and power are on the correct side. Look at the red states and they are usually poor, backward and struggling. Not all blue states are heaven but most of the money and power is concentrated in those. If that changes then we are screwed.
I'm not talking so much about the money part but the structural part such as:
1. Candidate for president talks about jailing his opponent after he wins
2. Candidate for president talks about not accepting result of election is he looses
3. Candidate for president invites foreign adversary to hack communications of political opponent. Half of political spectrum doesn't care or cheers when that comes to pass
4. The main internal security service appears to be partisan and is getting involved in the electoral process
5. Parliament doesn't have any agenda except for obstructionism
6. Members of parliament are talking about impeaching a future president before the election is even held, never mind the result of said election
7. Members of senate impeding the operation of the supreme court by threatening to not confirm justices to the supreme court until they control the executive branch and the appointment process
The list goes on, but all that is starting to sound a little failed statey, even if it's a rich one.
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But what he is implying is that those things or very similar things couldn't have been built any other way and wouldn't exist otherwise. Much like a 18th century cotton farmer telling you to thank slavery for your clothing.
We all build on what already exists. That doesn't diminish someone's accomplishments.
Yea he didn't dismiss anyone's accomplishments. He simply said that when they've built them on a platform that enabled or made it easier for the people to establish and/or grow their business and some recognition must go to that fact. If anything it was businesses that were dismissing the state's accomplishments that made it easier and more profitable for them to operate and B.O. was drawing attention to that. Of course the statement was taken and twisted to hell.
Btw, this very similar to the observation that Buffett made that a lot of his success is owed to the fact that he was born in the US. And if he would have been born in a village in Africa he wouldn't have amounted to much.
Now could we have built this platform in another way? Maybe. But we've done it this way and it's worked out pretty good. The fact that because of ideology you don't like how it came to be how it was financed does not deny its existence or its usefulness.
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To be clear, there are reporters and anchors on Fox News that follow journalistic standards. There's a reason why Chris Wallace was chosen to be the moderator for the third Presidential debate. Bret Baier who broke the indictment story is supposed to be one of them, which is why the story had legs. There are also Fox News entertainers like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly who do not follow the standards. Implicit bias may be present in journalists for the amount and tenor of the way they choose to cover certain stories, but you won't find traditional media sources hawking completely unfounded conspiracy theories like on the Hannity show.
Yea, but what's the % of Hannity and O'reilly type stuff vs Chris Wallace stuff? At some point you stop being a news channel. I don't think that "we have an hour or two of non crazy stuff" is a saving grace.
The Bret Baier stuff is case in point for Fox. That sort of story wouldn't have made it on a legitimate news organization because they still have certain journalistic standards. Those standards are obviously lacking/missing at Fox.
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Seriously? There's no difference between the New York Times and Fox News? Are you making funnies?
I think everyone would agree that MSNBC is pretty left leaning. CNN? I think they're so bad that they don't even know how to lean. Anyway, CNN and MSNBC are a joke. Allmost all cable news is.
If you're looking for no bias or as close to it as possible I recommend Reuters. One of the few proper news outlets left.
Btw, this is tricky to formulate but sometimes maybe some bias is a good thing. I know that doesn't come out right, but Edward Murrow comes to mind. Was Murrow biased against McCarthy? I think so. Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely.
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It also looks like that "likely indictment" Fox News reported is inaccurate.
Not sure if you guys know this in Canada but Fox news is not considered a legitimate news outlet here. Its more of an entertainment channel featuring blondes who passes Ailes 'sniff' test. They pride themselves on high ratings but since they are the only ones who peddles these crackpot theories , this is the channel of choice for deplorables. I can't wait for Trump to launch his own. That'll be the race to the bottom.
Yes, up here in the great white north we are very much aware that Fox is not a legitimate news source. You guys down south seem to have a problem figuring that out.
Up here we're also beginning to clue into the fact that our neighbor and partner to the south, a nuclear armed superpower, is starting to resemble something of a failed state and that is horrifying!
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They have gotten incredibly good at this stuff - media segmentation and targeting. On the left and on the right. But especially on the left. They're also really good at negotiating media buys and being very efficient at how much to buy. It's incredible really.
One of the things I'm working on requires a media campaign. Nothing too creative, but we need to hit some specific demographics. We've decided to go with one of the political shops on the left as opposed to a Madison ave shop. Nothing to do with ideology, the left guys have much better targeting on the segments we're looking at as opposed to the right wing guys. They're also so much cheaper than the the regular ad guys.
It's a pity that none of these guys are public. They're so focused on their little corner of the world, but once they figure out all the stuff they can do commercially they'll make a lot of money.
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I don't get it. If you're expecting deflation in the US, wouldn't you want to be long LT Treasuries?
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In my opinion 30% of equity is a good leverage ratio. That way if you get a 30% crash you don't get a margin call. You're basically looking to get a long term loan at a low interest rate. When you get it it's up to you.
For example right now I have quite a bit of cash because I sold a bunch of names cause they've reached my price target and I don't have a lot of things to buy. If we get a crash I'm looking to deploy the cash plus take out margin. That would enable me to load up on a lot of stuff when it's cheap.
Another strategy would be to be fully invested during normal/frothy markets so you don't have cash opportunity costs. Then take out margin when markets crash, then when markets recover and you sell stuff cause it reaches your price targets you use proceeds to pay down margin. That way you have purchasing power when stocks are cheap and you get to stay fully invested throughout the cycle.
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I'm also thinking it's a pretty good indication that 25%-35% of genworth's portfolio is made up of mortgages that wouldn't meet the new rules. Food for thought.
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Well the dreaming part implies that I actually haven't given this stuff a lot of thought. And yes you can't tax PACs and SPACs but i think you can hit them with registration fees and the sort. Anyway it wasn't a serious proposal.
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It's not just early voting I remember that on every election day there are long lines. Some places longer than others *cough*darkerplaces*cough*.
And I don't see why it should be inconvenient to vote, yes even to vote early. It doesn't even have to cost the tax payer anything. Pay for it with a fee/tax on PACs and SuperPACs. If these clowns are gonna spend countless millions on telling people who to vote and who not to vote, why not pitch in a little to make sure those people are comfortable when they vote?
I know, I know, I'm dreaming.
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Seriously, what's with these long lines? If you have long lines, why not add more polls?
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KC, what's in your portfolio that would be strongly affected by a Vancouver RE price drop?
BRK 2016Q3 reporting
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
Well I have 138, but anyway, we're both wrong because we're not marking the equity and bond portfolios.