Uccmal

Answers: 1) Probably 2) Not likely 3) Currency - at the moment it tracks the price of oil which is interelated to the US dollar. 4) Some yes, some no. In some cases it is better to use Europe and GB as comparators. Partly of the reason the US is so innovative is the nature of its winner take all society. The most innovative people in many industries go to the US. Elon Musk being an obvious, non Asian example. Why didnt he build Tesla in Ontario, Canada? There are a whole host of reasons. Its better to be poor and disadvantaged in Canada, GB, or EU, than in the US. It is better to be highly skilled and ambitious in the US.

Good points, all. The last point is universal to all countries, except North Korea, these days. Wherever the social welfare network has broken down there are wars.

IMO, there is way more to it than the way the numbers are presented. The US uses its military for multiple purposes, most of which have nothing to do with defense. The military in the US serves as a social welfare system for the poor, and an employment program via production plants spread thoughout the states. Senators and governors fight to get plants in their jurisdictions. Poor people enlist for job security, education, free healthcare, retirement after 20 years, etc. The notion that the US actually has to spend the amounts they do on military is ludicrous. They could ratchet expenditures way down, and still have the most powerful military in the world. However, the US would have to make up the social welfare elsewhere, in ways that are less palatable to those who believe that government handouts are bad. Hypocrisy at the highest level. So, every once in a while the Us gets involved in a war, kills a few people, gets rid of all their older equipment, to justify a new spending cycle.

KC, Thats fair. I dont waste alot of time on airlines. Maybe its my post 911 bias. That is the problem. Anecdotally we see this at home (Can). New airlines hatch with fair regularity, move from being regional to national, and then international, and then they get into money trouble during downturns. I think its because they are run by airplane buffs. The number of failed airlines is huge. Maybe a good reason to buy a basket, I suppose, but near the top of the market? Remember, these were bought before Trumpenomics was more than a dreamy vision. And I dont know enough to take this any further. I would only like to hear the rationale from Buffett?

Leaving aside the who bought it question. The better question is why? Its not as if airline industry economics have gotten any better. You still have: 1) worldwide competition 2) heavy dependence on the vagaries of fuel prices 3) extremely high and inflexible fixed costs. 4) Long lead times to expand/replace fleets, which always leaves you oversupplied, at the wrong time. 5) Deep cyclicality 6) High rates of leverage And a propensity for companies run by airline buffs versus business people. We also may be nearing the top of the cycle. Fuel prices may be or are rising. Interest rates may be or are rising especially on long bmds where airlines need to play. It seems like the absolute wrong time to buy into airlines. I dont get it, but who am I to question the oracle. I will follow from the sidelines, unlike the sheeple who have jumped into the airlines because Buffett or one of his people bought in.

I hope someone on PEs team explains the basics of presidential economics to him. i.e. He gets relelected when markets are up and jobs are good. If he comes out with all guns blazing to tax and spend, and boosts the economy now, he runs a real risk of a recession in 2019. They need to step back, and let the fed and higher interests rates generate a market correction and mild recession, and then bring the forces to bear in about eighteen months. Its convenient and easy to cause a market crash, and recession right now with China in the dumper, and lackluster growth elsewhere. And you can still blame the prior administration for causing it.

I am making a concerted effort to go 4 years without hearing Trump's voice. Interesting doesn't begin to describe how sick I am of him. Unlike other presidents, his NPD (narcisitic pd) doesn't allow him to shut the fuck up for awhile. I'm pining for the heady days of the Shrub. :-). Its like were subjected continuously to the inner workings of the dude's brain.

Protests are a normal reaction. There were protests throughout the last 4 terms. In a democracy protesting is good. It gets bad when you send the national guard into a University campus to shoot people. Besides, isn't there a permanent encampment of protestors at the edge of capitol hill? It is home. What doesn't help is idiots like Giuliani telling the protestors to stop whining. As ambivalent as I am about Trump, I really hate Rudy. I hope for his sake he has his own secret service detail. The man is a walking target.

Nightmare scenario for the secret service. Securing a few block radius of Manhattan. Maybe they can build him a replica in the Whitehouse as part of the infrastructure project.

So much for that: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n-kkk-group-hold-victory-parade-donald-trump-article-1.2868491 I know this week has been dragging on slowly, but four years has yet to pass. lol, And the latest. PE apparently likes to sleep in his own bed at night. During the campaign he would fly home at night so he could wake up in his own bed in Trump tower, hence the evening rallies. He wants to know how many days per week he has to stay in the Whitehouse. I know alot of 70 year olds who are like that. Oh, the laws of unintended consequences.....

I am with you there. Dude is a troll.

Or they could be prepping for a market retraction and put the money to work elsewhere such as in India. Bruce Flatt is betting on a market retraction by raising and building cash.

I think the reality is that they realized quite a while ago that their equity hedges were a bad decision. They just needed some event so that they could “save face”. Trump was simply a convenient excuse to reverse a decision and say “Yeah, we are removing the hedges because of Trump” instead of “Yeah, we are removing the hedges because we were wrong.” This. I got rid of my shares 4-5 years ago. I could never understand why they didn't upside protect the equity hedges (and it was insanely cheap to do so at the time), and in general I didn't like how they were continuing to invest. (RIM, Resolute, Sandridge... you get the idea). But thats fine. I still admire the great company Prem and company built, just not as an investment, when I could do better as a small player. I cant see how anyone would come to the conclusion that the situation in the US or the world is suddenly going to be more pro business than it was last week. The TPP is going to unravel whether the US participates or not. If/when the Us starts to get even somewhat protectionist with Asia, then prices rise, US exports drop, and business suffers. Juicing of the US economy. Lets see, we have had non- stop economic stimulus for 8 years. So, now were going to up the infrastructure ante, and drop corporate taxes. Where exactly is this money going to come from? Either it comes from income tax, or consumption taxes, which will kill the US economy. Or, it comes from deficit spending. Deficit spending of course requires issuing more bonds at higher rates, than they have been able to issue in the last few years. I dont know if anyone noticed but demand for bonds just dropped last week. FFH places macro bets. These were never intended as hedges. They were macro bets on the economy. I think it was just an opportune time to reduce them. I wouldnt read it as a specific comment on the economic potential. And as someone else has said, if you believe markets are going up, you believe that economies are going to get juiced why would you keep deflation hedges?

I'm still hoping he's a closet Democrat and did all this simply to win. You gave up German beer! :( Cheers! I don't think he is a closet Democrat, I don't think he is a politician in the usual sense. He's pretty much doing this for publicity and his own ego. Unlike someone like Hillary, I doubt he is obsessed with political power for its own sake. I think he is closer to being a liberal than he let on in his campaign. What is truly amazing to me is how the left is reacting. There are people who are completely out of control, with no sense of proportion. He's the president not the dictator, with the possible exception of foreign policy he really doesn't have all that much unilateral power. He needs congress to get anything done, and his own party isn't crazy about him. That too. His own party is him, not the republicans.

Too many conflicts of interest operating here. Impeachment is a real possiblity. If/When his scandals and mouth become a national embarassment R. Reps will be trying to save their own skins and will start an impeachment process. At the very least within short order they will firewall him. Its all just sowing the seeds for a needed democratic renewal. I hope he isn't impeached (or one of the crazy liberals we see crying or defecating on the sidewalk doesn't flip out and kill him). Trump is unlikely to be that bad a president, but Pence would be awful. Trump is basically a New York liberal pretending to be a conservative. Pence however is the real deal. Pence is a big time religious nut conservative. When he says anti-gay things, or anti-abortion things, unlike Trump, he really means it. There is that. Pence is off the charts in religious nuttiness, and social backwardness.

Too many conflicts of interest operating here. Impeachment is a real possiblity. If/When his scandals and mouth become a national embarassment R. Reps will be trying to save their own skins and will start an impeachment process. At the very least within short order they will firewall him. Its all just sowing the seeds for a needed democratic renewal.

I have a question for anyone here. We have a president Trump in power come January. The party banner he ran under was as a Republican but, they didn't do a good job supporting him. He is the president now, but he is sort of, maybe, also a republican. We have two chambers of the house that are Republican controlled at the moment. I am not seeing an easy pass for The house or the senate with a President Trump. If anything, I see the opposite unfolding. Thoughts. Edit: Now I know what I am getting at. The US just elected an independent, not a republican.

But they are not going to be any better off. They are going to be worse off, if the new government enacts protectionism. Rust belt jobs as they were are not coming back anywhere on Earth. I think we can all agree on that. Now if your new pres. and congress can think forward and: - get good affordable education for his voters - get good affordable health care for same. - help out with modern infrastructure (nationwide free wifi, not roads and bridges) - assist the private sector - jump start in a huge way renewable energy conversion. Their lot might improve. But hes not going to do that is he. He, and his aides are going to get really quickly mired in scandals that make your last few governments look downright pristine. Thats because he is what he is... a con artist and a scammer. At 70 years old he isn't going to change suddenly, is he? Infrastructure means golf courses! Lol.

For a start, I wasn't talking about the US population as a whole. Lots of places in the US have done quite nicely since the financial crash. I was talking about places like the rust-belt states. Electorates that were traditionally Democratic states that ended up swinging the election by voting for Trump. Plenty of struggling, disaffected people there who ended up determining the course of the election. But they are not going to be any better off. They are going to be worse off, if the new government enacts protectionism. Rust belt jobs as they were are not coming back anywhere on Earth. I think we can all agree on that. Now if your new pres. and congress can think forward and: - get good affordable education for his voters - get good affordable health care for same. - help out with modern infrastructure (nationwide free wifi, not roads and bridges) - assist the private sector - jump start in a huge way renewable energy conversion. Their lot might improve. But hes not going to do that is he. He, and his aides are going to get really quickly mired in scandals that make your last few governments look downright pristine. Thats because he is what he is... a con artist and a scammer. At 70 years old he isn't going to change suddenly, is he? Edit: On the other hand he may do good. Funny thing is, I dont disagree with reasons of those who voted for him.

They are preparing for a market crash regardless of the outcome. They are freeing up cash to deploy elsewhere. I am using a very simple metric: Trump wins: instant market crash. Clinton wins: market rally followed by market crash. Simply because we are due for one. I cant even begin to quantify how much this election has juiced the economy in the US. Also, When this distraction is past other non US issues will start to weigh on markets. EU, China, et al. This reminds me of the long build up to the 2008 Olympics in China, and what followed after.

Well said. Trump will end up being a pawn for the most skilled politicos, who get elected, or who are already in congress. He is weak and naive, and a sitting duck for professional politicians. My personal feeling is that once this circus is in the rearview we will move on to worrying about the Chinese slowdown, corporate profits taking a beating, the partial disintegration of the Eu, and other nasties that have been overshadowed by who grabbed whose p**. Either outcome leads to a significant correction once the dust has settled.

Finally, and I will shut up for awhile. As much as I like Mr. MM some of his stuff is out there in terms of sustainability. Let me tell you, there is a big difference between DIYing everything between the age of 40 (mmm), and 52 (me). If I dont do heavy lifting and awkward work daily, I pay the price for much longer than he will. I can only assume that this aging effect is going to get worse. MMM doesn't know this yet. Some of his assumptions are based on his age, as are mine. My dad gets frustrated because he is losing muscle strength. He used to DIY everything. Now he is sore for days if he needs to into a crawl space or under a building to get at plumbing or electrical. And he works out every single day, and has for over 50 years. MMM also assumes that he will always be married to his current wife. Dividing assets in an acrimonious divorce can be costly. I shouldn't admit this but I run separate reality checks periodically where I look at a division of assets and its effects on me, my partner, and the kids. Would I be able to thrive financially after a separation? (yes).

I was going to add that we dont have copays for basic medical services, but we do pay for prescription drugs, at market rates - a good employer plan will cover this. I was looking into getting a calcium channel test (the one where you look at the blockages in your arteries). To get it I either have to have symptoms worthy of the test - i.e. a discernible heart problem, or go to Buffalo. Now the problem with crossing borders to get procedures done is that you have no recourse. Try suing the Doctor in the US, Mexico, or India, when you live elsewhere. If its a serious procedure then you also have no aftercare.

It is a difficult problem, not unsolvable. Part of the problem lies with the perception that a single payer system, such as our provinces have is socialism. As we know this is not a well liked concept in the US where folks appear to value their civil liberties more than a social safety net. From my perspective this is not a correct assumption. Our health system is similar to any western countries public education system, including the US. Health care eats a greater peice of the pie than education but it is similar in nature. The US uses the military both as a social safety net, and as a means to move government money into the private sector. Other countries do this to a lesser degree. If government mandated single payer health care is socialism, than certainly government mandated military expenditures into the private sector are also socialism. Its just better hidden.

We dont have free healthcare. Our health care is administered under provincial plans. If you are employed your employer pays your share. If you are not employed or are self employed, and are under 65 you have to pay a provincial health care premium. As it is my wife and I both get surcharged the full amount each year on our taxes for earning too much. My premiums are covered by my Wife's benefits at the moment. If she quits or we separate then I would have to pay direct premiums to the government, somewhat based on my income which I am trying to keep close to zero these days. I am not sure what the premiums are for people who are not employed but 5000 upside per person is the number I use if my Wife were to quit.