formthirteen

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65452940 The bad news: The good news:

Thanks. I started a separate thread so we could continue the discussion there:

Starting a thread on Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP) plays. Better late than never, a year ago would have been a better time to start one. Thesis: the banks were given a lot of funds via the ECIP program and preferred stock investments by Money Center Banks: Source: https://www.eriksencapitalmgmt.com/investor-letters Ideas: CZBS (Citizens Trust Bank), MFBP, PCB, UBAB, BFCC, etc. Most of them are microcap banks. Call reports are available at: https://cdr.ffiec.gov/public/ManageFacsimiles.aspx

Thanks. I've read his letters. The "EPIC play" is interesting, especially with recent developments in the banking sector. Does anyone here have ”Goldman Sachs” big enough to buy any of them (CZBS, MFBF, PCB, CZBS, UBAB, BFCC, etc)? I was thinking of YOLOing into some of them but it's not really my style to go against the market.

Depends on your viewpoint, for example, when they stopped the Russians from advancing toward the West, and when they helped overthrow the dictator. Anyways, I don't like to argue with people when we're all talking about the same things from different viewpoints.

I agree unless we talk about principles. The United States has the principle of freedom. There's a reason people in Europe don't talk and care about freedom as much as people in the United States. Europe doesn't defend freedom (and capitalism) in the same way and relies on the US to defend it (WW1, WW2, NATO, Ukraine) even with Russia as a neighbor. Everything is not that simple until it is

Yes, the whole of Europe is marxist compared to the US. That's also why they understand and are more sympathetic towards Russia and China than the US. Because <insert human biases here> and <name of autocrat here>. He doesn't ”need it” because he's Charlie and can do (and does) whatever he likes. However, he uses leverage, has a history of losing everything (house and money), invests in China where there's a risk of losing everything. Ask Warren Buffett about leverage, investing in China and rule #1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lessons-charlie-mungers-early-partnership-164823987.html

Thanks @sleepydragon I have a similar opinion as Mr. Dalio and it's a good thing that he sees things clearly and tries to communicate it to others. Somehow, in all political systems, there's always an elite and the workers always do most of the work. Weird. Judge people by their actions, not their words. Equal misery and the same outcome for all (except the elite) vs. unequal prosperity and different outcomes for everyone. I think Charlie Munger needs help with risk management. He has a history of blowing up his investments and getting margin called.

China “the biggest threat to the Netherlands’ economic security.”: https://apnews.com/article/intelligence-netherlands-terrorism-threat-russia-china-dutch-cyber-attack-277fb0dc4203cbe6fbbc7ad8476b4184 Meanwhile in France: https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-04-airbus-and-china-aviation-industry-sign-next-phase-in-partnership https://www.reuters.com/world/macron-says-europe-should-not-follow-us-or-chinese-policy-over-taiwan-2023-04-09/ Meanwhile in China, BYD is on the offensive:

Unpopular take: I'm happy to suffer through a nuclear strike or two for my type of freedom instead of the Putin or Xi type of freedom Hopefully, humans and animals that can handle living in an autocracy a cleptocracy leave before the strike so that they can live happily ever after. They can even leave during the nuclear bluffing phase if they prefer. In other words, Putin's nuclear threats don't scare me. Yours sincerely, Armchair General

I know what they say about statistics but this one is 100% true: https://babylonbee.com/news/study-finds-massive-spike-in-people-getting-shot-by-alec-baldwin-under-biden-administration

Thank you for the tip. Reading it now and found interesting things already: GOOGL

Just finished listening to the podcast. As I expected, it's mostly about what ancient philosophers already figured out, with modern examples of fear, attachment, ego, mindfulness, letting go, meditation, etc. Nothing bad about selling value-add services based on ancient philosophy

Thanks, this is something I'm interested in. Here's another similar podcast episode: Decision Making at Mach-2: An Air Force Fighter Pilot Teaches *You* To Think Clearly | Hasard Lee https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decision-making-at-mach-2-an-air-force-fighter-pilot/id794030859?i=1000608572846 For example, relaxation is an important concept in the quest for top performance. I'm sure there are some fighter pilots and golfers here

Sayonara HIFS.

Macron showed his cards at the poker table, LOL. Weak hands.

AAPL and NVDA puts

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/03/chatgpt-gets-its-wolfram-superpowers/

Deposits are also moving into money market funds: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-31/why-us-bank-deposits-are-moving-to-money-market-funds#xj4y7vzkg

It's like having a smart and know-it-all assistant who you can't trust 100% (didn't take the meds or took the wrong ones). The assistant gets the job 80% right, and the rest you can hopefully complete yourself. Google has the same issue and you're stuck doing the job of the assistant who gathers information (from spam farms) and does the initial draft (better than you). ChatGPT gives me a productivity boost compared to Google. I'm happy to pay $20/month for ChatGPT an assistant. How to improve the reliability of ChatGPT is explained in this official guide: https://github.com/openai/openai-cookbook/blob/main/how_to_work_with_large_language_models.md https://github.com/openai/openai-cookbook/blob/main/techniques_to_improve_reliability.md Someone could also create an "air conditioner assistant" by fine-tuning a ChatGPT model for your use case, if they had the data (e.g. questions and answers): https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/fine-tuning https://github.com/openai/openai-cookbook/blob/main/examples/Fine-tuned_classification.ipynb

Yeah, ChatGPT will only get better (except the woke part), while Google will continue its slow decline to irrelevance (for me). Google is 80% spam and 20% ads, or was it the other way around

Saw this on Tweeter: Business as usual. Debt has to be paid by someone, probably the taxpayers as it looks now. Not an expert, and I don't know what this means, but I would guess it means stick to quality.

I also bought some KNOP options lottery tickets earlier this week.

CABO, I need to buy shitcos on a semi-regular basis to remind myself that I don't want to own shitcos, IMHO.