mbreject

I used to self-publish with very minimal costs. I designed the cover and proofread the material myself and just bought Scrivener for formatting. Eventually, I used my proceeds from those books to pay for editing for the next ones. Now, I'm using the proceeds from those to pay for many many rounds of editing in the hopes of getting traditionally published. If you're just doing this to make some extra cash, I'd just publish it without an edit (if you write clean.) If not, at least get a copy edit. Rates are usually .004-.006/word for light copy-editing.

I personally don't think that anything in Snowball was below the belt. But if I were Warren, I probably wouldn't have been happy about the Graham and Astrid stuff. (The whole thing just made me feel really bad for Susan.) I think Schroeder started researching a little before Susan got sick, so it's very possible she got the information from Susan herself. If not, she probably could've gotten the info from Astrid, one of the kids or possibly even a neighbor/friend. Also, some parts of the book made him seem a little immature. I forgot the instance, but I think there was a scenario where he told people to stop buying a certain company, because he hadn't finished getting all the shares he wanted yet. eta: I think it made Benjamin Graham look bad as well. Even if Warren knew all about that stuff, I doubt he would want to be the reason for it to be out there.

I love Schwab, but I wouldn't use them for international trading (unless it's an ADR.) The last time I checked, they wanted a 1% conversion fee.

Unless you need the money, I wouldn't sell it. They're memories you had with your dad. I wouldn't steer my kids towards them though. I was looking at my coin collection a few weeks ago and was shaking my head about some of my purchases. I've paid $400+ for a coin with an intrinsic value of $10. Though it's increased in value, I still feel stupid. I still enjoy looking for old coins when I get change, but it's getting harder and harder to find the good stuff. I do know someone whose mom worked at a bank and was able to get huge amounts of awesome coins. The son has since inherited the collection and is now, contemplating selling them =(

Sold some AMZN and started a position in XCO. Will probably regret this.

Not sure, but it may be because of all the energy he puts into avoiding taxes.

I think that a lot of the people who shop at Costco don't shop around for the lowest prices. They just assume that they're getting the lowest prices, which allows Costco some leeway on pricing. That said, I think I go to Costco ~ twice a month while I go to Sam's Club ~ twice a year. On average, Costco has both better employees and customers than Sam's Club. I went to one Sam's Club where there was no one taking care of the shopping carts. People were literally approaching people who had just left the store so that they could get their cart afterwards. And the person who was supposed to be checking the receipts at the exit was staring at her phone instead of looking at the carts. I also think the customers try to steal more there? I bought a box of trash bags and found some kind of cleaner inside. I also see more opened packages in the store, where people have obviously taken things. I do love the bargain rack at my local Sam's Club though. I think the no prices thing scares people off, but I like playing the guessing game and being pleasantly surprised at checkout.

thanks for posting BAM's letter, James!

Haven't read it, but I've noticed that Columbia Business School has been releasing a lot of books (especially the ones targeted at Munger/Buffett fans) with no real substance.

I have no experience in activism, but something like this would have to be really organized – everyone should agree on what they want from the management and on a head person to represent them in case the company is willing to talk. You might also need to agree on who you would put up for a board seat (if it gets the far.) Also, someone should estimate the costs of doing all this - shareholder mailings, lawyer fees, etc. and everyone could chip in their share. Or since this involves a lot of unknowns, someone can agree to bear the costs (or a portion of it) and everyone sends him the money afterwards. All this would all have to be done somewhere that's more private than these forums. Someone in IR could be regularly monitoring for these kinds of things or could have Google Alerts or something similar set up. This would also prevent freeloaders like me. (Since more shares could help in a vote, you could post it in the forum after everyone in the group has finished acquiring their shares or when you're doing shareholder mailings.)

They use the post office for areas where they don't have paper boys, but you can still request for them to mail it if you're having trouble with delivery. That's why I did when I was having trouble with our paper man, who was definitely not a boy. He had to be at least 40 and was driving a pickup. It's hard for a kid to compete with that! ETA: It's possible that your delivery guy is just collecting the fees without actually delivering the papers. Our delivery guy delivered both our daily newspaper and Barron's and he would often not deliver the latter, because he would leave before they were delivered. I'd always assumed he would drop by the office on his way home and just throw away whatever he didn't deliver.