twacowfca

Yup. But guess where excess tryglyceride synthesis comes from : overeating, especially fructose from high fructose syrup, which can't be used by the body in that form, but must be first converted into glycogen that is then converted into tryglycerides and then storage as fat if the body's stores of glycogen are full.

It takes about five years for an outsider to learn all the ins and outs of a CEO's job in an unfamiliar industry, even more so with Berkshire. The only highly qualified person who knows everything that goes on in all the varied Berkshire subsidiaries and the headquarters is the number three corporate officer after Warren and Charlie. :)

Good point. Even better would be to see the long term results of good individual value investors who have focused portfolios. Individuals are not constrained by excessive concerns about volatility or redemptions. They can concentrate their portfolios even more than focused funds. It's possible to do this with less volatility than with diversified funds, even without paying up for expensive hedges. Individuals theoretically have the ability to buy when the market tanks, but most funds suffer large redemptions then and have to sell when they otherwise could be picking up the bargains of a lifetime. Here's an example: Charlie Munger controls a small business, the Daily Journal, that has mediocre cash flows in a declining industry, publishing. He put that surplus cash into treasuries and realized modest gains over a few years in the new century. When the financial crisis hit, he waited until the bargains were simply too great to resist. Then, he jumped in with both feet and bought very high quality companies near their bear market lows. He continued to buy the same type of high quality company on the pullbacks during the recovery as the paper generated more cash. The result: If I'm not mistaken, the book value of the company, has increased about ten times over the last decade or so, a better result than 99% of the diversified stock funds, even after deducting the % of appreciation attributed to accumulating the modest cash flows of the paper. Here's the most amazing thing, the downside volatility of Charlie's results as measured by net asset value has been about as low as it can get in such a volatile period. Risk adjusted, no diversified fund in existence is likely to equal it.

Actually, according to Paul Allen in his autobiography, Microsoft at that time was the premier supplier of basic software for the early PCs, including Apple, but they didn't have a disc operating system because discs were just starting to displace tape drives. IBM was using them as the go to company to do it all, so they took the IBM executives on short notice to the company that owned the only reliable DOS to sign a contract. The owner was far away hiking or something and couldn't be reached, and his wife was put in the awkward position of dealing with the IBM higher ups. His wife insisted that IBM sign the standard contract her husband's company used, and she refused to sign the contract IBM had prepared. The IBM execs took Allen and Gates aside and told them that that would never work because it would take six months for IBM's legal department to approve a nonstandard contract. Gates and Allen realized how ticked off the IBM execs were, and they saw an opportunity instead of a problem. They said to the IBM execs, "the heck with it, we'll do the operating system just like we're doing everything else", and IBM agreed. At that time neither IBM nor Microsoft knew how important having a superior disc operating system would be for dominating the new industry. Allen knew a guy at a small software co in Seattle who had been working on a PC DOS and had left his company to branch out on his own. They bought the rights to his rudimentary system for $35K, not knowing if it would eventually work satisfactorily or not. As it turned out, it actually had a superior design than the other DOS that was the industry standard at the time. As they worked the bugs out of the DOS they acquired, MS DOS became the standard for the IBM PC and eventually the industry standard. Allen doesn't relate any major problem licensing their DOS to IBM. IBM was happy to get a license from Microsoft for a bargain fixed fee. :) The rest is history. :)

You just made my day ;D LOL What's different, though, is that a reverse merger company company at this stage would produce a report by accountants or consultants stating that everything is OK, not to worry. ;).

We have recently finished the final editing of our latest book on prostate problems including prostate cancer. I was the general editor of the book. Almost certainly, the best course of action for someone diagnosed with stage I prostate cancer is not to treat it in any way, but to engage in "active surveillance" to see if this usually indolent cancer shows any evidence of becoming aggressive. If the cancer shows evidence of becoming aggressive, as is the case about 15% of the time, it can be treated then with a high degree of success. Active surveillance is especially apropos for elderly men because life expectancy is such that the risk of prostate cancer progression within that life span is much lower than in younger men. Treatment has risks and serious side effects, and the overall mortality with active surveillance is no worse for stage I prostate cancer than with early treatment.

Bloomberg reports that Leucadia announced after the market closed today that Ian Cumming, 71, will be stepping down as Chairman when his contract expires in 2015

Please tell me three things you enjoy doing very much, now or in the past, things you did very well! And I will tell you what you want to know.

Is it at QE12234350689943? There are limits. At some point without restraint there will be inflation. Then, major inflation. Then, hyperinflation. However, history suggests that there is likely to be tight money in the US well before we reach major inflation. I'm going to have to eat my words. Everyday purchases price inflation is already here in North America. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) reports that prices paid for everyday items such as food, paper products and similar things that we buy everyday such as gasoline rose 8% in 2011 as measured by their Everyday Price Index.

Yes, but that is pecular to the series since QE2 was announced. The earlier postings of graphs for these series show that change in WSBASE normally leads change in the S&P 500 when The Fed doesn't telegraph its moves in advance.

Yup. BV/SH is the key number. Also, my guestimate is that while tangible BV may have increased by about 10% to 11%, the increase in BV was less. Did I miss something?

The latest WSBASE data supports the idea that change in the S&P 500 is now associated with what the Fed says it is going to do. The latest Fed minutes indicate no QE3 on the horizon. Therefore, we bought OTM puts on the S&P 500 yesterday that happily are up over 40% today. :)

See actual graph of WSBASE vs S&P here http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/change-in-the-sp-500-lags-change-in-the-monetary-base/msg74155/#msg74155

The correlation between change in the monetary base (WSBASE) and the S&P 500 is still very high, but the change in WSBASE during the last several months no longer has lead the change in the S&P 500. Instead, the change in the S&P 500 has been leading the change in the WSBASE. This seems to make no sense. It's like saying that inflation causes an increase in the money supply. However, there is a perfectly good reason for this upside down behavior. The FED in the person of its chairman, Ben Bernanke, has been telegraphing in advance exactly what it's going to do in the near future, as with QE2, and more recently with 'twist' and the stated intention to try to keep interest rates ultra low for the next several months. Thus, Mr. Market in his wisdom of the crowd has been correctly anticipating what's going to happen with the application of the grease that lubricates his forward motion. See attached PDF for graph running from beginning of 2010 to the latest data received in April. WS_BASE_04.04.2012_condensed.pdf

the risk of using margin is never very low in a deleveraging world & a shiller PE of 23x sp500 earnings :( but if you're gonna use margin then brk is one of your better bets. how's your monetary base charts looking these days, btw? The correlation between change in the monetary base (WSBASE) and the S&P 500 is still very high, but the change in WSBASE during the last several months no longer has lead the change in the S&P 500. Instead, the change in the S&P 500 has been leading the change in the WSBASE by a few weeks. This seems to make no sense. It's like saying that inflation causes an increase in the money supply. However, there is a perfectly good reason for this upside down behavior. The FED in the person of its chairman, Ben Bernanke, has been telegraphing in advance exactly what it's going to do in the near future, as with QE2, and more recently with 'twist' and the stated intention to try to keep interest rates ultra low for the next several months. Thus, Mr. Market in his wisdom of the crowd has been correctly anticipating what's going to happen with the application of the grease that lubricates his forward motion.

Unfortunately, Andy reportedly got margin calls when Berkshire took a dive in 1999 - 2000. He didn't panic, unlike most people, but sold some stock to meet the margin calls. He recovered after Warren announced in 2000 that he would repurchase stock at those depressed prices. Today, with Berkshire even more a bargain than in 2000 and Warren once again willing to repurchase Berkshire's stock near the current price, the risk of using margin is very low, but not zero. :)

That's great, Sharper D. Thanks for the Spark Notes about the economics of financing and developing reserves. :)

The critic in the left brain is very important, but both sides are necessary. You might profit from use of a checklist. If your right brain says, "I like this" , and the checklist says that the situation has the characteristics necessary for a high probability of success, you will likely do well. :)

Sanj can speak for himself, but here's my two cents worth. Airlines are the epitome of a bad business. Feeder airlines are the worst subset of that industry. Make a list of all the qualities that make a good business, and one will see that feeder airlines are the antithesis of almost all of those good qualities. :P

The rationale is that The US Treasury did not want bailed out banks to pay increased dividends or otherwise reduce their capital. WEB wanted nothing less.

Is the picture of one of Dingaan's successors in line?

Thanks, Sanjeev. :)