DooDiligence

I'd go long Eastern European hookers...

I'll be so glad when all this is over! I just joined this board a month or so ago after having lurked in the shadows & read posts on here for nearly 3 years. The intelligence & restraint I've come to admire in your thoughtful analysis of businesses has completely gone out the window when it comes to which one of these idiots should be our next president. (Here's where someone trots out a post I made about my least favorite candidate which just proves my point...)

Love your avatar (and your thinking...)

Hey Greg; I don't know if you saw this post on another thread by Liberty but the YouTube video is well worth watching. I'm still jaded about the political process & the lack of humanity exhibited (AKA douchebaggery) by the vast majority of our so called business & political leaders but the video made it a tiny bit understandable (if you buy into it which I did...)

I agree (my previous post was a bit narrowly focused.) I had the same problem with my Mom & Sister back in 08 & again in Jan (can't remember all the other hand holding I did in between.) With my Mom it was "oh my God I'm losing money" in 08 until I convinced her the divvies weren't stopping (and that's all she truly cared about.) My Sister has been easier to convince but yeah you're right; poor understanding & short termism blinds many people. I trot out that story about Buffett & the farm purchase (highlighted it from my Kindle copy of the Letters to Shareholders) it's a passage that resonates well.

Glad you cleared that up (I thought you hated him because he was a Huskers fan...)

That is exactly true. How many times do people panic and cash out at or near the bottom, then wait until the almost the top to decide that they should start investing again. It doesn't matter what type of funds you choose if this is your "strategy". There's another thread somewhere on here about frugality & contentment. "Success is having what you want & happiness is wanting what you have" Restless minds grasping for happiness lead to impatience & poor returns...

Buffet uses the existing tax laws because he would be lax in his fuduciary duties if he didn't. Cardboard attacks everything in an attempt to obfuscate (kinda like Trump...)

One leads to the other. See; trickle down economics really does work...

This book makes me want to go back & get an accounting / biz management degree & a CFM & then go do something besides run a boat...

Interesting history. So basically Buffet ran a hedge fund before Berkshire? I assume that some of you are managing funds using methods similar to the Buffet Partnership?

I laughed, I cried - the feel good movie of the year! Really makes me wonder about all the different possible outcomes of a Trump presidency. An attempt to convert the US to a dictatorship & the resultant pine box is a fun thought...

Perhaps you should listen to John Bogle before writing this... I read Clash of the Cultures last month. I'm already a believer with VTI, VXUS & VDE (been $ cost averaging the 1st 2 for years & bought VDE opportunistically when oil hit $30.) I still make picks which I believe fall into the Buffet partnerships Generals Relatively Underpriced category & view the fund investments as the hedges of a scaredycat...

All that aside; I believe Hillary will do a better job of keeping me fat, dumb & happy than that douchenozzle Trump!

I go to my beautiful home & flip a switch which almost never fails to light my way to a box full of food from which I select a tasty repast that gets heated using energy which magically appears & I consume my epicurian delight in front of another box (now more flattish than boxy) which spews all manner of entertainment 24 hours a day. I adjust a device which keeps my climate agreeable while I sleep in a bed that cost enough to feed a small African village for a year. While moving about the country I'm never more than a few minutes from an empty gas tank or a meal. I almost never see where my waste goes (either organic or otherwise) & on the rare occasions I fall ill there's always a helping hand nearby. I get on an airplane & within 12 to 24 hours I see how the other 90% lives (a percentage that anyone can pick nits with...) I lean left of center on social issues which causes me to dislike many of the foreign policy decisions my government makes because they seem either unfair or result in the inhuman treatment of innocents abroad. I believe these policy decisions are made largely with an eye towards maintaining our prosperity because that's what keeps the torch bearing peasants (us) from showing up at Frankensteins castle with pitchforks. I'm not Mother Theresa or Ghandi & to this point I've not been willing to forgo my comforts & move abroad in an attempt to do anything about any of these perceived injustices (maybe some day I will but that's a huge maybe...) Nor am I thick hided (or motivated & capable) enough to attempt to do anything from the power end to influence issues. So like all the other fat, dumb & in my case mostly happy individuals out there, I'll discuss these issues with anyone intelligent enough from the left, right or center & I'll alternately despise and or tolerate those who view things wrongly (as I see it) and I'll shift my opinions as new information gets presented & time passes. I won't be worthy of release from the wheel of life & will hopefully return as a human again...

Thanks for the Kindle book tip! I'll read it after I finish WEB's Ground Rules and Bernard Cornwell's Agincourt (which is just as awesome the second time around.) The next pairing will be the adventures of Musk peppered with a bit of Heinlein (grok it baby...)

Interesting argument Packer but I'll pass...

This is a thread about Trump bringing Buffett into his fight and Buffett responding by being transparent about his taxes, so this was the topic. Saying "If he believed X he would do Y" is a strawman. I don't think Buffett agrees with your reasoning, and I don't either. Buffett has a right to express political opinions, especially on topics that he knows well (incentives, economics, taxation, etc). Buffett isn't saying that he thinks the government can better use his money than the Gates Foundation, he's saying that the current tax system is full of loopholes and exceptions and deductions and weird incentives, and that when you add it all together, it just so happens that the very wealthy are favored compared to say, the middle class, and that he doesn't think this is a good thing for the country because it breeds resentment against capitalism and the wealthy, among other issues. Clear, concise & logical (as such it's totally unusable by anyone trying to swing sheep to vote for them...)

Fuzzy logical obfuscation leads to misdirection...

I saw this on PBS recently & found it very interesting in regards to the 2 party system & its role in the business of getting legislation done. http://millercenter.org/american_forum/episode/what-made-our-politics-so-insane

They kinda got that directly from the GOP presidential frontrunners gob instead of from an email. Someone else said it on here (Liberty I think) & I have felt & said the exact same numerous times over the years "I'm financially conservative & socially liberal." Not sure if the 2 can always reconcile with each other in the real world but it's worked pretty well in mine!

I wish Stephen Colbert and/or Jimmy Kimmel would have actually moderated. (2 guys who are very good hi-lighting absurdity...)

Thanks for your kind consideration! Given that the post was obviously done tongue in cheek I have to wonder who the idiot is here (in truth I don't wonder at all rb...) Nevertheless, if you could still arrange for that airdrop at the aforementioned location :) 8) One load of eastern European hookers comin' up! See - tensions diffused...

Thanks for your kind consideration! Given that the post was obviously done tongue in cheek I have to wonder who the idiot is here (in truth I don't wonder at all rb...)

I worked in the UAE & Egypt for a few years & although I don't consider myself a cultural or political expert, I think I may have a middle east peace solution. If we were to send a massive sortie of B52's to drop pallets of bacon, baby backs & beer (the tension would disappear...) A follow up wave of even mildly attractive, scantilly clad eastern European hookers would seal the deal (Trump could broker this portion!)