clutch

ZM is an obvious one. Not only it is resistant, but seems to be inversely proportional so far.

Corona. (sorry, couldn't resist)

If America finds a cure faster than other countries then perhaps the fattening of the pharmaceutical companies has been worthwhile. Do you think another country (socialized medicine or otherwise) has a better chance? Yes, China, with the biggest socialized medicine in the world. (I'm being sarcastic, of course)

You suspect 100k+ to be infected. Let's say around 1000 died (10x the official amount to be really skeptical) which would mean that the death rate is still only about 1%.

good idea for appreciating assets. dont see it for depreciating assets imo. I suppose a true value investor would buy a Mercedes 300sl gullwing. and not drive it. Maybe one way to look at this is what is the "intrinsic value" of owning a particular car? For me, every moment of driving my 06 cayman s was so enjoyable, so that intrinsic value was much greater than the cost of ownership. I also had almost 0 depreciation over 3 years with that car, btw.

I think risk adjusted return is much more important for comparison than absolute return over one year. I could have levered up and gone 120% long SPY and sold puts on the SPY and generated "alpha" but I took on considerable risk. Maybe somebody generated 20% but had 30% in cash or hedged. Only times I hear "risk adjusted return" is when a money manager justifies his lackluster performance due to holding too much cash. They never mention this when the performance is the other way around.

Kudos to you. Reading Dostoyevsky should be mandatory before anyone is allowed to discuss politics. ;)

If you could do basic maintenance yourself, then a well-maintained, low mileage Porsche Boxster / Cayman / 911 below $30k. There is a good chance that you'd be able to sell it for about the same or even at a higher price in the future.

I switched my RRSP strategy this year to buy a single ETF (VOO). It feels incredibly liberating -- more time for my family and hobbies and fewer distractions at work. As much as I liked learning about investing and businesses, I have learned that there are other things in life I enjoy more. FYI, I came to this conclusion after about 5 years of stock picking and my performance closely matching the returns of 90% S&P + 10% bonds. I knew I wasn't good enough and it wasn't worth the risk/time/effort.

Let me correct that for you. Libertarian Science The belief that government intervention can put science in a box and limit progress. Nice one. :) Not only that, remember it's the government that mainly funds science so they can certainly bias its direction as well.

So you are telling me because every physicist agrees that gravity is a fundamental force that invalidates it? The reason no one is challenging CO2 = global warming is that no explanation makes more sense. It's important to know that, climate models are continually improving, so while they all generally agree that carbon causes global warming, they have taken into account more factors like the melting ice caps, Siberia, gulf stream etc (this is not my area of expertise so I don't pretend to know these things well), so they are improving. At some point attempts to falsify climate change caused by carbon have failed and so the refinements all take that as given. That is also how science progresses. Once given enough evidence, some things are taken as given and further theories build upon these facts to model even more nuanced phenomena. The existence of gravity and its theory are not just based on scientific consensus/agreement, but they can be objectively confirmed (or refuted) using empirical evidence. The model (law) of gravity can predict forces/motions of objects with 99% accuracy (e.g., we get rockets on the Moon). The climate change theories and models (horribly inaccurate), as of now, are mostly based on subjective consensus and insufficient data; therefore, inferences made based on them should not be taken as scientific facts.

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science) "Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method." Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

Am I missing something? Relatively costless policy changes???? Aren't the proposals massively costly? In the trillions in terms of the US economy. The real question is what are the costs of doing nothing? If sea levels were to rise 10-20 feet, CAT 5 hurricanes become the norm, more extreme droughts, etc., what is the price tag of that? Additionally, if you read about mass extinsions throughout world history, it's commonly theorized that sudden climate change (warming and cooling) has been a major factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event. This isn't a 50-100 year problem (more like 50-100 million yrs), but illustrative of the potential scope. Remember the same group of scientists call this global cooling in the 70s then changed it to global warming and now climate change. Seems fishy to me of all their predictions Scientists aren't generally monolithic and those who are saying that are misleading you. Some scientists believed there was global cooling, most were unsure or critical. With global warming, almost all climate scientists are in agreement. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling Which actually indicates the psuedo-scientific nature of climate predictions. You don't need agreements to show that the pressure of air rises with increased temperature. You can run as many experiments as you want to reject the null hypothesis, and that's that. It's only when such empirical testing is not possible -- as in the case of climate change predictions -- people resort to "scientific consensus", which should be always up to debate and cannot be taken as absolute truth.

again i am quoting any category 5 in the atlantic. doesnt have to land in florida. Again it seems arbitrary to use a criteria of hitting florida to measure an effect of global warming. Nothing suggests global warming will make hurricanes more likely to hit florida (conditional on them forming). Rather look at all hurricanes that have formed in the atlantic in a given year. Heres the third time I provide a different source for my claims: http://www.stormfax.com/huryear.htm As you can see, the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes show a consistent uptrend if you look starting for the late 1800s early 1900s. I'm too lazy to perform a hypothesis test, but I would be shocked if the mean number of hurricanes from 2000 onward or 2010 onward or 2005 onward wasnt significanttly different than the mean at the 1% level. That test will only confirm that the number of major hurricanes varies across different time periods, but nothing about the effect of climate change on such number.

I have expressed this in the past but I will mention this again here. Environmentalists/liberals have picked a wrong tool (that is science) to convince people that climate change is a big issue and it's caused by humans. Because if you know anything about the scientific method, there is no way you can prove either of these hypotheses -- "climate change (via CO2 level) is caused by man-made activities" or "climate change (via CO2 level) causes more catastrophic weather events". Climate scientists can only make *subjective* predictions based on interpretation of data (i.e., correlations, models, etc.), but they cannot prove/disapprove such hypotheses. It's not any different from economists making stock market predictions. Yet, many people treat those hypotheses as absolute truths because many scientists say so. If you disagree, tell me how you would empirically test either of the hypotheses. There are simpler yet better arguments to be made based on ethical/moral/economic reasons to protect the environment. Yet, the environmentalists/liberals are trying to demonize and crush all skeptics in the name of the "absolute truth" of science. It's basically a new form of religion. There is no more debate to be had, it's the absolute truth, and we are all going to hell if we do not chastise ourselves.

Another strategy completely based on hindsight. :-\

In fact, this kind of rental income won't often be reported and therefore don't show up in the debt-income ratios... Also consider that many house owners in Toronto/Vancouver can have foreign income sources that also don't get reflected in the ratio.

Awesome! Glad you enjoyed your trip and thanks for sharing. If you ever want to visit this area again in the future, come late september and you can see some of the best beautiful fall colors.

I highly recommend visiting Jean Talon market. Stop by St Viateur on the way to grab some Montreal bagels fresh off the brick oven.

3 days for Toronto + Niagara Falls and 3 days for Montreal. Nothing much to see in Ottawa except Parliament Hill, while both Toronto and Montreal offer a variety of things to see/do.

I expressed this earlier, but the value of bitcoin is in its history, which will always be unique. I can make an exact replica of the Paul Newman Daytona but nobody will pay me millions for it. Then why is the original watch worth $17.8 mil? It's the history behind it, not the physical features of the watch. It's the same scenario with bitcoin. If you look at these things with a purely utilitarian view, nothing will make sense.

Possibly my favorite part about bitcoin is those who continue to scream tulips/bubbles/scam over and over again without thought, as if blessing the "scammers and gamblers" who own bitcoin with their infinite wisdom. Will continue to do so as bitcoin transitions to a multi-trillion dollar mature non-sovereign censorship and depreciation resistant store of value? It's not surprising at all. People say gold is in a bubble all the time.

Hope that the use of "we" is not a sign of multiple personality disorder.

Just wanted to revisit this post now that Berkshire bought Amazon... is it BRK breaking its principles or is it BRK evolving its mindset? And what about you? ;)

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn Although the political discussions tend to bring out the worst of us, I don't think that's the main issue. The fault is in ourselves.