Myth465

Packer for a while had alot of cheap telecom stocks. I called them Packer stocks. Frontline is screwed. I wouldnt touch it until after a recap. So far it and the other shippers havent made sense. This will only be sorted when ships are scrapped or when debt is removed lowering the operating costs. Till then I will be watching, as I have for 2 years.

Great interview. Thanks again for the link.

Ya Kuppy recommends buying the best of breed in whatever space though I believe he is in FBK. I think its good advice. If you think an industry is going through hell you might as well do it with the cream of the crop. Management road an up cycle, and didnt want to do anything to realize value. They inmo were quite happy to recap the balance sheet and continue collecting pay checks and making incremental improvement for years to come. Sucks for shareholders, but in the future I will assume that this is what most none value investing oriented Management teams will do.

Its not but I dont think fair and friendly applies to everything they do. They said they wouldnt do an unfriendly acquisition. They didnt say they wouldnt throw in the towel and move on unless the price reflected fair value for everyone involved. They have sold SD which was a big holding for them, and are also short many Chinese linked commodities. I dont think they want to hold Fibrek through another down cycle. Might as well consolidate holdings and focus. Management sucked. Lesson learned, I sold earlier for a gain overall, and might have gotten back in at 50 cents. I have been burned elsewhere though in the meantime by Management if it makes you feel any better ;D

Very good interview. Thanks for posting. I enjoyed his thoughts on Banks.

Interesting listen. Thanks for posting.

They probably just want out. Its a drop in the bucket.

Wow. I guess FFH did have a plan here. This is what happens when the share price doesnt move....

We are getting pretty close. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/22/bloomberg_articlesLV1VT76JTSE9.DTL Frontline says $300-$350 mln would help keep it afloat Frontline Seeks Discussions With Creditors, Counter Parts

Leaving private creditors with the losses. Bank bond holders with the equity, and basically just letting the pain hit the holders of debt and equity. Everything else is just kicking the can inmo. For the sovereigns the EU will just need to print money and move closer together or brake apart disastrously. Not many other options imno.

I think you pretty much have it figured out. Jim Rogers is looking like a genius from where I sit. He said they will print about 1.5 years ago. Germany is going to have to let the ECB do its thing or Europe will crash. Both options suck, but one is much worse then the other. Everything else is just Theater inmo.

It is the labor structure that is hurting the post offices. They should focus on reduced head count and pension packages versus reducing post offices in my opinion. LOL they should do it all. They are already planning on laying off a bunch of people. The Post Master wants to also close more offices, as well as drop Saturday service. I would do all that and drop Weds as well. Let these guys do what they need to do and stop making everything so political. I would cut them lose, give them free reign, and potentially let them enter other industries.

USPS is simply hamstrung by Congress. They have a hard time closing post offices or changing the delivery schedule. Its tough....

Pretty funny. Thanks

Sounds like the US these days...

Bill Gates does both and he is the first most of the time....... Alot of great people are toolbags, but you dont have to be a toolbag to be a great person.

Paul Krugman: Legends of the Fail from Econo View by Mark Thoma The moral of the story: Legends of the Fail, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...Not long ago, European leaders were insisting that Greece could and should stay on the euro while paying its debts in full. Now, with Italy falling off a cliff, it’s hard to see how the euro can survive at all. But what’s the meaning of the eurodebacle? As always happens when disaster strikes, there’s a rush by ideologues to claim that the disaster vindicates their views. So it’s time to start debunking. ... I’ve been hearing two claims, both false: that Europe’s woes reflect the failure of welfare states..., and that Europe’s crisis makes the case for immediate fiscal austerity in the United States. The assertion that Europe’s crisis proves that the welfare state doesn’t work comes from many Republicans. ... The idea, presumably, is that the crisis countries are in trouble because they’re groaning under the burden of high government spending. But .. the nations now in crisis don’t have bigger welfare states than the nations doing well — if anything, the correlation runs the other way. Sweden, with its famously high benefits, is a star performer... Meanwhile, before the crisis ... spending on welfare-state programs ... was lower, as a percentage of national income, in all of the nations now in trouble than in Germany... Oh, and Canada ... has weathered the crisis better than we have. The euro crisis, then, says nothing about the sustainability of the welfare state. But does it make the case for belt-tightening in a depressed economy? You hear that claim all the time. America, we’re told, had better slash spending right away or we’ll end up like Greece or Italy. Again, however, the facts tell a different story. First, if you look around the world you see that the big determining factor for interest rates isn’t the level of government debt but whether a government borrows in its own currency. ... What has happened, it turns out, is that by going on the euro, Spain and Italy ... have to borrow in someone else’s currency, with all the loss of flexibility that implies. ... America, which borrows in dollars, doesn’t have that problem. The other thing you need to know is that in the face of the current crisis, austerity has been a failure everywhere it has been tried... The moral of the story, then, is to beware of ideologues who are trying to hijack the European crisis on behalf of their agendas. If we listen to those ideologues, all we’ll end up doing is making our own problems — which are different from Europe’s, but arguably just as severe — even worse.

LOL

Humm I have been thinking about picking up a book or 2 on just this subject. Please share your thoughts as you get further. Wondering what the key take away / aways will be.

Honestly I think its part skill and part gift. Buffett has figured it out though. I have never come across a clearer speaker and thinker.

Video http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/poor-public-school-education-not-wall-st-blame-183736325.html;_ylt=At5mNKZAsmu_hZfo5RMBXL8p2YdG;_ylu=X3oDMTE2bXA5bDVrBG1pdANEVCBJbmRleARwb3MDMzIEc2VjA01lZGlhQmxvZ0luZGV4;_ylg=X3oDMTFpMm9iMzh1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANibG9nBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3 Ferguson agrees with Packer. I agree to a degree, but I dont think its something thats quite solvable. We have crappy parents, and crappy schools. Fixing the schools without fixing the parents wont do much. Best selling author and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson recently had at it on CNN with Columbia professor and director of the Earth Institute Dr. Jeffrey Sachs over the Occupy Wall Street movemen Sachs - as he recently told the Daily Ticker - thinks Wall Street has acted like robber barons and deserves harsher regulations and increased taxes.

Interesting way of looking at things.

Ya not sure what the point of this thread is. No one is saying its this president or another. Most of the discussion is centered around policy not so much party....

I cant believe Microsoft didnt want the GPA. Times have changed...