zippy1

Parsad, Really need to thank you for starting this board! This is the place I learned the most about investing and about learning to invest. ;D

From Alison Frankel. http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/02_-_February/S_P_s_sham_First_Amendment_defense_against_state_AG_cases/ This time may be different in that the rating agency may have to change how they charge people.

If you know what you're doing, you can start a software company in the US and do the labour arbitrage between US and some BRIC country. You can simply connect American companies to cheaper offshore labour and collect the arbitrage (which can be significant). I am sure the above is true. Look at this guy's story, this guy outsourced his own job! http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579/outsourced-employee-sends-own-job-to-china-surfs-web

Thank you for posting such a wonderful interview!

So do you mean by the number of positions or do you mean by portfolio weighting?

Wow! This even makes it to NPR! http://www.npr.org/2013/01/11/169172202/hedge-fund-titans-bet-billions-on-success-or-failure-of-herbalife

Low propane and ethane prices may finally curtail the oversupply of natural gas. http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704723404578207760445809162.html?mod=BOL_twm_mw

Happy New Year to everyone. May you have a prosperous year in 2013! May you be happy and healthy in this year!

Ha! :) Good one! I know we still have quite a few "cheap" stocks around to be had. However, normally people would be worried about debt ceiling, no? It does not even seem to be getting any attention. I do wonder why... Anybody can share their insight why there is this lack of "concerns" about the upcoming debt ceiling fight? Or that is going to be a non-event?

Richard, Thank you for the thoughtful comments. The above is very well said. It would seem that some of the people do exhibit the above. Another aspect of this is actually how one "defines a problem." Sometimes, it is the root cause of a problem itself that offers a wonderful solution for some other problems. A good example is the invention of non-volatile memories. So my typical interview quetions are like: "What problem were you trying to solve?" "What was the nature of the problem?" "How did you go about to solve it?" "If you were to do it again, would you do it any differently? If you would, how and why?" "Why do you think this problem is an important one to solve?" I found that many graduate students are not ready to answer such questions. I even had a few telling me that they need to check their dissertation. ::)

Ha! Ha! True. Although sometimes there are other reasons. I have a friend whose father was a small town pastor in Georgia. My friend was going to get a job after high school. My friend was told by his father that he is "going to college." My friend then asked his father, the pastor, how they could pay for the college. The answer was that "You are going to earn it." I think my friend spent 6 years and worked part time to get his college degree. He then worked for Chrysler for a couple years and saved enough money to get through graduate school. A truely self-motivated and talented person.

Scott, I am not sure whether the above is addressed to me or not. Assuming it is, I actually don't filter out people "automatically." What I want is to have "evidence" that my potential hires are self-motivated and have basic skills to be trained in reasonable time to contribute in their jobs. I have also found that "top-ranked" graduates from second-tier schools often are every bit as smart but "harder working" than average graduates from the first tier school. Many chose the so called "second-tier" schools for family or financial reasons. Many of my fellow managers would go for the top-tier school graduates. The way I do it, I actually get to choose people without so much competition. I think that, for most people, the advantage of working for a "master" is that it orients you towards going after important problems and also let you see in real life how a "master" operate. For this reason, it does increase one's chance for successes. An example is that so many people worked for Ben Graham ended up being successful investors. Some of them are very smart and formally educated as Buffett and Tom Knapp but others being of reasonable intelligence are also quite successful such as Schloss. Having a degree from a prestigious institution, like you said, does open certain doors for you. However, once you get into the "door" you still have to deliver. I have seen my shares of Ivy League PhDs fell flat on their faces after they "got into the door," so to speak. I also agree with you that for truly great people, with their determination to be successful, they will be successful anyway in whatever they choose to do. A good example is Ted Williams, the baseball player. Everyone knows that he is a baseball all-time great. I read his book about hitting. Judging by the way he approaches hitting, I am quite sure if he wants to be an engineer, he would be a truly great one. Oh, he was also a fighter pilot during Korean war and was the wing man of John Glenn, the astronaut. Just my 2 cents....

Richard, I think what you said are all true and very well put; except that it is not clear to me why being smart and being hard working are mutually exclusive. I am also in Tech, specifically in semiconductor devices. When I was in graduate school, I worked for a guy who led a team to build the semiconductor process for the CPU of the original Mac in the 1980s. The guy was extremely smart; yet, at the same time, extremely hard working. He was my first boss and at the time, I thought he was just an aberration. After I joined the industry, though, I noticed that, in general, it is the "smart and hard working" types that accomplish big things. For example, I met this old gentleman, who had won the highest honor from IEEE for semiconductor devices, but he would come in on weekends to do his work for "fun." Oh, he got his PhD from Rice, was an All-American college football player before going to graduate school and was drafted by NFL in the first round back in 1950s. A very interesting combination to say the least. Now I myself manage about 20 PhDs, including a few from Ivy League schools. In general, they are all pretty smart compared to the average. And I wouldn't bring in average Joes for their jobs as average Joes probably can not even learn the trade in the first place. However, what I found is that the top performers in my group tend to be the "smart and hard working" types. The "smart but lazy" types really can't compete with the "smart and hard working" types in the high pressure environment. So, in my humble opinion, there is really no need to think that being smart and being hard working are mutually exclusive.

Titan to Withdraw Money From SAC http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193874156975406.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

What's worse is that here in Taiwan, 12/22 is a makeup school day. All the kids are disappointed that they have to go to classes.....

Japanese government actually contracted a girl band to sell its bond. I can't stop wondering whether they have run out of buyers. oh, hope you enjoy the video

Gio, Thank you. It is very interesting!

Deepest condolence to the families of the staff members and children gunned down. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sandy-Hook-Elementary-School-Massacre-Memorial-Page/142591449223701

At the same time, in Henan Province, China. A madman got into a local elementary school and attacked school children with a knife. 22 children and one woman were hurt. I wonder if China has the same gun control law as US, there would be 22 dead children and one dead woman instead. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1105731/knifeman-henan-attacks-primary-school-children

So has communications/publishing. Does the 1st amendment not cover what you write over the internet? The founders never imagined that you could write something and have it viewable by anyone on earth 5 seconds later. The revolution was won because of the fact that the colonists had access to the same weaponry as the British. This is sadly not the case anymore. The only way a government will fear its people is if the people have access to the same weapons as it does. The armed aerial drone or the attack helicopter is the modern equivalent of the mounted knight in full armor riding through the medieval village. Had the crossbow, then the firearm, never been invented we'd be living in the middle ages still today. If we don't want to go into another period of violence and stagnation what we desperately need is something to once again even up the power discrepancy between the rulers and the ruled. So, weapon has come a long way. Does "the right to bear arm" include nuclear weapon in people's view? The rulers obviously have nuclear weapons nowadays. If you want to een up the power discrepancy between the rulers and the ruled, isn't that the way to go? Should everyone get one? Would you advice that? Or a M1 tank will do? Maybe a machine gun should be enough? a handgun? a shotgun? or a knife? I am not trying to take away your right. I am just curious about how people think about this.

I think you can get the performance figures from the section about Walter and Edwin Schloss's partnership in Prof. Bruce Greenwald's book. I happened to lend it to my co-workers. Anyway, I happened to have an old 1989 copy of Outstanding investor Digest, which has an interview with Walter Schloss and Edwin Schloss. There is a performance figure table up to 1988. I noticed the 1984 figures are different than yours. I assume the numbers that Buffett published for year 1984 is not the full year figure. Below are the figures for years 1984-1988. Year Annual return 1984 +8.4% 1985 +25.0% 1986 +15.9% 1987 +26.9% 1988 +39.4%

I don't think it is just the size of portfolio. When I was 30 just started working, I had a 2K portfolio and I am ready to risk it all. Now that I am 45, I don't feel comfortable risk 100% of my portfolio any more.

I vaguely remembered that this idea was tried once either on this board or one the previous board. It did not work for one reason or another. At that point, my guess was that it just seems too hard to find people with Parsad's temperament. Some other board members may still remember this. Or am I dreaming?

I found this story about how the crop insurance is being sold quite interesting. Also, one cannot compete on "price." http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/17/158933382/competing-against-the-nicest-guy-in-town

I wonder whether from the political point of view, saving an insurance company, return it back to the private sector, and make some money for tax payers is acceptable; while saving FNMA and FMCC and returning them to private sector, and making some money for tax payers is not acceptable because some people believe that "government should not be in the mortage business in the first place?"