zippy1

I wonder how the board view this news. If one becomes a shareholder, how can he be sure that the government is not out to "get" him? http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/usa-housing-idUSL2E8JH3J420120817?feedType=RSS&feedName=marketsNews&rpc=43

I checked my calendar to see whether this is April 1st or not. But burger joint recommendation probably will be worth it. In fact, information about when you will be going out for lunch will be highly valuable, based on my little experience. ;D

I am not sure whether there is a debt problem as in US. I just moved back in 2006 from US so I am not sure about how this one compares against the late 1990s. My guess is that this one is less severe than the one in 1990s. In 1990s, there was also a stock market bubble at the same time. For the last 5-6 years, though, people in general are quite pessimistic about the Taiwanese economic future. People appear to have enough cash flow based on current interest rate. However, if interest rate goes up to the 4-5% range from the current 2% range, I am sure plenty of people would be in trouble. The NTdollar exchange rate vs. US dollar appears to fluctuate between 28 and 32. Right now NT dollar is around 28 and considered on the high side. Most of the businesses would like to have NTD devalued as they are suffering from appreciating NTD. Many Taiwanese companies have cross margin of 3-5% so are worried about any NTD appreciation. By the way, in here, the "real" RE speculators, are very leveraged. Since land are expensive, new development projects tend to be 13-15 story buildings. These can take up to 2 years to build. When you buy, you put down 3-5% of the buying price, and over that period of 2 years, you pay maybe another 3-7%. This essential gives you an "call" option on the apartment. This "option" is transferable. There are "RE investors" just flipping apartment units this way. I didn't know that there are "options" like this before I moved back. At the time of the closing, that is the time you become "the owner", you pay the builder the rest, with loan up to 70%. Most of the speculators will not wait till this stage as amount of leverage will have to be reduced. Of course, there are also the landlord types, who buy apartments to rent out. Since Taiwanese interest rate is so low with mortage rate around 2% and one year CD around 0.25%. A 3-4% gross yield on the property price, appears quite high. Since the house price quotes are not available daily, people tend to think that prices are stable. If the interest rate goes up to the 4-5% range, "investors" with borrowed money will have cash flow problems, I guess. "Investors" without borrowing may move their money back to the bank also. Taiwanese Central bank actually has reduced the upper limit on the loan-to-value ratio recently and has issued orders that loan amount per square feet can not exceed certain numbers. It has also summoned heads of various banks for "coffee drinking" (a taiwanese term of moral persuasion) about the real estate loans. I am not so sure about what Mainland China is doing though.

There is probably a RE bubble in Taiwan also. Walking out my apartment, within 10 minute walking distance there are about 4 or 5 selling offices for RE agents. Here in Taiwan, due to the limited supply of land, RE prices has always been high in the Taipei area. People appear to be willing to spend more money (in terms of so many month's salary) than in US. But I am not sure whether we have really pushed it too far this time. A small apartment here in Hsinchu costs about US$150-200K. In Taipei, the price could easily double. To give you an idea about how affordable the prices are. Engineers with MS degrees typically make about US$25K a year. Teachers, considered well paid locally, proabably make about US$20K a year. Starting salary for college graduates is about US10K a year. Another way to look at it, I was renting an apartment for US$1K per month a couple years ago. The apartment owner wants to sell it for about US$330K. It would seem to me that the price relative to rent is quite high. In Hsinchu, where I live, I was told by several co-workers that there was a mini-bubble in late 1990s, when the science park here was expanding quickly. There was a crash following the burst of 2000 Tech bubble. It took 6-7 years to recover. So people do know that it is possible to lose money "for a while" in RE here in Taiwan. One thing may be interesting this time around is that here in Taiwan, one can only get "floating" rate mortgage. I have not been able to find any banks wanting to make loan with a fixed interest rate. I often wonder why people here are confortable with these large floating rate loan. I also wonder whether the low monthly payment is pushing the prices too high since the mortgage rate is around 2%. The property tax is less than 0.1%, as far as I know. Holding costs of a property is quite low here it appears. So many people seem to be willing to hold on to their properties.

I respect short sellers for they offer me opportunities to see my own possible mistakes. However, I just don't see why Hester has to drag Francis Chou into this discussion for holding a minute position in his fund. It appears to me that Hester is just trying to be spiteful and provocative. It says more about Hester than Francis.

Ha! Ha! Ha! That is a really good one!

Hsinchu Taiwan --> Austin TX ---> Plano TX---> Hsinchu Taiwan A 20+ year journey.

Actually, more than one directors of Mr. Wang's fund are connected with this other fund. Also, I do wonder how small funds like these can sustain themselves economically. An asset base of US$15M with 1.8% expense ratio is only US$270K. Now for PRGRX, I am wondering why they did not pull the plug.

Actually he seems to be a humble guy trying to invest well by himself and avoid fame and notoriety. I don't see him claiming to be the "best in the world" himself. Quickly looking at his holdings over the years, they actually have some overlap with stocks mentioned here.

Hardincap, there is your answer. Bac has 12 per share of TBV and over 20 BV, once goodwill can be assumed ok. Rather than waiting for BAC to buy back shares, you can buy as many as you want at a price cheaper than BAC will ever get. you're missing my point. I WANT bac to buy back shares at these valuations alongside me. We are not "missing" your point at all as many of us were through the Fairfax journey. We just don't agree with you that it is the priority right now.

this publicity is going to boost RL ratings. And he will replace that advertising. In fact wait 6 months when this blows over and many will be back. One advertiser, Carbonite (CARB) , is down 9.5% since Mondays's withdraw of their radio ads to "ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.” Lets see how long this interest in civility lasts in the face of falling revenues. http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/06/investors-flee-carbonite-after-limbaugh-announcement/#ixzz1oPzzWTUi Note to CEO's: Inserting your company into a heated political debate is destructive to shareholders and a no_win situation! Onyx1, To be frank, this particular company is losing $1.84 per share. So the price decline may not have anything to do with the CEO's pulling ads. There are 29 companies who withdrew their ads, if on the average they did fall more than the benchmark index(es), then I will buy your argument.

It would not be. Thank you.

Would it be polite to contact the Schloss family, after the grieving period, about getting a copy? Sorry, I am a foreigner. I am not sure such things are typically done or not.

Did Buffett make this kind of statement? Are you just putting words in his mouth? I happen to agree with Buffett. Should I also just write a check and shut up, too? Should everyone who happens to agree with BUffett also just write a check and shut up? If you don't want to hear from us, why do you bother getting on this board considering you have "one" post about investing?

When one subscribe to OID, the interviews are included in the free back issues in a spellbinder.

According to Bloomberg, it is arond 14-15. http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/PESHANEW:IND/chart/

Is J.P. Guerin related to Rick Guerin of the Pacific partners in any way? I remembered seeing an article on Forbes years ago about J.P Guerin investing money in movie industry... http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/0612/6514414a.html

His aunt goes to the same church as we do here in Hsinchu. Plenty of my co-workers are rooting for him once they found out that he is playing in NBA. I guess the question on the value board should be "is there something similar to the moneyball situation that there is some hidden value that no one noticed?"

It not only fulfilled my expectation, it actually more than fulfilled my expectation. I actually bought more than 20 copies of the Chinese version and gave them to the engineers who work for me.

I recall that last time we had a topic like this, we got hit with a major downturn. So I am double checking my thesis on my holdings.....

I pointed out earlier though that under a dividend franking system we could give US corporations the ability to pay tax-advantaged dividends out of after-tax income (so the individual doesn't pay tax twice on the dividend). The individual would then only pay tax if his personal tax rate were higher than the corporate tax rate. I find it surprising that I've never heard this kind of system discussed anywhere in the US media. Scenario A: A corporation that pays no tax will be one where the owners need to pay up to the highest marginal income tax on any dividend. Scenario B: A corporation like Berkshire that is a good corporate tax citizen (pays up to 35% marginal rate) will be able to distribute tax-advantaged dividends that are not taxed twice (individual only pays tax if the personal income tax bracket is higher than the tax rate paid by the corporation). Pretty straightforward solution to this long running argument. Perhaps the players aren't actually looking for a solution? The Republicans likely want a 0% individual tax rate, even if the corporations also paid nothing. The Democrats likely want to tax the dividends twice if they can. Actually, this is similar to how Taiwanese tax system works, I think.

Tim, It would still be far more fair than the status quote, one would think. Are you proposing, instead of what Buffett proposed to move the rate to 30%, to move to 36%, in order for the proposal to be fair? I am confused by your statement. Now, you are saying that since the proposal does not raise the rate on the "super-rich" high enough, by your standard, so it is unfair? And even more unfair than the status quo?! Your line of thought just do not strikes me as logical and self-consistent. Zippy. I am saying that if Buffett truly believes his argument regarding his taxes and those of his staff that he, if he is consistent and truly seeking fairness, must call for his taxes to be higher than all of them. So he should be calling for capital gains and dividends to be taxed at a rate of greater than 41%. I say greater because using Buffett's logic to its ultimate conclusion would also note that it would be unfair to pay the same rate since his annual income is 50 times what his staff's is. Thus his solution to unfairness is just reduced unfairness. That is wimpy. The solution to injustice is not reduced injustice. It is justice. If he truly believes his position, it is inconsistent on his part to argue anything short of a higher rate for him than his staff. If the "wimpy solution" is already so hard to implement with your such vehement opposition, what is the chance of the truly brave proposal to be passed in your view?

In late 90s, for a while, it would seem that Microsoft was there.....

Tim, It would still be far more fair than the status quote, one would think. Are you proposing, instead of what Buffett proposed to move the rate to 30%, to move to 36%, in order for the proposal to be fair? I am confused by your statement. Now, you are saying that since the proposal does not raise the rate on the "super-rich" high enough, by your standard, so it is unfair? And even more unfair than the status quo?! Your line of thought just do not strikes me as logical and self-consistent. Zippy.

I agree that traders and bankers serve a purpose. I just couldn't figure out how hi-frequency trading helps the economy and how allowing banks to become "too-big-to-fail" is necessarily good.