Jaygo

I’m 39 so likely smack in the middle of the age cohort. Very few regrets but one I do regret is not having a third or fourth child. I could go on and on about wisdom that I’ve gotten but honestly I just wish I didn’t get snipped when I did and had one more kid. we made a hyper rational decision and frankly I wish emotions had won the day. I remember 6 years ago thinking another would be too hard, too expensive. We would need a bigger car!! Well now my youngest is seven and he and his sister are the loves of my life. I will never have this feeling again and frankly I’m greedy for another. I guess I’d say that true wealth is family not finance. both are important but the latter don’t mean shit without the former and the former is way more important than the latter.

People who write a letter like this obviously have a mental issue. Growing up everyone knew someone who simply could not stop being a jerk, I deal with the odd one at work and immediate inform them our services are booked until 2030 earliest. They are mean children trapped in an adults world and should be pitied, mature adults don’t call other people losers, sending an insult is a big sign of self loathing. I'm sorry that parsad has to get that type of correspondence but just imagine being married to that person lol. He probably beats his dog and doorman too. Sad stuff

Sorry guys about the letter to parsad. I now admit I was wrong. I meant X not Twitter. Yours truly, a real nut job.

Likely my only post in this thread but it may be an eye opener for you cubs. I am not really paying attention to this war. I don’t read the news or watch it. I get dribs and drabs of info and that’s about it. my opinion is simple. Bad guys did very bad things that need to be dealt with. Isreal likely doesn’t have a right to be there but lines were drawn and it is what it is. My feeling on the history is that we are responsible for our actions today and not of our fathers. If the native Canadians started asking for their land back they would have zero right to it in my opinion. And if they tried to occupy the land they would be the oppressor. Gaza seems like the underdog here that is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Evil terrorist in Hamas and a very aggressive overlord in Isreal. The average Gaza resident is fucked so I simply can’t help but feel for them. I have no religious bias or race. I may be a bigot sometimes but not racist. I really couldn’t care less as long as the people in question follow the golden rule. so to wrap it up I think that the pushback against isreal is not necessarily a race thing but more likely an optics thing. Killing tens of thousands to avenge a few thousand is horrible to the casual observer. nothing easy about this. I fucking hate violence.

What was the population of your city in 1996 vs today. I feel that if cities grow out in a circle like a rock thrown into a pond than the equivalent homes in the same neighborhood should go up in real value For my local, Toronto, the population has basically doubled so a well placed home now has significantly more economic activity surrounding it there so it seems understandable that the price should rise faster than alternatives. The savings rate thing likely has more to do with personal preferences not to work as hard, long or productively as the past therefore the is less production to go around, pair that with the fact that many items are "improving" like cars so now necessary items are increasing as a percentage of wages. Ex. If a bricklayer in 1996 could place 800 bricks a day and drove a small pickup with no airbags, power windows, AC etc and now a bricklayer can place 800 bricks a day but his truck now has a V8, leather, AC, power everything, heated mirrors etc it makes sense that on that one item alone he now has less money to save. Compound this by almost everything in our lives and folks have less money unless they increase their productivity or work more.

The book is fantastic. One of my favorites in the past few years. the story is really a good one but it just doesn’t translate into tv well. Ewan is great but the casting is mostly bad and they basically butcher the whole thing. I also am confused by the colour blind casting. Do the directors not care about making realistic representations? What’s the point of making a movie off a book if your going to make it so shit and poorly represented. Chernobyl series was awesome. I wish the same people made this because the book is really good.

yeah but fucking is free, rock climbing, camping and drinking beer floating on a raft in a river is free. The best things in life are free. Its the idiots who cant figure that out who spend all their money. Id rather be poor at 27 than poor at 77 so id say work hard, play hard but dont kill your future by spending every cent for "fun" Drugs are fun too but do too many at 27 and the rest of your life will be degraded. Spending is similar

This is my thesis for a coming baby boom. AI will render many women dominated jobs obsolete and the economic boom will fall to the the trades. Thus men with more cash and women having more babies.

Thank you, Ive been doing the classic smith maneuver over the past 2.5 years with great success but at the end of the day its still dept and I am still paying the mortgage with after tax dollars. I just can't get over the hump of that 4k a month nut, I think it has become a psychological debilitation that must be exercised. The rrsp idea is interesting though

The smith maneuver is when you borrow the equity in your home and invest. The interest on that dept will then be tax deductible. The remaining mortgage interest will remain Un deductible.

I forgot you may have a deduction on mortgage interest. In Canada we do not.

I’m pretty sure that after taxes it equals out no? I think the idea that SD brings is that you are gaining a level of freedom and flexibility that has a value as well. The numbers are harder to pin down. yeah I may do 8-12% a year but after tax that may just be about the same as paying off a 6 % mortgage.

Our instinctual goal in life is to stay alive long enough to reproduce and ensure their survival until fit. The instinct of spending money and gorging on things is actually pretty simple when it may cause you to be sexually attractive and reproduce. Who gets laid more, the guy with 10 mil in his account or the guy who acts like he has 10 mil. Don’t fret rational cobf’ers I think smarts and rationality can be attractive to the opposite sex as well, just not in your 20’s lol.

Our system isn't made for saving. I personally feel it is totally normal to live paycheck to paycheck. As a lifelong super saver ( 30-40%) i have realised that its more important to earn than to save. I think the earning power of people is more of the issue rather than an unwillingness to save. This season is turning out to be a banger at least for a mid class tradesman, im expecting around 400k beaver bucks at the end of the year and I can really feel my spending habits creeping up and I havent even seen the money yet. kids horse riding camp 8k sure concert tics for my family and my sisters 2100 sure rental cottage for 10 days 9k sure talk of new iphones for wife and I 10 years ago i would have balked at all of these expenses and now that I feel I have the money i'm ok with it. I am not living paycheque to paycheque because I saved so much over the years but if i was only going to bring in 100k this year i think i may spend every single penny. SD a while ago commented that paying of my mortgage may be a good idea rather than investing and I am starting to come around to that even though it may not be the best outcome. I can definitely invision a down year for business but a steady year of higher expenses and having the protection of paid shelter sounds pretty good.

Tourmaline would be great asset for them. Nat gas to run all those power plants. Mike would be a great fit in the culture imo could also be something like td, or a pipeline too. Maybe they buy tmx from the gov.

Teck resources This thing gets murdered then 10x’s every crisis. Seems like a terrible long term holding but swings like crazy so great for a trade.

Food costs rising is more related to carbon taxes, food regulation, subsidies and transportation. North America should be able to produce everything in abundance, imo the government plays a larger role in the costs rising than labour cost just trying to keep up. How bout JD or Cummins makes some cheaper tractors ( manufacturing gets in nuts squeezed with regulation and unions) how bout some cheaper fuel for them tractors ( global warming bs carbon taxes ) How bout we grow food for food ( na lets make fuel out of it too then stop a pipeline from canada, oil is dirty ) Lots more reasons but american ingenuity can surpass any challenge but themselves.

Of course it does but KO is not at a crazy valuation. Also KO is just an example. KO has not done that great for BRK but he has gotten his investment back multiple times just in dividends and likely will another 100x over the next 50 years. I actually look at company longevity as a really good barometer for valuation. If there was no stock market and we were buying companies to hold would you buy one that is fickle or would you buy one that is going to be passed to your grandchildren. The one that was a proven long term winner would possibly demand a higher valuation. I remember my uncle telling me if my parents had bought me $1000 worth of Proctor and gamble instead of diapers on my birthday in 1984 I would be getting $3000 a year from it today ( this was 10 years ago). PG has done pretty well but time has been the biggest contributor. I guess that is just burned into my psyche I know it seem unsophisticated but I think it is a big factor in performance. Otherwise we need to trade in and out to get performance.

I lean with Spooky here. Fairfax does not have the quality investments that BRK did at the time. Those with more knowledge could pair them like for like in a balance sheet standoff but a Greek bank will not ever compare to a successful global credit card issuer, Recipe corp is not see's or a dairy queen, Maybe Bauer could be a see's. Coke is a one in a lifetime brand who is sold in every country globally, nowhere in FFH lurks a similar comparison to KO. in 95 they had a few billion in Gillett and Cap cities at the time too. Fairfax does not have the quality global compounders and I know because these (AMEX, KO, ABC, Wells, GILLETTE) were known compounders back then too and they kept on compounding up to today so you can't just say "wait and see" what FFH does. The interesting thing is in the 90's BRK was still buying smallish furniture and jewelry companies that probably never moved the needle. Maybe Fairfax is still there working around the edges with smaller stuff like the sporting life and Recipe instead of Munger like compounders. Now If they spring up and buy a Hershey, Starbucks, or a Visa maybe that could change the tune. (not investment advice lol) FFH is kind of where I am today. I get way more energy and excitement from buying what ifs that could make me rich than Buffett was buying sure things that would make him rich slowly. Why dont I buy KO today? its too boring. WIll KO be here in 50 years? yep! Will the quirky steel tank company or the ladies fashion retailer be here? maybe, maybe not, but oh man if they are i'm going to be so damn rich! GO LEAFS GO

Great post Viking. Most of those things are still present. I just feel like magic was the system and aside from being huge is still very much in place. will the worlds greatest investor be at the helm, it’s unlikely but that could change and they could also shrink the equity to limit the strain on the next guy. I also think that the amount of potential efficiencies in the operating businesses must be massive and ripe for a bit of screw turning or outright divestment. The complaint about the cash is nuts. I think their interest income alone puts them in the fortune 50 ( this may be totally wrong but I read that ) i’m in the camp of good returns with brk for the foreseeable future.

Try actual mail addressed to him handwritten on a Manila envelope. No stamps or stickers that look corporate. Just you to him. I’ve got past many gatekeepers this way and landed some huge fish that otherwise their secretaries would quickly delete an email. I've gotten calls from some major real estate owners and have jaw dropped when they said who they were. Snail mail for the win imo.

Just curious on why that could be easier this side of the border. Valuation? Less scrutiny?

Ill add to the above misery of the early 1900's that in 1916 you would have lost more lives in one day or week at verdun than the entire Russian- Ukraine war. Life today seems sad and fucked up sometimes but anyone with a notion of history must realize that almost everything is much better today for the populace, even war. I hate war btw and I think it is going to be my most difficult conversation with my children, how to explain to their beautiful innocent faces that some people do horrible things to each other.

Both cn and cp released flat to down RTM quarters, Brk mentioned slow rail traffic in the past 6 months. Pretty sure we are not booming. As far as I can tell the economy is slowing due to to high rates but still moving due to government largess. I think we are one rate cut from a boom to fill pent up demand and people who are on the fence just want to know what way to jump. People in their 20's just want to have a taste of the good life that comes from real capitalism not this dog and pony show we have. If they keep dicking around with China and rates we could see outright recession. Id say drop rates to 3, let the Chinese build are shit for us cheaper than we can, Adam Smith style and we can just focus on spending.

lol. If anyone is surprised by these numbers they are blind. When every single railroad is shrinking volumes ya know something ain’t right. Wages and employment are next.