Xerxes

This is really good. M’lord Boromir is now M’lord Cromwell, the King’ Hand to Henry VIII This is a great mystery, thriller.

I thought clarifying Greg A. as the end-all capital allocator was important. Clearly ahead of T&T. It is a company for Christ's sake with a CEO as the top dog, not a socialist political party with different fiefdoms, where grey zone (potential conflict) could exists between T&Ts and Greg in the post-Buffett era. T&Ts are in fact legacy of the Ancien régime, where Buffett needed help with getting ideas, to incubate and seed large positions. In fact, the entirety of equity investment portfolio besides the very large 4-5 and Japanese positions are not really worth keeping and/or spending time. Greg may or may not keep them, but it is his call to make. I would clear the deck in year 1. Buffett had the best-in-class lieutenants during his time as the benevolent CEO, so he had free time chasing Paramount, Activision and Cable cowboy's tracking stocks etc. Totally insignificant, but it kept him busy. The fact that they exist is a historical to how Berkshire came to be. Greg would be running the business as an industrialist-operator and not as a founder-equity-investor. No time for trading stocks.

1 more just now !

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/value-investing-with-legends/id1459993408?i=1000654410861

Buffett has some big competition tomorrow. It is also Star Wars Day. May the Fourth Be With You.

Berkshire Hathaway 25 years from now. … with Wall Street watching.

to flip this comment, we could ask if Berkshire had $25 billion market cap today in 2024, does one expect it to have a portfolio filled with “Coca-Cola's, Amex's, See's Candies, Apples” and the likes of it. probably not

It is interesting how we the folks in the West are viewing this. Through the lenses of geopolitics .. NATO this, NaTO that, Putin this, Article 5 that, Munich 2008 meeting this etc. I bet actual Russians and Ukrainians are seeing this as a “family quarrel” or a civil war of sort. Geopolitics being secondary to that.

If Buffett ever uses a special dividend at some point it will be IMHO for “signalling” reason telling the regulators to chill-out vis a vis BHE. Better to give back it to the shareholders than “throwing more money at bad money”. I don’t think he will ever issue special dividends for the sake of creating a lower base, to grow from.

congrats sir, Your article is also pegged to the Berkshire stock news. On an unrelated note, I am must admit, i am bit confused on the “architect” difference between BRK (pre-GenRe) and FFH today. Same market cap, but the float size was vastly different as a ratio to each other. Is that in your opinion an accident of history in their life cycle at those points in time or preferred “architecture” whereby in BRK case most of the market cap was hinged on retained earning as oppose to the size of the float.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/money/other/buffett-favored-mitsui-rises-after-announcing-share-buyback/ar-AA1nXzr4

thank you so much happy you had a great time there

I think it was Koffman who spoke to this more than anybody else. He suggested that neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian armies today are the armies (in terms of composition) that we saw in early 2022, given the high level of attrition. Ukrainian army has lost its youngest more capable, Western oriented generation and today the army is led by more its Soviet-influenced officers, coming out of retirement to backfill. These folks are more top down as oppose to Western style self sustained decision making at unit level that characterize the early days. Also, my understanding was that Western advisors were leaning on Ukraine to use combined-army approach, (land and air forces working in close collaboration to make breakthrough), and that at some point during the offensive Ukrainian high command throw in the towel and revert back to what it knows best: artillery duels. Koffman view (if I remember correctly) was that it was a mistake for the West to lean on them to do something they were yet ready for. Something along those lines. Valuable time and resources were lost. One thing that Ukraine has done really well is waging asymmetrical warfare in the Black Sea and deep within Russia using drones. It doesn’t win your lands back but I suppose you got to keep hitting where it hurts at the underbelly.

you are missing one crucial fact. Bakhmut. The city became a political objective for Zelensky both to draw Russian manpower and deny the Russian the city as a victory. That Ukrainian political obsession with Bakhmut is what allowed Russian General Staff to build the incredible defensive Survikin Line, while empty their prisons to support Zelensky’ political cause. Ukraine may have killed at a ratio of 1-4 (or more) for now fallen Bakhmut, but it could ill afford the 1 vs 4, given the quality of its troops vs human wave coming out of prisons. Ps : also at some point in 2023, Ukraine moved back from its aspiration to fight like a NATO joint force and revert back to what knows well. Soviet style warfare.

Geopolitics and investing do have one thing in common: Sometimes you get it very right but often you get it wrong. When the latter happens, you need re-evaluate. Think about how many times Kissinger was wrong, yet we highlight his steering of U.S. toward PRC, and breaking the taboo as his legacy. Putin certainly misread the situation and the reaction of the West in 2022. Yet, he is more powerful today in 2024 than he was in 2022. People on this very board and Twitter, made lists of all the things Russia lost since 2022 (sanctions, NATO expansion, brain drain etc.) as if geopolitics is about doing NPV computations. I would argue that the world that is shaping up today is more aligned to Putin's liking than pre-2022. I would argue that he is a happier man today.

Chris Bloomstran would argue very strongly against the #4 statement. Issuing stock at 3.0x BV to buy a large chunk of bond-portfolio that allowed Berkshire to "diversify" its highly skewed equity exposure to Coca Cola and others without selling it. Whether Buffett agrees with that or not, it is irrelevant. He went through the unpleasant exercise of dealing with General Reinsurance derivative portfolio, so he may have a bias. But the end results is that he issued expensive equity at the right time and diversify away, whether he intended or not. At the end he was right for the wrong reasons, ... and sometimes it is like that. You take it.

Biden is buying the dip in Kazakhstan, scooping up outdated assets (possibly for Ukraine) https://ca.yahoo.com/news/us-buys-81-soviet-era-145127753.html

your logic is not wrong. But where you are wrong is that you forget that the Kremlin lost the Cold War !! You don’t get to lose and get to keep your imperial privileges at the same time. There are no rules to this game. Only what you make yourself. If Kremlin prevails in Ukraine in 2024-25, then a new equilibrium is established and imperial privileges are restored. And that is the future that the West is working hard to ensure that does not happen.

see 1854 Crimean War, it started off as helping the “sick man of Europe” (Turkey at the time, Ukraine today) against an aggressive Tsar, but soon became “let’s get glory while we are at it”. 2022 war would have become the same thing with NATO boots in Ukraine if not for the MAD doctrine, where some sort of “equilibrium” is de facto established.

I went in 2023 to Japan, my second time after a 15 year hiatus, my first time was in 2005. I missed seeing both times Nagasaki. I have a thing for old Portuguese colonies. You can add Gao, Macau to that list. I did see Malacca and Penang in Malaysia. it is interesting how memory works. I went to see the Shogun palace in Kyoto in 2005. And I had good memories of my visit for +15 years. when I visited again in 2023 the exact same location in Kyoto, the museum of course had not changed, but I have no longer access to my 2005 memories. They are now superseded by 2023 of the same location.

hi well done sir. is there a specific peak or trail you would recommend for first timers in Nepal ? Which is more than a hill but not a killer. I have been up to +5,000 meter in Peru. Not a peak per se, but across the rainbow ridge.

Long Live the Empire

I don’t know where I read this. It was about someone who was watching Masters of the Air who was recounting a conversation he had, I think, in the 60s or 70s with one of those retired bomber leaders post-war, and how someone in his early 20s could have so much responsibility. The person then mentioned that he wouldn’t trust his own 20 year old with a wheelbarrow.

There is nothing wrong with politicians starting wars offensive and/or defensive, as they are there to led and we elected to do just that. Or in some cases they put guns on our head and said elect me. However I expect every one of those same politician to put their owns sons and daughters right in the frontline, ready to give their lives for that vision that was so important. I think this should be in fact a requirement. Skin in the game.

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/frontline-ukrainians-fear-aid-u-083843561.html …. Biden promised the arms shipments would begin immediately and hailed what he called “a good day for world peace.” The reaction here, near the front lines of the war, felt very different. Oleg sighed when The Daily Beast told him about the events 5,000 miles away in Washington, D.C. “Are you serious?” he said. “Now this war will just continue.” ….. …. Soldiers told The Daily Beast Russia hopes to take control of the city in the Donbas region by May 9, the World War II Remembrance Day for Russia and other post-Soviet countries. Throughout much of Ukraine, a collective sigh of relief has been felt, and many far away from the fighting feel that finally, they are receiving the aid they so desperately have needed. But in Kharkiv, 19 miles away from the Russian border, some residents are angry that the U.S. is resuming its aid.