Xerxes

Unsaid is the multiplier-effect that his work had with the Giving Pledge.

Agreed. It is wonderful book. I read it about 15 years ago. Loved the part where Blackbird pilots would go flying all the way to North Pole and when gone back home for supper, they couldn’t answer their wives on “how was their day”. I am guessing pilots didn’t stay on site. Also I would recommend this book. About the father of U.S. nuclear submarine fleet. Covers “Electric Boat”, an GD subsidiary, and a less glamorous era for General Dynamics. Kelly Johnson and Rickover were the Elon Musks of that era

there two podcast episodes I like to share, they provide good assessment IMHO. The first one with the Israeli journalist is very on point. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/defense-aerospace-report/id1228868129?i=1000630692175 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/war-on-the-rocks/id682478916?i=1000630732302

Simple Israeli domestic politics dictates that Israel needs to launch a full ground invasion of Gaza. Bibi’ own political survival may depend on that forcefulness given some extremists in his own government with some very extreme points of views. In fact, as someone who campaigned so hard on security issue, he is got to go Gaza or he is got to go (fired) The civilians in Gaza will be trapped as always. The Israeli civilian captured or otherwise will be trapped as always. And Hamas wins even if it looses, for it accomplished two things (1) MBS was going to leave them behind, no more (2) they shattered the myth behind IDF. It took decades to build that, and it took 24 hours to lose it. PS: in one of the podcast I posted below, the commentator says this is not 9/11 nor Pearl Habour, it is rather Tet 1968 all over again

Ukraine own mistakes. Over obsession with Bakhmut to “bleed them white”. Koffman said it at one point: it is not about kill ratios, rather the quality of those ratio and replacement cycle.

neither RTX nor LHX has become the cannibals of their own shares as much as Lockheed, Northrop and General Dynamics have become in the last 10 years. RTX and LHX have been going through M&A which what the other three went through largely from 1995 to the 2010s. Once their portfolio of the trio was set, they became buyback machines. I expect the same from RTX and LHX.

was driving home for +2 hours back from Thanksgiving. Logged back in and then it was gone

for some reason I cannot find Israel War thread. Maybe it got moved ? where do I write my mumbo-jumbo ?

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/focused-compounding/id1352422076?i=1000622643584

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html

perhaps your view of quants will also help me on my BBD i had shares lots of which were bought in 2020 and some before. With massive rally from the bottom surely BBD is now more palatable for PMs

https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2023/10/apples-highly-anticipated-action-packed-limited-series-masters-of-the-air-from-steven-spielberg-tom-hanks-and-gary-goetzman-to-premiere-globally-friday-january-26-2024/ This is really cool and great news. Never got into “The Pacific” but appreciated “Band of Brothers”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Available_for_sale

AFS is the more honest treatment as it marks everything to the market and let the BV adjust, on a quarterly basis. HTM is the treatment that sort of assumes the “bond market” is closed. So we cannot trade until maturity nor can we “see” the market price, therefore cannot “mark”. That is what got the banks in trouble. This treatment sees ownership of fixed-income securities as like contracts between the two sides, … holding out till then the end. I think the nuance that Viking is speaking of is not so much AFS vs HTM. Rather if the realized/unrealized gain/losses changes pass through the P/L before hitting BV or not. I am uncertain (don’t remember) if with AFS both options are available. Aside AFS and HTM there was also Held for Trading which definitely would hit P/L.

All this negative comments on Brett Horn just tells me that you are not a forward looking investor as he is. (Sarcasm)

@Luca unfortunately I don’t have access

On Ukraine-Russia war related topics, it is either Ukraine single handily destroying some many Russian assets or Russia amazingly competently doing it to the Ukrainians. (As per WION) both cannot be true at the same time

Thanks. For FFH in the chart the dividend seems to be included I am guessing. How does the mechanics of the chart works ? does it assume that the $10 cash dividend is re-invested back into FFH when it was cashed out. Pretty much assuming a synthetic total capital return made entirely of repurchases (ignoring tax) or is the dividend is not assumed to be re-invested ?

Check this short TV show out on Prime. My god what a story. Really well made. It came out in 2020 yet somehow I didn’t even aware of its existence. The buyers are Italians. The sellers are Mexicans and the middlemen are Americans.

Fascinating read

dude, you got to stop doing that. No one said anything up “US wanting to annex Vietnam”. You are just making that point in order to differentiate it from Ukraine. All to fit a specific narrative that you are trying to float. Guess what USSR didn’t want to annex Afghanistan nor did Saudi Arabia wanted to annex Yemen. Nor does Iran wants to annex Iraq. Funny enough, you are not wrong broadly speaking about Russia’ threat, yet you fight so hard in coming up with narratives and literarily making up points that are wrong which has nothing to do with case in point. I said you are not wrong broadly speaking about Russia, but now that I read your comment and the way you are diluting US involvement in Vietnam, that just tells me that you are one sided and heavily skewed in your thinking. As far as your dismissive “policy of containment” broad stroke, it happened to kill millions and change the direction of millions of lives. It just didn’t have a central villain for the main casting as the Ukraine-Russia story does, which is really gets you going.

Are you serious ? Vietnam was no different than any other “short war” or “isolated war” that a superpower cooked-up but ultimately gained its own inertia and just end up dominating everything … as Ukraine is for Russia or Yemen was for Saudi Arabia. There was no grand strategy vis a vis Vietnam to “push them to waste resources”. Now military pow-wow fanboys (not you) will point out the 1968 Tet offensive and other things, and point out in great details how actually US didn’t lose militarily only politically. The more clever fanboys (not talking about you) talk about number folks killed. Look, they say. “We killed millions vs 60,000 dead Americans”. We are awesome, they assert. It doesn’t matter. We are not in a slaughterhouse, counting bodies as a proxy for victory and/or greatness. “War is the continuation of policy with other means." a wise German once said. In your case, you are actually asserting some sort of political grand strategy.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/focused-compounding/id1352422076?i=1000627504489