Xerxes

If Jack Welch was in charge of FFH at this point in time he would do it. As he was just an employee-CEO looking for a quick buck and fame as oppose to being owner-CEO

The argument about moving to NYSE to get a “rich valuation” assumes that management is willing to trade its high quality long term shareholders (who might flip if trades at a very rich P/B) with lower quality shareholders (con) and ability to issue stock (pro) at premium one one time shot. (If ever it shoots up). I am not sure that is a good trade off for FFH management. As they will already get plenty of capital back to the holding company as opportunity to re-invest in premium growth tapers down. So why trade its shareholder base … for more SEC scrutiny, more exposure to over excited hedge funds all for maybe there is an opportunity to issue stock at 3x book

Btw I thought it was fantastic. Some scene looks liked from old samurai movies. With dialogue, pause, dialogue. Inevitably, some call that “wooden” dialogue. Anyhow. I had a blast watching the very first scene with the duo getting on the cruiser, which took me back to 1999, when ObiWan and Jin duo got on the enemy ship. That is called paying homage visually. And not rehashing stories.

how could you seriously know if it is rehash based on a sample. It is one thing to make that case/argument half way through …

As the saying goes … if you come at the king, you best not miss. Though personally I don’t think he was gunning at the king (rather gunning at MoD), not many people in Putin inner circle have the “minerals” or intellectual IQ in them to try to topple him. Those who had it were sidelined years ago. Putin is the Godfather, plain and simple, surrounded by lesser men. His mistake though has been to apply the peace-time strategy of creating competition in his inner circle in war-time, which has boiled over between MoD and Wagner. Instead of not procrastinating and being decisive. At the end of the day, the aborted coup caused a reputationnal damage. I admit I thought that his African connections would have save him.

Hi Pete , did you mean the reverse ? 0% rates forces capital into the industry and CR's UP, and 5% rates have the opposite effect. - - - as far as the on-going conversation here is concerned, my concern would be if BV goes down on a sustainable basis !! So (absent some catastrophe) whether after-three years, and post hard market, their operating earning drop from today’ peak earning, is not really of concern for me because I didn’t pay 1.2 book for it. even buying today as BV, you are still catching the growing NAV, which will grow at a slow rate past peak earning. put it differently, end of the hard market does not mean BV dropping. Just that it will grow much slower, as one of FFH’ growth engine start to falters. At that point in time, value per share (rather than just value) will start to matter more as surplus capital get funnelled to share repurchase as organic business growth stalls.

personally, I think it comes down “taste”, feel, political orientation, and what point one wants to score, when it comes down to decide what include/exclude in any postmortem analysis. if a geopolitical decision in a given time, changes the trajectory of history, does one need to re-run the entire business case with a “what if scenario” as a hurdle rate For me anyways, analysis of “ohh it is just $50-$100 billion or” is just plain silly. The front end is always easy to quantify in dollar terms, and sure enough is conclusive enough for isolated cases, de-coupled from current of history. But it gets very tricky for systematic cases. Case in point Iraq. Some idiots in DC (and their citizen supporters)* decides it would be fun to have some fun with Iraq. Life is too boring. Let’s spice thing up, they said. Let’s just make things up at UN, they said, and let’s through around 9/11 for good measure, they thought. Hell yeah, let’s blow stuff up !!! Yeap, soon after US current surplus went into deficit …. And stayed there. Does that goes into the postmortem business case analysis or just the upfront investment needed to BS. * no different than Moscovites supporting the war in Ukraine

… and he put some money private investment in a prison

Unless something goes off this fall, I should be going to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, GeorgeTown, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Most likely in that order.

If you live in the suburbs living without car is nearly impossible, specially with companies forcing folks back to office

Buffett on technicians, gurus and level-headed monkeys

Last week Ackman talked about his short position on the long end (via options) arguing for a repricing of its yield to the upside … if that steepening does happen FFH could lock in the interest stream for longer duration (at a cost of liquidity) I don’t think Prem & Co had envisioned that, as the sequence that they have in mind is : 1) short term goes up (yield inversion) 2) credit spread widens (recession) 3) long term goes up (yield steepens) We are now in phase (1), but what if (2) does not happen and we go straight to (3) ?? if “soft landing/no recession” scenario plays out, the higher interest stream is as good as its low duration.

Unrelated the last Koffman podcast on War on the Rock was pretty good. The last few ones didn’t say much, I guess as situation was evolving.

Some Berkshire old timers might sell in the months/years after Buffett … or might de-risk months/years before in anticipation of. But I sincerely doubt that the day after tomorrow, there would be a massive sell off by the long time holders. Like they are surprised and didn’t see it coming. This is not the Berkshire of 20 years ago, where there would have been a change in trajectory, because there is a change at the helm. I have a friends who are “supposedly” going to make their first BRK in size the day after. Thus expecting some major sell off. They have been waiting for a long time. In the meantime, Berkshire climbs the wall of worry.

Google the names “greta gerwig” or “margot robbie”, the director and the main Barbie actor the main Google page turns pink

If ever there is a CoBF coffee mug dotted with the handles of the top ten-fifteen posters in the Fairfax thread, I would definitely buy a mug as a memorabilia

I guess if you are a long term buy and hold, this book is a must. One needs to extend the “runway” of the compounding machine.

Absolutely amazing. Thanks for all of your support and generosity. Cheers !

I don’t have a large FFH allocation like most people here. I think I am at 12%. It is not for lack of wanting, but i rarely do trade/swap. That said between FFH, Google and AMZN it has been a good 10 days. Those are three are about 30% of the entire portfolio.

Thank you both. I think to see it as “stock dividend” makes sense.

Canada contributed to NATO 2% target by contributing 1% + a bit of Justin on the top to make up for it Even Steven

I think the pro/con of DRIP is well know for the investor point of view (less/no transaction, a bit of discount) What is the pro/con for the company that has the DRIP program. If company has $2 in assets, funded by $1 of liabilities and $1 of equity, and a 50cent dividend that is paid out as cash dividend. Scenario A: investor takes the cash and walks away. That will reduce asset and equity by 50cents. increasing financial leverage. Simple enough. Scenario B: if the hypothetical investor participated in the DRIP program, that 50cent stays in the company coffers as cash. Company issues new shares (dilution) to back those would-have been dividends. What happens to the right hand side b/s ?!? Scenario C if the hypothetical investor takes the 50cent dividend in cash and him/herself buys is more share (no DRIP no dilution). Like scenario A, this will reduce asset and equity by 50cents. increasing financial leverage. Simple enough. But shareholder balance sheet has now more shares. I am struggling with Scenario B ?

I should add: paradoxically, perhaps that it why Putin would never be able re-assemble the Soviet empire. Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia were the pillars of the Soviet Union, with the first two being major pillars. Without Ukraine willing participation in Soviet Union 2.0 project, it would never be. USSR 1.0 would be nothing without Ukraine. What people get wrong is that, despite all the bravado from Putin about resurrecting USSR, what he really clamours for is the Tsarist empire, where the Russian stock held supreme. But no one wants that. So he talks about USSR and the nostalgia.

If I had a satoshi for everytime folks confused/assumed Soviet = Russian equation l, I would have 1 Bitcoin by now. If Moscow was the nerve centre of the Soviet empire, Ukraine was very much its beating heart: Ukraine was a pillar of the Soviet Union, feeding its population, contributing its engineering know-how to the military industry complex (Antonov is Ukrainian), and provided politicians, generals, soldiers and farmers to the Communist cause. - Trotsky was an Ukrainian Jew - Stalin was a Georgian (Soviet leader) - Khurushev was Ukrainian (Soviet leader) - Brezhnov was Ukrainian (Soviet leader) - Chernenko was Ukrainian (I think) - Mikoyan brothers were Armenians (one was a politician and another was founder of the company that makes MIGs) - 1 of the only three Admiral of the Fleet was Armenian Etc. Quiz: How many years of that multi decade Soviet existence, did an actual full blooded Russian led the empire ?? If you dislike the Soviet Union and what it stands for (as rightly you should), then you need to dislike Ukrainian contribution to it as well. And not to think of Ukraine as Ewoks under Imperial yoke. Or some other Western fantasy. There is nothing wrong for Ukraine to fight for a separate and authentic Western future. But don’t ignore the history just because it suits your own good-guy-bad-guy biases. Soviets committed atrocities against all the people they ruled, including Russians and Ukrainians.