Xerxes

Minority aside I think it really depends if you are comparing it vs. FFH’ rather large +$50 billion portfolio or versus its $20 billion market cap or equity value.

42 Ran 10 Km on Saturday, 14 Km or so on Sunday, 14 Km run today today at office, I had had two small coffees, 8 McNuggets and little cup of yoghurt from early morning till 7 pm, when I started my 14 Km run. I think it will be casual cycling tomorrow while listening to podcast. Wednesday will be another 10 Km (but going uphill). Will go easy on Thursday before re-starting Friday with another run. i don’t do 50-60 Km every week. There are weeks that it goes down 30-40 non-intense. It is really function of weather, rain, sun and smog. i use to do CrossFit before Covid. It would be nice to get back into it and do weights. I love the Adirondacks in the US.

i think the real risk is not cornering Kremlin. I have said in the past that the nuclear window was at the onset of the war. Then it could have really shocked the West into submission. the real risk is not the tactical nukes, the real risk is Kremlin doing the reverse to Washington. Meaning attacking supply lines directly in NATO territory (explicitly) and proving that just like Kremlin’ red lines are phantom, so are the NATO red lines. both sides like to bark a lot. That is usually a sign for impotence. yes yes yes. Article 5 would become in effect. We can puff out our chests and make grand statement like “spring break in Moscow in 2024”, “an attack on 1 and attack on all” and make grand statements. But really, what matter is what you will actually dare to do as counter to Russia targeting supply lines in NATO land. (Not much different than what US did in the wars in south east Asia). Selling to public a glorified war being fought at arms-length and then having Moscow calling your bluff … and forcing you to engage are two very different animals. That is the real risk. that the Kremlin will showcase your impotence. Western folks like talk about article 5. It works both ways. And that charade works until it is shown that it is ineffective. there is reason why there are NATO multi-national regiments in the Eastern Europe. So that all or most NATO nationalities are “bloodied” in case of a direct attack.

Ukraine-Russian 2022-23 war has a much closer resemblance to Iran-Iraq war than they do to the First World War. It starts and always ends the same way: two boxers running with adrenaline, super pumped, than fatigue exhaustion, as they gather all their strength to throw one more punch.

@Viking i haven’t read your whole post but it seems you have missed Paulson in your list. He took a $20 billion scalp … and then proceeded to miss one of the greatest bull market in history. There is book on it that I read covering the 2008-09 trade. actully I have not read Big Short yet. https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/billionaire-john-paulson-who-netted-20-billion-from-the-2008-big-short-crisis-quits-the-hedge-fund-world/amp_articleshow/76748909.cms

The dual class shares are going away in a few years. Which makes Onex a likely hostile target if they cannot bring up their share price. They have recently being selling some investment to ramp-up repurchases. I am staying put for now.

I was not too impressed with Dan Yergin last two books. Seems to have been written by an AI scouring the internet, in contrast to The Prize and Commanding Heights. This book is an absolute must read. Super interesting read on commodity trading houses. While I knew some of the names in passing, the book does a great job connecting all the stories. this podcast also covers the topic by discussing the book with the authors.

forgive my ignorance but what is exactly new revelation here by this analyst. 1994 Agreement and the de-nuclearizarion of Ukraine is well known. The fact that NATO can structurally intake new members, by the prospective member applying is well known. I.e. it has an intake process. The fact that NATO as a consequence expanded eastward (by design or not, I care not) is well known. The fact that Russia invaded two sovereign countries in 2008, 2014, 2022, as NATO expanded toward it, is well known. Not sure what is new here. I think the author is just being cute with his technicalities. Nixon and Kissinger bombed Cambodia (and expanded war) in order to achieve specific objectives vie a vis Vietnam (which is clearly not Cambodia). Just ONE example, of how great powers do whatever the f$&@ they want. and now you get this analyst getting all cute with this technicalities, “but but but there was no treaty that said NATO couldn’t”

by the way. I don’t see that as highly unusual. Nor as a pre-conceived plan for global domination. British empire was very similar to its two predecessors. Namely Portuguese and Dutch empires. it is the product of their geographical location being at the edge of world. Their need to build a network of commercial interests because how isolated they were and lacked natural resources. their geographical location greatly helped them to shield themselves from massive geopolitical upheavals in the continental Europe. And in UK’ case, the English Channel gave that that extra natural barrier, (or moat in Buffett’ talk) that even the Portuguese and the Dutch didn’t have. the Dutch innovation in banking and credit, was later championed by Britain, which allowed to punch above it weight during the Napoleonic wars, in contrast to a more mercantilist society in the continental Europe. Equally importantly though it is that free market entrepreneurial thinking that gave that tailwind. Peter the Great conceived, planned and built an empire all in one generation. Britian’ global domination was built and reinforced over centuries, totally unplanned but ever-compounding. It was truly the Berkshire of its time !!

totally agree (or mostly). in my view, Berlin was going to be the Rome to Britain’s Carthage “old power”. Unlike the three Punic Wars that ended with destruction of “old power”, the three German Wars (Franco-Prussian, WW1 and WW2) had the outcome of Carthage keeping status quo and Berlin (Rome-that-was-not) being burned into ground. Germany, its resources and massive industrial capacity was just too big of a threat for the Old Europe and its status quo. these days however we are in the age of Netflixization of geopolitics. Good guys vs bad guys.

Suppose in an hypothetical world, those deflation hedges (2010-2019) worked and paid in spade, with market falling off the cliff in mid 2010s. followed by massive central banking intervention (2020-21 like magnitude) but unlike 2021 that monetary intervention was not at the same time as massive supply chain disruption (no Covid(. And then FFH took the view that inflation would become a dominant feature and positioned itself accordingly. But unlike in the current timeline inflation did not take place for another 10-15 years. In summary, the first deflation macro bet worked while the second inflationary one didn’t worked. I bet everyone would be singing his praise for making the obvious move of using deflation/short hedges (that was obvious) but then saying he lost his touch when he went all in on his inflation macro bet. He is getting old. Getting long in the tooth. macro bets are what they are. Bets.

These charts of Japanese investments have very good technicals (half-pretending I know what that is). Unlike charts of rice futures from Osaka exchange. good job Omaha !! Just wished it was a tad larger. And not just “keeping-yourself-out-of-the-bar” right-sized.

United Kingdom and France largely lost their global empires and their military prowess and became economic concubines to the US (unwillingly) but perhaps the second war was something worth fighting for (and dying for; as long as it is in the past and I am not doing the dying part). Britain had a choice to share the continent with Germany and Hitler had deep historical respect for Britain’ world dominion. At least before they refuse to do his bidding. But Britain chose not to. While Nazi do make great cast of villains in movies, there was nothing romantic about UK standing up to it in the calculus of power being contemplated in London. Simple fact is Britain always played the weaker actor in continental Europe against emerging powers in the continent and watched the firework across the English Channel. How is that for a scorecard !! Losing an empire to keep the geopolitical calculus in its favour and maintaining Anglo-Saxon hegemony. They have even tried to claw back their “empire” and influence in the 1950s. Wars are very seldom good for both sides. only winners are merchants of death and historians (hungry for fresh content). Fast forward to today : Both Russia and Ukraine are both losers on this one. I can romanticize the Ukrainian side and say “Ukraine gained its identity in the fires of Feb 2022”. But who am I to make that comment. Some Canadian living in a land, protected by two large body of waters and the Americans (a close ally) to the south with the House of Stark to the North. Ukrainians don’t need my validation of them “forging their identity in the fires of Feb 2022”. They have been around for centuries in one form or another.

i should come clean and say that the thought that the Romulans (with their cloaking technology) where behind this did cross my mind. The Nord Stream saga has been like a convoluted Star Trek spycraft episode, where the authors let their pens run wild

cheers. The golden age days of Kissinger and Nixon running a realpolitik foreign policy and skipping the bureaucrats in the US State Department is long gone. incidentally, Kissinger turned 100 in late May and did a 8 hours interview withThe Economist. I read the article but not the interview. There must be a strong correlation between longevity and keeping one mind’ occupied.

clues in Poland !! Wow I promise not to take a victory parade and point out that I called out Poland as a potential culprit within 48 hours after it happened. (Not Russia, nor US and definitely not Germans)

Not going to happen. All that does is to create more business for brokers with trading volume going up. what goes into the pockets of brokers as commission doesn’t stay in the pocket of investors. Say no to drugs say no to stock-split. keep it pure

Only historic if it closes above $1,000

The national security lad gets an A from me for being able to memorize the administration talking points so well.

It baffles me why Ukraine did not sent special forces weeks ago to secure the dam. Instead all of the little skirmishes into proper Russia. At least try. by not doing anything about it, they abdicated the decision making process to the Kremlin, who upset now the chessboard.

Forgive my ignorance: how does one assess that FFH is indeed buying the dip on WestPac loan portfolio ? My thinking would have been that the loan portfolio probably had a 6-7% rate pre-SVB distress. Now post-stress trades below face value, so north of +8% yield, therefore probably buying them on the cheap as long as the collateral is good etc. (I.e issue was with the lender and not the borrower) however these are floating rate and not fixed. Therefore, PacWest should not have really been in a distressed position, as the funding cost would have been pass through. is there something that I am missing

Higher interest rate means de-valuing of “red lines” ! I maintain that the lack of incremental conventional capability to nuclear capability meant, meant lots of empty red-lines and shows a messaging from Kremlin with no in-depth strategic thinking. Words can be powerful, if used strategically. “Russia has devalued its red lines so many times by saying certain things would be unacceptable and then doing nothing when they happen,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/01/ukraine-f-16s-biden-russia-escalation/

Yes. That would be so cool

Wasn’t sure where this would go. It is more humour yet real in so many terms … sorry if it does not belong here

some of that I think is about “being too proud and stubborn follower of Church of Omaha” about walking over 1 foot high stand as oppose to jumping over a very high hurdle (in terms of complexity) or the famous line “too hard pile” that many pilgrims to Omaha are so proud to utter etc. Buffett never said “don’t think, for yourself” that is why Markel has done well in getting a good marketshare of the followers of Church of Omaha by preaching the message of simplicity. Something FFH doesn’t preach nor does. And I am glad it doesn’t. Standing on its own feet.