Xerxes

Outrageous !!! Prem promised to never short any markets again. And here he is loading up on treasury forward contracts, effectively betting on the bear against the bond market. This breach must be tabled at the call tomorrow. We were told that these bearish activities have stopped.

During my trip to Japan, I started reading this book about corporate Japan. It follows the raise of Nomura pre-world wars. Follows the Japanese point of view Wall Street crashes and goes to the late 1980. Goes over the “trading companies” and their post-war disintegration and rebuilt. It is a very interesting book for history buffs. If you know US corporate history well this would the oriental point of view of the same events. The book was published in 1990, during the of the Japanese bubble. Probably around the time, Jeremy Grantham couldn’t believe his eyes as Japanese P/E ratios moved from 35x (bubble territory) to an incredible 65x …

https://www.fitchratings.com/research/insurance/fitch-rates-markel-preferred-share-issuance-bbb-28-05-2020

I would also highlight that the question at the AGM was about the Permian basin and Berkshire holdings in Occidental and Chevron (both), while Buffett’ response was about only Occidental and Vickie H. Buffett didn’t talk about neither about Chevron nor Michael Wirth (it’s CEO) neither in the AGM nor in Tokyo. @gfp Yes, Occidental is not illiquid (Buffett himself indicated in the 2022 AGM, how easily he was buying the shares because of the very high turnover) but could you imagine him to plow +$20 billion additional into Occidental in that very short period of time as war broke out. No matter how liquid Occidental was, it would not be able to absorb that much of inflows. Chevron was the “shock absorber”. A temporary and a variable plug CVX was the short term trade to OXY’s long term

Would Markel have its current multiple to BV if it did not do all the promotional stuff, being dubbed mini-BRK, brunch in Omaha, podcasts, buy-us-is-like-buying-BRK-in-1990 etc Let’s say Markel was providing a NVR level of promotional stuff, which means close to nil, what would be it’s premium to BV ? What @Parsad says about reinsurance makes sense as an explanation between FFH and Markel on multiple to BV, but I think the promotional stuff has helped it a lot.

my own unsubstantiated explanation is that the ramp-up in the purchase of Chevron stake around the time of Russian invasion was a temporary plug because it was a liquid stock, just in case he could not get his fill Occidental. Both purchases ramped up heavily as Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine. my belief is that as Occidental’ stake goes up that of Chevron will go down. A reduced Chevron stake may stay as part of stock portfolio (trade in/out), but a large uncontrolled passive stake in Occidental may become part of the longer term holdings.

There must be a correlation between number of podcast Markel folks do every three months and Markel’s premium to book. Wait till Prem gets on that bandwagon

Charles III is doing his job. His job requires him to wear these things and participate in the pomp and ceremony. That is literally part of his job description, the moment he was born in that family. These are not comparable, despite Buffett’ attempt at humour. Compare Munger low-keyless to other business titans and not reigning sovereigns.

The Queen is dead. Long live the King.

Thanks Corpraider I do tend to mix the Ts

The positiveness of “Family control” goes both ways. Ex: only a company controlled by the family (I.e. Bombardier) would be bold enough to embark on the C-Series, and “have capacity to suffer” through it. And suffer they did. However in that case, it just didn’t pan out. It was/is an incredible product but it ruined the whole company. The incumbents reacted fast. With hindsight we can write a nice essay why Bombardier didn’t deliver. That is hindsight. Point is, they took a shot and didn’t pan out.

It might be just a replay for the same one from 2022

Looks like it is me always posting stuff and trailer on war movies (real or otherwise). Hahah enjoy

And what about Kinmenese

I would have loved to see a multi cultural, diverse post-1947 combined India. Not wasting resources on confrontation with a militarized Pakistan. A Hindu-dominated India, and Muslim-dominated Pakistan, where does that leave the Sikh and others ?

For now he seems to understand that he cannot be Deng and Xi at the same time, so he is being just Deng, developing India economically, while “bidding his time and hiding his strength” it starts with text books, and than that generation grows up to become decision makers. Thankfully there is a democratic process and will still be fully functional.

All good John looks they can’t wait for it hahaha

On CNBC directly. the live portion is no longer on YouTube.

They did float a bond some months ago. So they are just moving the liability (or however you want to describe it) at corporate level.

Richard, thanks for your thoughts. agree with the first paragraph … but … you say “expansionary wars” I agree but I would add countries that are constantly in interfering in other affairs + that. Economical wars and economic subjugation is the same as expansionary wars (to me). Just because Kremlin annexes and the modern West doesn’t and chooses to kill babies silently through economic choking, it does not mean one’ foreign interference is intellectually superior or better. If I had to chose a modern analogy, events leading to WW1 is a better fit than WW2. The world was largely isolated leading to WW2. Whereas now just like right before WW1 we were coming off a multi decade globalization where parties were big trading partners. Talking to Russians does not mean appeasement. It means talking. Think of it this way. Is West militant’ dominance equivalent to then-West military in the 1930s ? Lastly, you say chamberlain era is the most relevant because it was the most expansionary. I am sorry but we are taking about Europeans governments of 1930s and 40s that ran vast colonial empires. You cannot take a snapshot AFTER West established its “baseline” and call any deviation from it as “expansionary” by others. I like and agree with your last two paragraphs

dude. You misread the post on Azov. Thanks @bizaro86 Also it is not so much about Ukraine vs Sudan. It is about acknowledging that while nuclear deterrence reduce conflicts in Europe, that “geopolitical energy” between the two titans had to be discharged in the rest of the world through proxy wars, coup d’états, constant interference in other affairs. On and on and on. How many millions died in Korea, East Asia, Middle East in the wars that came. I couldn’t care less if it was Washington or Moscow. They both let it rip.

dude we have +3,000 years of human history worth of wars and conflict. Surely there are other analogies than the over-used Chamberlain/Munich. Or just assess the situation on its own merit. When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in the 50s (or 60s) you know what the western capital said. =>>> Munich, Chamberlain. The same bogeyman has been used everytime West is trying to make a point. In reality what it does it takes away from the evil that the Nazi brought to this world and normalizes it.