Xerxes

What does that mean exactly ? devalue by 50% ? I think what you mean is the purchasing power of USD goes down by 50%. I doubt you will see major devaluation against other currencies (all safe perhaps Swiss Francs). That would in turn mean the purchasing power of most currencies going down as well

Is that fair ? The type of prison he is heading. I am guessing that is short term until he is pulled into US https://ca.yahoo.com/news/bahamian-prison-where-sam-bankman-024059598.html “The rate of imprisonment in the Bahamas is one of the highest in the world, with 409 per 100,000 people detained in the country, according to a 2020 US State Department human rights report. The sheer number of Bahamian prisoners means Fox Hill is overpopulated, and conditions at the facility suffer as a result.“

I agree. It is geopolitics. My note was for folks who for whatever reason decided this is the first time civilians are targeted since the dawn of mankind. And how sad it is. Never mind that we do that ourselves on a dime, with no second thought. On Houthi, your comment is a simplification. Houthi themselves would heavily push back by being called pawns of Tehran. They are a Shia-offshoot but pre-dated 1979 Iranian revolution I imagine by centuries. It is one of those situation where the tie between Tehran and Houthi drastically strengthened thanks to the Saudi invasion in 2015. Much like that of West and Ukraine, and how Kremlin got a blowback for trying to bring Ukraine under its yoke. Like it or not, ignore it or not. U.S. is the prime enabler for Saudi atrocities in Yemen.

Too bad they had not thought about sending Patriots to Yemen. You know that other war, where the bully wanted to re-establish its suzerainty, over what it consider to be its “sphere of influence”. Yemen lost. Qatar only survived the contest of being “independent” of Saudi yoke by being one of the wealthiest nation on earth. I thought the “sphere of influence” concept as per the board members should not exists in 21st century. Yet it seems like everything else it exists when it is convenient to exists. Those Patriots would have sure handy to deter Saudi bombing of school buses, hospital and schools. Not exactly a pretty scene. It could have been a message to the Saudi to knock it off. But maybe that would have been too weird !! After all the bombs, planes and missile came from the West, the enablers. Even the planes were re-fuelled by US tankers on the way to drop their payload. Hypocrisy and geopolitics always go hand in hand. Unfortunately. EDIT: ranting over. Aeroplane mode back “on”. Back on Ukraine being as that is the only thing that ever mattered.

The enemy gets a vote too. Both sides have to decide (or being compelled to decide) that it is over. Both sides will feel that they are not getting everything they wanted, such is the outcome with negotiations with equal peers. The concept of this xxx country winning or losing is highly relative. A “win” against tangible objective within a few weeks of war breaking out has more value than the same “win” against the same objectives achieved 4 years later. The longest a war goes the concept of win and losing start to overlap. Because as “duration” takes over, opportunity cost etc start to seep in, and become a factor. Win at what cost ? Lose at what gain. Is a Pyrrhic victory really a win. The only thing is that is absolutely absolute is the concept of “unconditional surrender”. Not seen since the dark days of world war 2, according to my history scrolls.

I meant mostly at government/state level (even with Putin being gone, government-level hate/dislike has interia). Think Vietnam and U.S. Or other example. Normal everyday people are often more mature, more reasonable (and dare I say, more humane) than their own government. Unrelated, incidentally, Putin’ presidency is up for grab in 2024. I think that is where the presidential term ends. A nice exit ramp for Putin to retirement (with state protection, just like the one he offered Yeltsin in 1999) and a fresh face taking over. I don’t buy these stories circulating of Putin and Igor Sechin looking for Venezuela or elsewhere in South America as escape plan. I think that is complete fabricated bullshit (and I don’t know by whom). They know that they live or die by Russia. Their fate and those of the state is intertwined. There is no escape.

Don't get me wrong, they are lucky to have Zelensky. He is the leader that the country needed in time of crisis. If you take out Zelensky from the equation today, the fight will continue as the genie of resistance is already out of the bottle, and it is much bigger than him now. But if he was taken out in Feb, during those fatefull days before he made the call to arms as he stood his ground, history would have taken a different path. Now interestingly and ironically, it may also been truth that no invasion would have taken place, if he never became the president. Meaning that it is very likely that as a former comedian, he must have seen as a "pushover" by Putin and this must have played into his calculus. With Putin everything is about image, therefore, how one appears to him plays a role. You cannot take a look at this image below from this pre-war meetings with Macron and not come out thinking that this comedian is way out of his league.

LOL ... What a guy ! He is having a champaign while doing his thing in a nice looking room in the Kremlin. For a moment i thought he was going to cry when he mentioned the Kerch bridge. Watch closely, he does not call Ukraine by name, but rather as the "neighbouring country" that speaks volume of how he feels. Kremlin's PR machine gets a zero as a grade when it comes to PR. However, Ukraine PR machine gets an A+ Zelensky does not need to be in green military fatigue all the time, with every one of his footage showing him in a dark/half-lit room sometimes with sandbags around. He also has access to electricity, which means he can shave, (maybe not recently with the infrastructure bombing). It is all part of the "resistance" portait that he does so well and he gets exactly what resonates with the West. Bottom line, like everything else in this war, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be extremely adaptable and leveraging all they can. Like it or not, the PR campaign is a huge compenent of the war effort. ----------------- EDIT: My assessment is that it will take a good 30-40 years before the scars are healed. An entire generation and then some ! Thanks to all the parties, governments, etc who pushed this to the brink and to the point of no return. Really well done (sarcasam)

Ahhhh not Calculus 2. I vowed decades ago before God to not re-open the Calculus books.

that is hilarious!!

Jeffrey Sachs is not going to get invited to Bloomberg after the comment he made about the pipelines but doesnt mean his views get expunged. It is very sad that at the end of the interview, he needs to re-affirm his opposition to the brutality of the war, because these days the narrative is that you push to stop the flow the arms to Ukraine as a bid to force people to talk to each other that means you like Putin. So if you are a neo-conservative, or part of the "war party" or a NATO-maximalist you better not watch this !

I was not aware that George Bush pushed back on the breakup

It is from Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studie Nothing with virus or anything like that. Attached anyways. I think we shoud all read it. It is a heavy read, I dont expect myself to be able to catch all of the nusances as it is heavy in details. It is very detailed analysis of the war, thus far. Here is the Executive Summary (page 1 of 3) Executive Summary The full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has provided an invaluable opportunity to assess the capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) and the implications of a range of capabilities for modern warfare. Many publicly made judgements on these issues have lacked supporting data or insight into Ukrainian operational planning and decisionmaking. To ensure that those drawing lessons from the conflict do so from a solid foundation, this report seeks to outline key lessons, based on the operational data accumulated by the Ukrainian General Staff, from the fighting between February and July 2022. As the underlying source material for much of this report cannot yet be made public, this should be understood as testimony rather than as an academic study. Given the requirements for operational security, it is necessarily incomplete. Russia planned to invade Ukraine over a 10-day period and thereafter occupy the country to enable annexation by August 2022. The Russian plan presupposed that speed, and the use of deception to keep Ukrainian forces away from Kyiv, could enable the rapid seizure of the capital. The Russian deception plan largely succeeded, and the Russians achieved a 12:1 force ratio advantage north of Kyiv. The very operational security that enabled the successful deception, however, also led Russian forces to be unprepared at the tactical level to execute the plan effectively. The Russian plan’s greatest deficiency was the lack of reversionary courses of action. As a result, when speed failed to produce the desired results, Russian forces found their positions steadily degraded as Ukraine mobilised. Despite these setbacks, Russia refocused on Donbas and, since Ukraine had largely expended its ammunition supply, proved successful in subsequent operations, slowed by the determination – rather than the capabilities – of Ukrainian troops. From April, the West became Ukraine’s strategic depth, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) only robbed Russia of the initiative once long-range fires brought Russian logistics under threat. The tactical competence of the Russian military proved significantly inferior compared with the expectations of many observers based within and outside Ukraine and Russia. Nevertheless, Russian weapons systems proved largely effective, and those units with a higher level of experience demonstrated that the AFRF have considerable military potential, even if deficiencies in training and the context of how they were employed meant that the Russian military failed to meet that potential. Factoring in the idiosyncrasies of the Russian campaign, there are five key areas that should be monitored to judge whether the Russian military is making progress in resolving its structural and cultural deficiencies. These areas should be used to inform assessments of Russian combat power in the future. 359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

You guys do know there is an ONEX thread in the investment Idea. Perhaps, @Parsad can do some magic and merge this unwanted offshoot with the main thread

Daniel Yergin never disappoints. What I like about this book is that it reads fast. Most of the stuff/content I know but these days I read for the author's perspective rather than content. I am at page 250 ish or so. Will tag & bag this one before Christmas

I have not read. But i think it deserve printing and reading back to back. I am planning to do so myself. Looking fast, there are some passage in relation to the post occupation plans, had it come to pass. https://static.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

But the fact that unlike Credit Suisse and others they had the right risk management tool to spot first and insulate themselves from the Archegos disaster that must say something. I think that Goldman as an investment bank that is in the business of taking risk/doing-trades on behalf of clients (sometimes exposing its own balance sheet) is probably more focused on risk than JP Morgan that enjoys the stability of its large domestic deposits. As a former commodity trader Lloyd Blakfein was laser focused on risk. He is gone but that focus-on-risk-DNA is probably still there. Cliche, i know, but he liked to say he spends 80% of his time at that 2% tail risk. I really enjoyed this interview when it was aired couple of years ago. Watch Life After Goldman: Front Row With Lloyd Blankfein - Bloomberg

I don't think the nice (but distracted) CNN lady here understands what the good Colonel is explaining about the dummy warheads on the cruise missiles.

I didn't know Imperial War Museam made documentary. Here is a good one misuse of T-72 tanks by the Russians.

There is a Japanese family hotel business that has been business for many centuries. Definitly an exception. Houshi Ryokan: Longevity Becomes a Tradition - Tharawat Magazine (tharawat-magazine.com) Hotel business ... how dull ! Their mistake was to stay in the hotel business, whereas they should have sent all their dividends and invested in the U.S. stock market (or whatever it was like back in the day) as the young nation took shape. They should have been shorting Venetian companies and commerce, when the Porguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope in the fifteenth centuery. It was a no-brainer. They should have been doing a long-short trade in 1812-14 as Napleon approched Moscow, short-Bonaparte, long-UK bonds, betting that the emperor would be "reverting back to the mean". The Japanese could have own the world !

I would argue that Cathie Wood’ product is filling a role and that demand will continue. After all, there are folks that see the Ark ETF as a product to inject a bit of “innovation” in their otherwise dull portfolio. Those folks determine through % allocation how much spice are they getting. I see it as just a product that will continue to have demand as long as she stick with the narrative. If she changes the narrative into “oh we want to have a more balance ETF with more companies with cash flows” that is when that Ark product will lose demand. Folks don’t want diluted spice.

I am down 7% year to date (through Dec 1, 2022). Not counting crypto. I think crypto is about less than 2.5% of the stock portfolio. So whatever. I have not bought and/or sold in 2022. I was one of the fools buying the dip on my exisiting Amazon and Alphabet positions in Q1 !!! but also in Q3 (see below) However, overall net-net, the portfolio was kept afloat by Exxon, Fairfax (thanks all the commentators here), Berkshire, Starbucks, Couche-Tard, Brookfield, which offset foolish behaviour. Starbucks was a new position inititated in May-June, while the rest all multi-year existing long-term positions. I do need to check excatly what contributed by close of Dec 30. I think Berkshire has been flat all year. Planting More Seeds The timely privitazation of Atlas in Sept, provided me with fresh unencumbred US dollars (as a Canadian, a market downturn means expensive USD) which I was able to use to buy the post-September dip on Alphabet, Walt Disney, Berkshire, again Walt Disney, Amazon, all in Q3 and Q4. I would suspect the ROI on these seeds will become apparent in 2024-25, if not in 2023.

Heading to Portugal most likely in December. Trying to get to Asia or Africa in 2023 ... in some ways, it is blessing to be so close to Europe (5-6 hr flight), but also a curse as its "gravitional pull" keeps pulling me away from going too much to Asia. It took a pandamic to force me to go visit Vancouver in my own country, where people speak the same language as me, use the same currency as I do, have the same flag as I do, and where your cellphone data-plan works just fine as it is.

Well done KFS Not sure how you manage that becoming a 66% size. But that is great ! I keep trying to increase the % allocation but it keep at around 10% of overall portfolio (not counting FIH). Thanks for keep those nuclear reactors humming away. You probably have an interesting and thoughtfull view on the nuclear reactor(s) in Ukraine that turned into a hostage like situation. Perhaps this needs to go to a different thread