Xerxes

Agreed. To be fair everyone here know we are just bouncing around ideas. Who could have known the biggest 2022 risk would be this in 2021. I don't think China (Xi) made a mistake. I think they will eventually own Russia in several decades down the road. And in this crisis, they will be instrumental to connect Western allies and Kremlin, I think. I think of Russia (with Putin) as I think of Softbank, where the CEO has a 300 year vision but he wants to fast-track that in his life time. China's vision, which equals CCP's vision, goes well beyound the lifespan of one man. Xi is the beaurcrat of the moment, appointed 10 years ago, with a mandate of incremental assertivness. Will see if he is renewed for another 10 years as the Party' boss in the month of Oct, 2022. George Soros does not believe that he will be ! For whatever reason Westerners are obseesed in seeing Xi as a Chinese-like Putin, all because Xi extended presidential term. Westerners always see this from a Western point of view. The role of President does NOT mean anything in China. All that matters is the chairmanship of the party and who has it. In fact, (however unlikely) Xi can remain as the president of China and someone else can chosen as Secretary General of the CCP, and that new person will be the defacto ruler.

If neither or either Russian (state & people) cannot use Bitcoin to its fullest potential for their respective aim, that would be failing the acid test for BTC. Russian oligarch or others should be able to use Bitcoin to "lock away" asset for seizue both in Russia and abraod. I know Ukrainian have been using to capture donations at a blink of an eye.

So Leon's Furniture was not a #neversell. That is cool !

i am actually expecting a nuclear test of a sort (with an actual mushroom cloud), as the angered bear lets out a roar. But in reality, nuclear deterance will hold (unless someone misunderstands someone else' posture). Shipping Western money and h/w to the Ukrainian is all fair game. That said, Russia needs to gain ground in the war to have better chips when talks inveitably re-starts. What is possible, and probably scary, is a their low-yield tactical nukes, which is part of their conventional military doctrine.

In the other thread in the political section I alluded to Nixon’s Mad Man theory. For the threat of mutually assured destruction to be credible, one must appear credibly out of hinge and irrational. Or we can hope.

If Captain Jean Luc Picard was reading this, he would say, “we cannot violate the Prime directive” lots of emotional inertia, like there was with 2011 Arab spring. 10 years later back to what it was. I see a dark future. I see barb lines, and DMZ cutting through Ukraine. I see de-population. I see garrisons. I see a cesspool of hate & nationalism & blame that will take 40 years to heal. putin had said: “there is no reason for the world to exist if there is no Russia” At some point Zelensky has in turn to decide if “there is no reason for the world to exist if there is no Ukraine”. Very sad.

Wrong forum. I recommend going to the “political” forum.

Anyone been looking at Farmer' Edge. 85%+ down. Well that IPO was a good decision. Was that thing just sucking up resources at corporate... then IPO, you are on your own, sink or swim, ,,, and it sank. Don't feel bad though, samething happened with Vimeo and IAC. So it does happen with the best of us. Everyone has been talking about the "pivot' at FFH and wether it is the market, managerial, better investment, etc. No one is talking about the fact that things got better since the previous President stepped down. Coincidence ?

very true, BUT the inverse does not apply ----- If someone told me in late 2019 that we would have a) No major world wide epidemic b) No military conflict in Europea with Russia c) the SP500 would be down 50% in 2022 i would have said, yeah, that is very possible

@Viking Remember this Saudi enterpreunur & businessman from the 1990s. This is from 1993, few years after John Rambo and him fought side by side in Afghanistan as Rebel Alliance against the might of the Soviet Union. We do not need more of these future 'crazies' with/or/without beard being created. And we need new Rambo movies even less. The last was one was total garbage.

Viking, the point of my posting that video, the portion that matters is about the fog of war. I actually did not listen when he talks about Zelensky. Whether it is under the guise of the Golden Horde, Grand Duchy of Moscow, House of Romanov, USSR and now 'modern' era, the Slavic desire of for an empire is always there as they cast their wary eyes on the West. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. In my view, Ukrain leaning toward West is reaction to Russia domineering the relationship, if there was no Russia, it would be Ukraine the very nexus of that empire. West simplifies this into+ > Putin didnt like how the cold war ended, rememner his comment about it being the greatest tragedy, he wants to undo the end of the war. Nothing is wrong with NATO expanding to East, but like everything else in life there are consequence, and at the end of the day it is the normal everyday people like you, me and Ukrainian or Russian that pay the price. I live in Iran during the 8-year war as a kid, so have a different perspective than the usual view of West-is-right-everybody-else-is-wrong (not saying that you are saying that)

^^^ i wouldnt put too much stock in his statements about the U.S. that is why I didnt meantion U.S. by name. The key point in mind is that it is a different situation given that it is intended to be a sort of partial annexation and/or a friendly regime. WIthout too many facts, the "current view" from the West is that Russian has been driven away by the Rebel Alliance. We just do not have any much information to go with. Fog of war is thick. And it is Day 4. On a different note, I was listening to Fareed and Robert Gates. I agree with them that this miscalculation says something about Putin' state of mind. It may not have been a military miscalculation (Ukraine can be ripped apart conventionally if Moscow wish it to be) but it was a political miscalculation. As far as U.S. is concerned, putting aside their idiotic politicians aside (and I include everyone here: left or right), their military and their level of professionalism deserves the outmost respect. That goes without saying. When I am bashing the U.S. i am talking the White House and the civilian retards that wrap themselves in the flag ... never their military or the men and women that signed up to serve their country (for good or bad). (well except Flynn maybe)

Not sure who this is. An American stuck in Kiev ? regardless of its legitimacy, it bears keeping in mind, annexation or semi-annexation means keeping the infrastructure intact among other things. A bit different than another country ripping another apart in a far flung corner of the world…

James Perhaps not for Germany, because they cannot do an immediate 180 degree, but i would say nuclear (uranuim) is the one that will get a bid. A true base-load source of energy.

Unf***beivable They destroyed An-225 !!! RIP

Putin has made NATO great again !! i put this miscalculation on his part on having a middle-age crisis as a autocrat. (i.e. wanting to accomplish something, mortals buy Tesla cars to combat their middle-age crisis, for autocrats it is different, it is about legacy) Ukrain has been re-born again in the fires of the last couple of days ! kudos to them.

hahaha. that is funny ! Food for thoughts: 2018 letter talked about "groves and branches" => Focus on the Forest – Forget the Trees. 2019 letter -- i dont remember it anymore 2020 letter talked about "jewels" 2021 letter talked about "giants" Whether called, giant, jewel or groves, he was talking about the Big 4 just frame differently in each letter. Almost as if he has nothing much else to say year over year. Maybe there should be 1 letter every 2 years. Like a portfolio manager that knows he is got the best hand and just sticking with what he knows with little or no churn at the macro-portfolio level. perhaps, once FFH letters shrink from +20 pages to like ~10 pages than we can be assured the churn is over as the Chairman no longer feels he needs explaining eloboratly.

The tanker war developped in the Iran-Iraq was because neither side could land the coup de grace. Well Iran was about to 1982, but ... anyways. Like two boxers that exhausted themselves, they just moved into that phase organically post 1985. I suspect a conflict with Taiwan that starts off with the blockade has a different dynamic than tanker war between two exhausted foes.

The oligarch were gone long ago as 'kingmakers' Not sure, where you get this, but Geghiz Khan was certainly NOT overthrown by his own horde. He dies in combat. Nor was his son, Otaghi Khan, overthrown. He died as well. In fact his death in Mongolia saved Europe from destruction as Subotai and Batu had to stop their European campaign and return to Mongolia to be there for the election of the next Great Khan. The only one that came close to be "removed" was the ruling Great Khan between Otaghi and Mangke, if memory serves correctly.

People often like to compare the size and h/w of one nation's military to others or opponant and draw some conclusion. Here is my take: The last time PLA went to war was in the late 70s and early 80s, when it went to war against Vietnam, and came back with a bloody nose. Perhaps that was Deng Xiaping sending the PLA (potential kingmaker) south on an adventure while he consolidated power in Peking. Who knows. Reality is the antiquidated PLA got decimated by the veteran Vietnam (who had just send Americans packing to where they came from and that itself was after tag-baggin the French in the 1950s). The Gulf War of 1991 and the Powel Doctrine unleashed on Iraq did however shock the Chinese to their very core. From there, they embark on multi-decade long effort to modernize their peasant-based armies. Contrary to Imperial Japan that had a blue-water navy operating in the 1930s and 1940s and ever since, China had only a brown-water navy in the 1990s. They were very behind and effort to modenize that also accelerated. Fast forward to 2020s, their PLA is in a different shape and far more modernize, BUT critically they have NOT fought in an actual miliatry campaign for decades. Even the mighty Russia, when it invaded Georgia in 2008, that military campaign outlined major deficiencies, which only meant acceleration of its modernization. The campaign on Crimea went better and now this. So the ability to project power on paper is very different that doing so in a real war. Russia, in the post Berlin War era, went through this steep learning curve. In a real war, it is all about logistics, logistics and logistics. China has not seen that in real time. That is one, Two, China is not interested in distrupting the global world order in the same way Russia is, all they (China) want is dominion over that global world order, ... but in good time. There is no rush. You are not going to burn down the building, you know you will be moving in 5 years from now.

The chain of events leading one to another are always interesting. But does it really mean that BNSF would have never happened ? there are many path that may lead to the same outcome. I just finished watching the Icahn doumnary on HBO. There is part where his son get his father involve in Apple and Netflix. One could say that, if Icahn never gave incentive to his son to flourish, he never would 'explored' Apple as potential investment, Icahn Enterprise would have never invested in Apple pushing its Board for capital return, Tim Cook would have not stepped on the gas, and later on Apple may not have seen interesting to Berkshire's T&Ts, and in turn would not have made it unto Buffett's radar as a candidate for a fat pitch, and today would have never become 1 of 4 giants and pillars of BRK. I just made up an interesting series of event. But does it really mean, that Apple would have never "eventually" been on Buffett's radar, if Icahn's son didn't get involve on his dad's behalf.

basically, none of them had a nimble mind. their bearish-biased served them well in ‘08 (eventually they were right) but ruined them for the next 10 years. and those with bullish-biased (were eventually right), but the rug got pulled under them even as they reached out into the heaven and grasp for Dow 45,000 While Buffett made money in most of the cycles.

I personally felt a great panic in the bottom of March 2020. Perhaps compounded by the unknown nature of the virus or near decapitation of my industry. Haven’t felt anything like it since. but i imagine if I was in Ukraine in 2022 and was an investor in the local stock exchange I would feel that 2020 like panic. being an ocean apart helps. Folks here are buying back Sberbank. I reckon that folks here are having an “easier time” to make a rational case to buy it (even with its foreign holding risk) than a local Russian buying it off the Moscow exchange (without the foreign holding risk)

Viking agreed on value creation. BUT this is like me getting a house, doing all kind of interesting renovation on it, adding value. But the house (with my taste of value-add) at the end needs to “valued” in the market place by the greater community (and my personal taste are irrelevant). for better or worse. A lot of value has been created in FIH, but “marketplace” has not cared for that structure. And this is not about not seeing a mispricing or etc. Prem hides it behind value being shunned away (disagree both Apple and MSFT were value trade 5-6 years ago), I say if you change the “menu” at your Restaurent you can get more customer. the only reason why I am still in FIH is the belief that the man who built a $15+ billion franchise knows more than me about the “Restaurent” business.

+1 well said, To be a bear in the tech-growth names, one must first have been a bull in the them at the certain point in time, IMHO. This is not his arena (and never will be) and that is totally fine.