Xerxes

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.

Sad things is Ukraine was a nuclear armed nation in the 90s. Nuclear proliferation ain’t good for the world but it does serve you (an individual nation) well when confronting a bully superpower or regional power.

My uneducated guess is the inflationary pressure that we feel in North America & Europe (because we cannot get our gadgets fast enough) will be felt more globally at the most basic level. Egypt I think (for instance) is one of the largest importer of wheat. As well as so many other countries. as far as the stock market (besides the “news” impact when it happens). Who knows … this should be tailwind for defence industry but headwinds for others I tend to see war and pandemic in having the same impact (I.e need to build inventory, ration, duplicating infrastructure thus inflationary)

I meant “wheat” the commodity. not financial markets. A good quarter of global wheat production is from Ukraine and Russia.

So much talk of Ukraine impact on the market here in this thread, yet no one is talking about its potential impact on wheat

I need to buy printer ink for the occasion. I ran out. it is uncivilized (in my opinion) to read the letter on screen.

There is a narrow window before the spring thaw. But really who knows. Even foreign minister Lavrov doesn’t know what will be Putin’ final call

holding Barrick for a year now. good boost even if it is unrealized.

perhaps this could do in the meantime. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-02-16/icahn-on-fed-policy-activist-investing-and-mcdonald-s-video

Maybe there was a specific advantage for the two sellers to transact through a third-party (Fairfax) than a buyback through FIH.

Great news ! on a different note, Prem need to revise his shareholder letter to add in Shopify’ 18% plunge earlier today.

i actually disagree with that. Russian oil industry cost structure is ruble based, therefore there is an upper limit to that sweet spot before their cost starts to go up, re-start to compress their margins. Inversely the same helps them to buffer their margin in a downturn. I.e their cost goes down as the value of ruble depreciates with a falling oil price. Saudi Arabia doesn’t have that since their currency is dollar-pegged. So they really get hurt in a downturn but benefit immensely in an upside as their cost stays pinned against the dollar. lastly, big oil producers (contrary to popular belief) prefer fair price instead of high price, as “demand destruction” and “alternatives” plays a role in their calculus. smaller marginal oil producers like high prices as their “vision” is as short term as their capacity to produce.

it is on Disney+. That is where I saw it. part of the 20th Century Fox library and movie pipeline that Iger acquired. That is how it ended up there. I hope to see House of Gucci also on Disney+ soon.

you can either be long against 5,000 years of human history that involve rape, pillage, war, famine but also brought with it progress, peace, innovation, cures … or be short against it … betting that human nature is different that what it historically shown itself to be. I said this before in a different thread. We (most of us) are lucky (geographically) be living in North America with two vast oceans protecting us. But it does mean, however, that we do tend to do the espresso-sipping “ivory tower” thing.

I recommend The Last Dual by Riddly Scott (or is it duel). Always mixing up. available on Disney+ the movie has a really fun historical format that I think should be used more often. on different note.

Added to RTX and more importantly looks like Joey Levin added to MGM few days ago. They own now 14% of the company.