Munger_Disciple

I don't know anyone who got wealthy just by hoarding gold. We see people all around us (or in Forbes magazine) who have gotten rich by owning businesses.

I will let u figure out whether I knew w/o looking up or not.

I am saddened by Mandelbrot's passing. He is one the most important inter-disciplinary scientists of the last 100 years. He did amazing work on fractals, their properties and application to fields ranging from medicine, engineering, geography, finance & computer technology.

The middle initial B was given by Benoit Mandelbrot himself. It means nothing.

If you want to short gold, you can buy puts on GLD or any other gold ETF. It is of course not the same as shorting physical.

What is a really good basic accounting book for investors & businessmen?

I would not touch CHK with a 10ft pole regardless of its upside. The CEO compensation is way over the top and in my opinion totally undeserved. If I recall correctly, there were reports that the company bought "very" expensive art for the corporate office and bailed out the CEO from his margin calls.

Grenville, Thanks for the notes. What are the most recent performance numbers for Pabrai Funds?

kiltacular, Thanks for posting the link. This video made my day. Charlie's mind is amazing.

dcollon, Thanks for your offer to post notes from Munger's talk. Given the time lag in posting the video at U of M, your notes will be very valuable.

In the book Snowball, Alice Schroeder refers to a paper written by Warren Buffett in 1967 titled "Thoughts Regarding Capital Requirements for Insurance Companies". Have anyone on this board have access to this paper? If so, please post it. Thanks in advance.

Buffett also seems to be hedging on the timing of when he may bring in one or more outsiders to manage Berkshire funds.

From my reading of the WSJ article, Buffett while praising Li Lu, seems to be hedging his bets regarding the choice of future Berkshire investment managers. Munger on the other hand seems to imply that Li Lu'0s appointment is almost a done deal. Anyone else thinks this is curious?

In general, it is prudent to avoid margin debt. Even though the current margin rates are low, the brokerages can change the margin requirements in addition to margin rates at any time of their choosing w/o warning the customer. These events tend to happen when there is general distress in the markets (for ex. Q4-2008), so it could come at a particularly inauspicious time for the investor. My suggestion to Myth465 would be to choose option 1.

Thanks for the link.

Does anyone have a copy of the goldman report?

Any comments from board members on the CFO change announced on June 4 by Fairfax? It seems strange.

Most of the "full service" brokers provide "full" service to themselves and the institutions they work for at the expense of the customer. They are basically glorified used car salesmen and get paid to shaft their customers. Aren't these the same folks who sold auction rate securities to their customers as an alternative to cash? Fire the "full service" broker as soon as possible and save yourself a lot of money and useless advice.

Just to clarify my comment, I respect Mohnish's accomplishments. However in these checklist talks, all he seems to be doing is state the obvious: learn from your and other mistakes and reduce the number of future mistakes.

Is it just me or are there other board members who find Mohnish's insights to be rather pedestrian, and not very deep?

Any notes of the meeting?

I meant estimated growth rate over the next decade in my previous post. Sorry for the confusion.

Mpauls, Nice report. One suggestion is to add an estimated rate of growth in BV (or better yet IV) of Berkshire over the decade with some supporting evidence behind the prediction. Of course this number will vary from analyst to analyst.

Ericopoly, What is your current profession and is it easy to practice it in Australia if you decide to move there? From your discussion, Australia seems like an interesting place. I am a bit worried that it may follow the US path in the not too distant future just as the US seems to be following a European social welfare model with a lag.

It is obvious what the difference between value investing and buy-and-hold is. I highly doubt anyone (including me) on this board misunderstands the difference (one is related to buying securities at a discount to their business value, the other is related to holding period). Ben Graham paid a huge amount of attention to the balance sheet of the enterprise which does not appear to the case at least with some of Pabrai's investments.