Spooky

lol it’s going to be embarrassing when the DOJ can’t secure a conviction in this case in New York. The indictment / extradition has nothing to do with the Venezuelan election. Now a US indictment is enough to rendition a head of state? Doesn’t make much sense. The hypocrisy is insane - Maduro is a drug trafficker but we pardoned the former head of Honduras who was found guilty of trafficking cocaine to the US. There is no coherent ideology / policy behind the US’ actions anymore. It is just the whims of a handful of people.

How is the US today any different from Russia now? You have ceded the moral high ground as well as the rule of law. You have given permission to those leaders willing to take this kind of violent action into their own hands and created a more lawless world.

If I was a US citizen / taxpayer I would be pissed. You vote for a guy who is America first and against foreign entanglements and forever wars cause you want them to focus on making life better for everyday folks in America. Less than one year into Trump's term he has bombed Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela. No end to the wars in Gaza / Ukraine. Once again asking US taxpayers to potentially pay the bill to invade / reconstruct another country so that oil companies / the military industrial complex can profit? Adding how many hundreds of billions / or trillions to the debt.... I remember the lead up to the Iraq war and at leas the lies were way more coherent than today.

At least this time the US is openly saying it is about the oil. It is not about "narco terrorism" whatever that means. It is also not about the Venezuelan people.

I'm starting to doubt the credibility of the FIFA peace prize.

Posted this in another thread but S&P 600 could be a good shout / hunting ground. People are bidding up unprofitable small caps.

CSU had a bad year. Could see people selling and rebuying.

I’d like to give a plug to the S&P 600. Its valuation relative to the Russell is compelling given there is a profitability requirement to be in the 600.

All you US board members should come up to Toronto in the summertime. It is so nice, maybe you will want to stay.

+1

+1. There’s more to life than money or GDP.

Agree with this statement. I don’t think the US administration does though.

Agree. Canada has been working to integrate our economy more tightly with the US for decades. Now they want to rip up everything and dominate us. There is a new version of the Monroe doctrine with the US controlling the Western Hemisphere. We are now in an existential fight for survival. We need to diversify our trading partners. I hope the US finds its sanity again.

Agree. Right now it is not a huge risk. Holders of Usdt could get screwed over. Just depends on how big / integrated stablecoins become into the traditional finance sector in the future.

This is the big risk I see as well. Stablecoin companies operate essentially like banks, they take customer deposits which are supposed to be backed by enough short term US treasuries to maintain the peg to the USD so depositors can redeem the coin for an equivalent amount of USD. Thether Usdt is the 3rd largest crypto coin with about $186B market cap. If there is a run on the company and all the depositors want out then they will be forced to liquidate large amounts of government debt (and as far as I understand they have been buying illiquid assets as well like farmland / physical gold which will be hard to liquidate quickly). Depending on how large this stablecoin gets it could pose some form of systematic risk. They need to be regulated like a bank.

I'm on that CSU train. Also still think Fairfax is a bargain.

Alright man.... you can't compare this to Fairfax, a Canadian listed public company subject to regulatory oversight from the Ontario Securities Commission and insurance regulators. Or an ETF listed on a public market....

What regulatory required capital? They are headquartered in El Salvador! Seems like they also don't like to redeem people's coins - you need to sell them on the secondary market. Doesn't pass the smell test to me.

This was kinda the genesis of my inquiry into Tether. A friend of mine who is more into speculative mining and gold companies was going on about Xaut and how it is now one of the largest owners of gold and managed to somehow make it so that gold now generates a yield... the part about generating yield raised my fraud antenna. I also wonder if they have some responsibility for the run up in gold prices? Anyways, I'm going to have some drinks with him tomorrow night and it should be a pretty interesting discussion! He's always going on about devaluation of fiat and all that fun stuff.

I read at one point they were a big holder of Chinese real estate developer paper.... Maybe they have just able to keep the ponzi scheme going. Any materials on USDC and how they are able to maintain the peg to the USD?

Has all the hallmarks of a fraud. Headquartered in El Salvador, no auditor, no disclosure of who holds their treasuries, intermingling of accounts, fees and difficulty redeeming your coins, etc. The purpose is to be pegged to the USD and be a bridge between the crypto world and the traditional finance world claiming it is pegged to the dollar but not capitalized property - taking deposits and investing in a whole spectrum of risky assets.

For BoA my hunch is that Buffett was pissed about how they managed their interest rate exposure back when the Fed raised interest rates - they were caught swimming naked when the tide ran out.

Does anyone have a good primer explaining stable coins? I've been looking into Tether ... how is it not a scam?

Munger did say selling some Apple was probably a mistake.

It also won't move the needle for them in terms of capital deployment given their size.