rogermunibond

I think maybe we have "creeping single payer" If anyone spends time in Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland, etc. they realize how Rube Goldberg the US healthcare system is.

It's very difficult. The ones that one to provide more traditional service are moving to concierge medicine. Very few doctors are operating in solo or small practices (basically a small business). The realities of electronic records, billing, insurance etc. make it too difficult to operate in a solo/small practice.

It's one lost sentence in the article but really for ERCOT to have better reliability the best solution is to connect to other MSOs. "Texas could also connect its isolated grid to neighboring ones."

Are there any major geographic differences between GEICO and Progressive policies? More East and West coasts for GEICO vs Progressive? A few other factors maybe affecting GEICO more than Progressive. Hyundai/Kia thefts (over the last year lack of electronic ignition safeguards has added a few points to auto theft rates nationally. More new/young drivers - drop in mass transit usage due to covid. More retired couples dropping two insured car households for one car, does this affect GEICO more than Progressive.

Buffett wasn't out front investing in banks during 2008-2009. He bought bonds in well run industrials mostly iirc. Even Berkshire can't stop contagion and certainly can't backstop a deposit run. His investment in BAC came much later. I could see if the BTFP is successful in reducing the bank fear/panic that he steps in with a preferred investment in SCHW or another bank. But only after the panic phase is over.

SIFI likely aren’t allowed to buy as they would get even bigger, no?

Berkshire would never buy it outright - would make BRK a bank holding company. Doubt WEB likes the assets either, similar to Bear Stearns or Lehman issues when WEB was asked to bail them out.

Stephen Hsu had a pretty interesting pod recently about LLMs https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/chatgpt-llms-and-ai

$ in Billions

Here's the HK Exchange shareholding disclosure page. https://di.hkex.com.hk/di/NSSrchPerson.aspx?src=MAIN&lang=EN&g_lang=en

Has anyone looked through the HK Exchange filings. Is the Li Lu listed here the same person.

Charlie Munger was appointed to the Costco board shortly after the sale in Jan 1997, replacing the Carrefour CEO who previously was a Costco board member. It's funny but Buffett likes to complain that he's so sick of hearing Charlie sing the merits of Costco and their retail model. Possibly because Charlie was pushing hard for Berkshire to buy the 10.8% stake that Carrefour was selling. Munger personally bought shares around that time and holds to this day.

Carrefour Profits on Stock Sale Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 21 June 1996: No Page Citation. PARIS -- French retailer Carrefour SA said it made a profit of 700 million francs ($135.7 million) on the sale of its 10.8% stake in Price/Costco Inc., a discount retailer based in Issaquah, Wash. Carrefour last month announced its intention to sell its 21 million Price/Costco shares. The sale was made at $19.50 a share, Carrefour said. In Nasdaq Stock Market trading, Price/Costco's shares rose 37.5 cents to $20.75.

FRA has an updated safety dashboard with train accidents data. This is not an uncommon occurrence, across all the lines A few years back when the Bakken oil boom was going on there were a number of high profile derailments/fires caused by tankers carrying crude oil. https://railroads.dot.gov/accident-and-incident-reporting/train-accident-reports/train-accidents-overview

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf

Interesting I wonder if that cross correlates with disability claims

Brett - do you have the Costco stake that was up for sale in the 1990s? IIRC Carrefour owned 10-20% of Costco and wanted to divest. At the time, Munger was familiar with Costco and I think he wanted Berkshire to acquire the stake but WEB decided against it. Probably a huge error of omission in retrospect.

State Farm with an auto underwriting loss of $4.57 billion in 3Q 2022. Worst quarter in 21 years. https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2023-01-04/analyst-says-a-volatile-year-for-insurance-may-delay-state-farms-fall-as-the-nations-top-auto-insurer

Geico Underwriting 1Q2022 $178M loss 2Q2022 $487M loss 3Q2022 $759M loss PGR Underwriting 1Q2022 $439M 2Q2022 $458M 3Q2022 $0.7M loss Seems like Geico might have reduced underwriting quality?

Is now the time to take a small bet on the cannabis ETF? Seems like chances of legalization are pretty low with a Republican House but...

GEICO's had pretty poor underwriting in certain states MD, VA, NJ, NY iirc. Rates went up across the board in these states.

Maybe someone introduced Burry to Hussman It's funny to describe someone with Aspergers as overdramatic.

Buffett lauded him as an investor in the 2004 Berkshire letter.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/ct-louis-simpson-obituary-20220110-uc3znwwnznabnjc6ujfu534sty-story.html

To make both of you feel better I owned NVDA from 2005 to 2012. And sold around $7.50 per share (split adjusted). I reasoned that the GPU was just too cyclical based on the ups and downs of the console market. At that time Jensen's visionary views on computation and AI etc were an interesting distraction.