rogermunibond

Or Denmark ;)

TRUMPF Group - the kind of business that would be great for Berkshire to acquire. Also an area where Iscar is under threat from laser cutting tools for industry. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/business/global/12german.html Another such private company - formerly Swiss now domiciled in Liechtenstein - Hilti Group - construction tools/systems, fire prevention systems, construction services https://www.hilti.group/content/dam/documents/Media-Release/2019/march/Hilti_Company-Report_2018_en.pdf

Man sticks to his investing principles, no story here. Move along, move along.

I find this quite surprising. Combs was at Progressive for how long? Maybe 3-6 years before going to get this MBA? That's there is no internal GEICO candidate who knows the business and has the confidence of Buffett and Jain is surprising.

Different types of nicotine/smoking addiction. For some it's more psychological and others it is neurochemical. Those that have a really hard time are more wired - genetically - in their brain receptors to grab hold of nicotine. They suffer the worst withdrawal symptoms.

My guess is that in the end Buffett and Munger want no part of PCG. The raisins and turds story sums up the situation nicely.

Newsom wants BRK to bid on PCG. But he doesn't know that WEB doesn't do auctions. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-governor-wants-berkshire-bid-235301474.html

If I share my data, then I want a cut of the value add that FB, Google, etc provide when they aggregate it. Either collected by the states or feds, would be fine.

RoW won't start carrying into a reserve currrency alternative to the USD steps into the limelight.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-bankers-in-jackson-hole-should-admit-impotence-by-lawrence-h-summers-and-anna-stansbury-2-2019-08 Larry Summers arguing for Functional Finance/MMT-lite for the next recession. Timed for the Jackson Hole conference.

Seems most podcasters are stacking their ads at the beginning or end. But eventually they'll probably stick them in randomly like Youtube and other streaming services do to make them harder to skip.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/blackrock-s-ex-central-bankers-have-bold-vision-to-beat-recession-1.1302285 50 ways to do helicopter money. https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/whitepaper/bii-macro-perspectives-august-2019.pdf

Curious on how podcast advertising is resonating or not.

It's the 70s Jimmy Carter mindset of conservation. There are a growing segment of populations that try to recycle, reuse, and actively consume less. This plays out demographically as well as among younger set. But I think the onus is on the writer to prove that investors in general and institutional investors in particular can accept negative rates - or that that's a natural outcome of demographics.

PIMCO commentary on the secular forces driving yields negative. https://blog.pimco.com/en/2019/08/interest-rates-naturally-negative

I'll take a stab here. Howmet Aerospace by Precision Cast when it gets spun out of Arconic.

Some interesting comments from Munger on WFC's past leadership. https://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-munger-doesnt-want-wall-street-making-the-damn-decisions-at-wells-fargo-11556810465

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/berkshire-hathaway-is-not-buying-pge-warren-buffett-says.html WEB calls in to say no

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-genes-of-human-behaviour/ https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2018/11/08/a-scientist-makes-the-case-for-the-power-of-dna Revolution ongoing in behavioral genetics Polygenic scoring, educational attainment, genetics

The FT and some other media sources have been covering innovation in agritech. Lots of possibilities. It's similar to the revolutions made in the 1960-70s. Most people didn't know the name Norman Borlaug back then. https://www.ft.com/content/199cae4c-cbc6-11e8-b276-b9069bde0956

20,000 years ago the earth's carrying capacity was enormous. The human condition was not nearly advanced enough with technology to come close to harvesting the resource. Malthus has been mainly right for the bulk of 600,000 years of modern human existence. Only wrong for the last 300 years.

This is the kind of game-changing technology that could rapidly remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Paired with low cost solar for example.

Google and Amazon tend to acquire and build their own datacenters with full ownership - though Amazon especially leases opportunistically. Their govt/CIA datacenter is a COPT leased property IIRC. Microsoft seems to be a wholesale lessor and pretty big client of DLR, EQIX, and COR. All three design their own chips and contract build their own specifically designed servers. Apple, FB, IBM, Oracle are all in this game too but have lagged the leaders.

This graph makes me think the real Matrix will be our consciousness uploaded into the Big Three server farms.

We may have already stalled out the glaciation cycle. http://theconversation.com/ice-ages-have-been-linked-to-the-earths-wobbly-orbit-but-when-is-the-next-one-70069