rogermunibond

I'm rather enjoying the growing selection of ciders available in the US. Have tried a number of Angry Orchard products, Crispin, as well as a couple local small batch ciders. Just the right taste for my summer palate.

It's a complicated and costly business (dialysis). Most hospitals don't want the headache of a patient who is profitable for six months before they go on Medicare/Medicaid. In fact that's been the attraction for hospitals to divest their dialysis facilities and invite Davita to set up a center close by.

Being a math graduate student, he understands numbers better than your average NFL player.

Skyline Chili and Chemed. Though to be fair my hometown is full of large Fortune 500 companies, I think the two above are quite unique. Skyline Chili is family/mgmt owned and has grown from 1 store to over 130. Still mgmt owned and it's nearly synonymous with Cincinnati style chili. Ask anyone in the Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio area about Skyline and they'll know it. And most everyone who grows up in the area has to always stop for a 3-way and a coney or two whenever they are in town. Chemed originated as a soap and cleaning supply company, was acquired by W.R. Grace and then bought out by management, spun off or sold companies in the cleaning supply business as well as pharmaceutical services/supply (Omnicare). By the early 2000s it owned Roto-Rooter and they went through a transformative acquisition in 2004 to acquire Vitas Healthcare, which they've grown into the largest hospice provider in the country. Neat little small cap company that took a pretty stead cash flow stream from Roto-Rooter and turned it into a healthcare growth company.

Wife and I both have Republic. She with unlimited 3G data, calls, text. Me with just calls, text since I have a work phone too. Problem is the hand off from calls going from Wifi to cell or vice versa. My wife needs to finish a call at home before getting into her car, otherwise as soon as she starts driving away the call drops. Sprint is okay but I was really rooting for a tie up with TMobile.

For the Carlin fans, any suggestions on where to start? I also like the history podcast Backstory, it's produced by UVA historians and has over 60+ hour long episodes on all manner of American history. Lastly, for books, I'd also recommend the John McPhee book about shad, The Founding Fish as well as the tetrology on North American geology he wrote called Annals of the Former World

Fun Google talk on the history of Monopoly, the game, it's real inventor Lizzie Magie and the battle to uncover the history of the game.

David Hackett Fischer - Albion's Seed and The Great Wave Angus Maddison - Contours of the World Economy Michael Schuman - Confucius and the World He Created

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/75ef1d94-e784-11e4-8ebb-00144feab7de.html FT is reporting that the BoE is asking the Fed why Berkshire's reinsurance subs were not considered systemically important financial institutions. Maybe Carney doesn't think $20B in cash reserves is enough?

She and her husband Charles Witmer used to file under Eagle Value Partners (post 2010) or Witmer Asset Management (pre 2010). http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=eagle+value+partners&owner=exclude&action=getcompany But as you can see from the Eagle Capital Management filings, they're no longer filing 13F-NTs even though they still have notice of exempt offering filings. I'm guessing they've gone offshore with their managed accounts.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/double-doubles/sort/tripleDouble You can actually look at the data on triple doubles per season; to date 38 in the season, 18 different players. Centers can get triple doubles from pts, rebs, and blocks. Based on his rate of TDoubling this season, betting against RW wasn't necessarily such a sure thing. Still it's a fairly rare event on any given night of NBA games. The trouble is your friend didn't ask for 50-1 odds.

Four big players, Lafarge, Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg. Fifth player is CRH but they're less cement than the big four. Japan, Italy, Korea issues are all about volume declines and price weakness. Volume could take a while to get back. It's not like Japan is in need for more infrastructure. Korea maybe. Japan and Korean Cement Associations have good website with decent production/sales statistics. If you're looking at the cement/aggregates business, the US is better than most countries but not on cement. But with aggregates. VMC and MLM are essentially a duopoly with lots of smaller players. There's room for more consolidation. Recently the family from Florida Rock have been buying assets. They were high bidder on Maryland quarries that Lafarge was selling and a while back bought Cemex assets. They are called Panadero Aggregates Holding

Singleton used Teledyne stock to buy companies with real earnings. He did so until the market no longer paid a premium for conglomerates at which point he went in the opposite direction. He used free cash from all those companies he bought to repurchase shares.

So Fixed mobile convergence is the same thing that Republic Wireless is doing and what Google wants to do with a mobile service. How much residential/commercial density is need to to make FMC really economic? Found a Cisco whitepaper on the subject. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/fixed-mobile-convergence/white_paper_c11-480811.html

Wow superstar! Thanks!

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f8faf4f6-b6f1-11e4-95dc-00144feab7de.html Small deal 400 million euro for a German biker gear retail chain

Witmer used to have 13F filings through Witmer Asset Management and Eagle Value Partners, but as of Sept 2013 they haven't filed anymore. Anyone know the story? Have they gone offshore. And Witmer's definitely not Eagle Capital. That's a completely different fund managed by Boykin Curry. Being that it's hard to figure out if Witmer actually has an active money management biz, I wonder if she'd sign on as a third CIO and work for WEB rather than be a board member.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/16/technology/theranos-elizabeth-holmes/ Anyone in California or Ariz have xperience with Theranos testing centers in walgreens?

http://www.duracellpower.com/backup-power/uninterrupted-power/powersource-1800.aspx

Are you using a "small big" tactic of creating danger/controversy to elicit interest ? ;)

V and MC are amazing stocks. Though never appearing to be values, they've compounded for their shareholders like nobody's business. The MA ipo in 2005 was something I could never get my head around. Didn't buy at $50 in July 2005 and have regretted ever since. The metrics just never made it look cheap.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/centerpoint-berkshire-said-to-explore-bids-for-oncor.html $17B would qualify as an elephant, if not a highly regulated elephant

Oaktree manages VCVSX.

Thanks for posting. Maybe unfortunately, the meme of the innovator's dilemma is out there and influencing Ceos and board rooms.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/hkg0656-fosun-international-limited/ It's been briefly discussed.