nsx5200

@Spekulatius, why you said reminds me of this great article provided by turtle bay from Jared.Diamond regarding optimal government fragment and control structure. https://web.archive.org/web/20160908035153/https://www.edge.org/conversation/jared_diamond-how-to-get-rich Probably a bit too macro to be acted upon, investment-wise, but something to ponder when looking at dictatorish government vs fragmented (US, Euro). After reading that article, I can see some of the view points of the politics on the right in regards to supporting some of the more unpopular tech like guns. Thanks for all the interesting ideas to keep the mind going. Leads to less trading, which is a good thing.

If you actually follow what is actually practiced, Hong Kong citizen have essentially lost their Democratic rights since. The Hong Kong citizens no longer can elect officials that have real power(lost of the second system, for all intent and purposes). Yes, on paper, it’s still two systems, in reality, it’s not. Similar to the Texas abortion non-ban. On paper, it’s not a ban, in practice, it’s more or less a ban. To argue otherwise is to deny reality. Here’s a sample of that type of analysis. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown If you have other credible sources that shows otherwise, you’re welcome to share. I concede that there’s a high probability that I may have missed another angle to it and welcome challenges to that.

A minor, but significant detail: that article was written in 2019, pre Hong-Kong take-over.

Taiwan is actually more Chinese than China, not having gone through the cultural revolution. So you actually experience more of the thousand years of legacy there. Some of the traditional spots may look older, but if you look closely, there is actually a lot more high-tech compared to a typical U.S. city. High speed rail connect the whole (small) country. Smart pass/card that's actually unibiqutious and usable. Government services can actually be accessed via non-descript terminals in 7-11's. Universal healthcare that covers both western and traditional medicine. Open digital government platforms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G0v) that hackers can contribute to. Merit based society, starting from high school admission. Having a smaller area means program experiements are cheaper to run, and so the government have a willingness to try new things. For example, the smart pass/card has already evolved several generations already. It was this attitude that got the government investing in the semiconductor industry back in the 80's. Taiwan uses a lot of tech where it really matters. IMHO, it's one of the most high tech Democratic country you'll find.

Did I hear somebody say Coke, Berkshire, or Costco? (maybe not (too) undervalued... )

Speaking for myself. Parsad, I thank you for sponsoring this board to share valuable ideas and information. Whatever you need to do to keep the site operation is probably okay with me, as my tolerance for noise is fairly high and the signal level is sufficiently high enough to keep me coming back. Maybe there are other high roller out there that where every second lost can mean the difference of a few million lost. I find that long term investing is fairly tolerant in regards to timing and think that if we can weed out short term thinkers by adding more ads, I’d welcome that. Again, thanks for keeping this site operational. From rolling my own sites, I know this stuff is not cheap, time and resource wise and I hope others can appreciate that.

I think he got burned by DFC (as did I... teach you to follow blindly) and realized that his ideas are not 100% flawless (or anywhere near, even with the best of the best) to concentrate like he used to. Couple this with the Kelly discussion above, and he's diversifying a bit more to play it safer. The question that I pose is, is Buffet diversifying w/ his deals regarding gs, dow, etc, or asked another way if there were a opportunity that is big enough, would he be comfortable sinking all his current cash into it.

In this article http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/23/graham-dodd-buffett-personal-finance_fund_managers.html?feed=rss_news, it lists a few stocks that he owns. Any body have any input on these zinc, cresy.

I'm not sure how much leverage(margin) other gamblers are still using out there, but a minor dip in general stock price could cause margin calls, and turn those minor dips into bigger dips. It's very likely that since Berkshire hasn't dipped as much as the other stocks, people are liquidating it to cover their margin.