Dinar

Why? It is a negotiating tactic to make Mexico and Canada stop flow of illegals & drugs. Now if only the headlines (looking at you WSJ) would reflect what Trump actually stated. (Surprisingly NYT headline was actually accurate and the Journal's was misleading.)

Actually, not at all. What he said was the tariffs will stay until the countries stop the flow of drugs and migrants to our borders. Seems reasonable to me. The ball is in Mexico's court.

You are 100% right. Unless Israel wipes out Hezbollah, wipes out Iran's nuclear capability, and transfers Gaza's population and West Bank's to Syria, it will lose the next war, since it will be under arms embargo from the West.

You guys just don't get it. Europe is finished unless it gets Margaret Thatcher in every country and kicks out those that hate the western way of life. A continent where most political leaders (except Germany, Hungary and Czech Republic) obsess with jailing Israeli leaders for waging war the way it has been waged since tirme immemorial rather than focusing on fixing their economies or preventing natural disasters from killing hundreds people (Spain) will not prosper. Historically societies that kicked out Jews did not prosper, and neither did societies that imported millions of Muslims. Europe is doing both. There is no freedom of speech in UK unless you call for wiping Israel of the map. In Germany they want to ban essentially the largest political party - Afd. Imagine the US being run by Harvard/Yale faculty, no freedom of speech/information control that would make old USSR proud and instead of Elon Musk + Indian/Chinese/Korean immigrants you have Muslim immigrants with no work ethic and many of whom hate and ready to kill non-Muslims. Now would the country prosper? US is being saved by entrepreneurs both domestic and imported, but why would Musk go or stay in Europe? To have Rachel Reeves tax him to death? Macron & Sanchez regulate him to death?

I disagree with you. For one, you are assuming that none of the spending finds its way outside the country. Furthermore, you are assuming that spending is not counterproductive. Say government gives $150K loan to someone to get an MFA in film at Columbia, who will never repay the loan, what is the impact if that loan is never granted? That person actually has to go and get a job and do something that is productive raising the GDP. Meanwhile, Columbia has $150K less in revenue. So it either has to spend more from its endowment, or it spends less, but on what? On foreign trips for its faculty? On leather couches that it imports from outside the US? On foreign graduate students? You have millions of people who could be in the labor force who are not because they are subsidized by taxpayers do learn something unproductive in academia. What makes you think that if these people actually worked, they would produce less than $400bn in GDP?

Actually, you are not correct. First of all, 3% GDP growth by itself should shrink budget deficit as a % of GDP by a full percentage point due to higher taxes and less social spending. Also, if you bring spending to the 2019 level, you have a budget balance. Lastly, if you eliminate $400bn+ spent on student loans annually + say tens of billions on illegals, will that really impact GDP? How much is being spent on subsidizing research abroad? Didn't Fauci's department subsidize Chinese research into gain of function for bat viruses? Real value add there.

Which names do you find attractive and why? Thank you.

I would buy today and probably hold for a decade (I own all of these names): Arcosa (ACA), CRH, CP (Canadian Pacific Railroad), St Joe (JOE), MSGE (Madison Square Garden Entertainment), New England Realty (NEN).

First of all, the 6% that attend school can stop attending school and get a job. 2nd of all, 18% that work part-time can actually work full time. That's already 6MM adults. 3rd - I don't believe the data about 43% of people on Medicaid working 40 hours a week and yet being eligible. I don't know about many places, but given wages in California, NY metropolitan area, Boston, Hawaii - nobody who works 40 hours a week there will qualify for Medicaid given income limits. How many people "work full time" and are on Medicaid in those places?

22MM in agriculture jobs? Are you kidding me? That cannot be correct. 10-15% of the US labor force is NOT in agriculture.

a) There is a lot of disability fraud. % of workforce on disability is up 5x since the 1920s/1930s, while clearly computer programming is a safer occupation than mining. b) Where do you get the figure that 40% of people on Medicaid are employed full time? In NYC for instance, wages for fast food are $18+ per hour, that's $38k+ per year. Medicaid income limit in NY is 19K.

25% of the country is on Medicaid. May be institute 40 hours per week work requirements, and if 10% of the 80MM actually get a job, then your problem gets solved?

Yes, but what % are people who came here illegally, and what % came illegally in the last 4 years?

For those worried about impact of Trump deportations: 25% of all illegal immigrants that came to NYC during Biden's administration are supported by the taxpayers currently. https://nypost.com/2024/11/18/us-news/over-223k-migrants-have-come-to-nyc-so-far-double-albanys-population/

What is CNSFW? Cannot find it, thank you.

How would Bronx, or East NY look on your chart? Very very blue, and last in education, last in healthcare, last in quality of life, last in test scores and last in poverty. So what is your point?

New Hampshire is weird - no state income tax, and not that left leaning. MA had a Republican governor until last year. Yes, MA shot itself in the foot with the politics of envy, just as NY & Chicago.

Why? There has not been volume growth in years, correct?

Actually, it is quite the opposite. Other EV makers in the US are not profitable without the credits, so they would have to either greatly raise price or get out of the business, both good for Tesla.

I know. Look at FEMA - spent $3bn+ on Maui to help survivors or $300K per man/woman/child. Signed $12K per month 2 year leases! Seriously? $300K per per person? Paying $150K per annum to rent houses for people to live in Paradise!

How much is wasted? How much is spent on student loans? Pell Grants? Other subsidies to universities? What does DOE spend money on? Why should taxpayers subsidize inefficiencies in NYC? How much is illegal immigration crisis costing us? Medicaid & food stamps? (25% of people in NYC are on Medicaid and food stamps! May be get a job?) Section 8 housing spending? Disability spending - a lot of it is fraud (look at discrepancy by state and religious groups - very low in Utah)? Is NASA or DOD or VA run efficiently?

Here is an interesting anecdote. I have an investment in a company that owns several dozen apartment buildings in and around Boston. Their insurance expense went up 30% - 5% due to a rate increase and 25% due to higher insured value of buildings. The higher insured value drives demand for more insurance, and hence in this example, the insurance industry has to set aside 25% more capital to insure these guys. So if this is replicated across the industry, then this could keep upward pressure on rates. On the supply side, according to Renaissance, they have not seen additional capital enter. Meanwhile, ACGL just announced a 5% special dividend. So it seems the industry is staying discipled. By the way, Tom Gayner of Markel bought around $200k worth of Markel stock in the past two weeks - another insider who is bullish. Everest (EG) just saw a director buy USD 1MM worth of stock. So industry insiders are bullish, time will tell whether they are correct or not.

Renaissance Re on its conference call on November 7th: strong markets and rates are here to stay.

@dealraker, Charlie, would you mind explaining why you'd sold Progressive? (I own it, bought it last summer at $136 or so.) Thank you.

Very, very good investors. A number of their funds have excellent returns.