cwericb

Perhaps this sort of an excersion might be an idea for some. So far this year we have been to Cuba and Portugal. And while jets are great, my better half has always wanted to experience a flight in a helicopter. So, with an upcoming milestone birthday, I booked a helicopter picnic tour with a company called Vision Air, out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Vision has a popular sideline flying parties of four to the deserted Sambro Island located just outside of the famous Halifax Harbour where the WWII convoys assembled prior to departing for Britain. On the return journey, convoy crews would often remark that they couldn’t rest easy until they saw the lighthouse on Sambro Island. Sambro is a small island about a 20 minute low level flight over the historic city and it’s harbour from the airport. After circling the island, the pilot gently sets the helicopter down on the rocky Atlantic coast not far from Sambro’s towering lighthouse, said to be the oldest in North America. I the helicopter, you can easily slide open the large window beside you and it makes for stellar photography. Once on Sambro you have an hour or so to wander around, take pictures and explore the deserted buildings and the wildlife on the Island. Later, table and chairs are set up on the rocks not far from the helicopter and wine and snacks (salad, fruit plates, etc) are served. Everyone agreed that the food exceeded expectations. Our return flight took place over several small and picturesque harbours along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. Fortunately, we have two close friends who live in the city and wanted to come with us and it was truly a ‘bucket list’ experience for us all. Cost was $575 CDN per person. Next on our list might be Vision’s Sable Island tour. Known as ‘the graveyard of the Atlantic and for it’s herds of wild horses, Sable Island is over an hour’s flight time and a day long trip. https://visionairhelicopters.ca/heli-picnic-island-escape/

Just got back from a long trip mostly on two lane highways. When you see a line up of traffic behind a vehicle on a two lane highway it is usually not the first guy in the line that is causing the problem. It is the SECOND car in the line who is the problem. Because the second car hasn't passed the slow vehicle, the rest of the line must now pass two slow vehicles. And what really burns me is that almost always, the second car in the line is tailgating the slow vehicle in front thus forcing the passing driver now to have to pass two vehicles at the same time. Had this happen two or three times in the past couple of days. If you don't want to pass the car in front, don't tailgate it, leave room for someone to pass you and then the slow car. Furthermore, anyone driving at 30 in a 55 should be pulled over and ticketed for impeding traffic. Drive with the flow of traffic. If you are passing a lot of vehicles, you are probably driving too fast. If a lot of vehicles are passing you, you are probably driving too slow. This is coming from a senior citizen who has been driving since the age of ten, and I admit that I habitually drive fast. However I have driven in over half the Canadian provinces, probably three quarters of the US states, including extensively in 3 of the Hawaiian islands and also several countries in Europe. Most of my driving has been on two lane highways and a good deal of that has been in winter and at times in blizzard conditions. Tickets: very, very few. Accidents: Zero.

What makes anyone think there would be fewer vehicles on the road? And in an emergency with cars broken down and/or stuck in a snowstorm, hurricane, or whatever, do you think an autonomous car will have the intellect to take to a sidewalk or cross someone’s lawn to get around downed telephone poles and stranded vehicles in an emergency? But whenever someone here brings up a potential problem here, the answer is always “Well they will have a way to handle that”. Oh? They will? If new technology is so great how come - in the United States alone - in just 2022 alone there, were 30,000,000 vehicles recalled for safety issues? Again, that is Over Thirty Million. And today’s vehicles are far less complicated than electric fully autonomous vehicles. And yes, pilots are being greatly assisted by technology. But that same great technology flew a brand new Airbus into the ground a number of years ago and more recently also flew couple of 737 Max’s into the ground. A lot of assumptions are being made here about the infallibility of technology and future autonomous vehicles. In 2016, Fort McMurray in northern Alberta (400 miles North of Calgary) was devastated by a major forest fire that swept through a large portion of the city. The city was evacuated. People had barely time to jump into their cars and trucks to escape. Many had to drive through a nightmare of burning forest, stranded vehicles and other obstructions. The population of Fort Mac at the time was 66,000. With failing power and cell phone connections destroyed, does anyone here see a problem with 60,000 people all trying to call for an Uber at the same time?

Yup. The overall idea seems very Utopian, but when you look at the details, reality rears its ugly head. However, once AI takes over the world, well then I guess we well just have to do what we are told to do.

Well aside from sort of defeating the whole purpose, there are a lot of people who do not have 2 or 3 cars nor the space to park them. Public transport is great if you live in major built up areas, but in North America it simply is not practical in many places. For instance, in many countries you can drive from one side of the country to the other in a matter of hours. here it takes the better part of a week.

So when a natural disaster strikes effecting millions of people and evacuation orders are in place....? If that happens to me, my car is in my driveway with a tank full of gas. Meanwhile, you are trying to call an Uber, but the cell towers are down and poles and trees block or partially block many roads and the power is out. Good luck...

THAT. Never mind the Gulf coast, I'm in Atlantic Canada where we have had two devastating hurricanes in just the past 3 years, so that covers the whole Atlantic seaboard and involves more than a few people. PS. Imagine evacuation orders when cities are threatened with fire or severe weather. Yeah, try calling an Uber. And can you just imagine the chaos in winter in the snow belt? Where sensors freeze up or constantly get covered with snow and ice. Combine that with snow drifts and whiteouts that obliterate normal landmarks and snow covered roads. Then add in power outages that sometimes can last for days and where stop lights and charging stations no longer work.

Well that's a scary scenario. Might as well continue that fantasy to the point no one has a job in this future Utopia. And what happens when some bright teenager hacks into the software this all depends on. Seems that happened to Dodge back not long ago.

BINGO! People in the major centres that think self driving cars are just around the corner are WAY off the mark. It is like the situation with electric vehicles. I find it strange that people are pushing for prompt electrification of all vehicles at a time when power grids in many areas are already stretched to, or beyond capacity. Kinda like putting the cart before the horse.

That's too bad. But if you are waiting for an autonomous car to pick you up to get the groceries I would suggest you hook Bessie up to the wagon.

Agree 100% Good driving is an art to be enjoyed by many.

This is a projection made by people living in large urban centres who seem to have little understanding of the realities of life in the real world where millions live in rural areas. Areas serviced by narrow, unmarked two lane highways and dirt roads are going to prove a challenge for automated vehicles. Then there are also those of us who regularly commute in winter conditions where whiteouts and snow covered roads are frequent and winter driving is an art not understood by many. My present vehicle is quite impressive when I allow it to drive itself, but it is still a long way from being able to navigate anything but clearly marked highways - and even then it can easily get confused.

First Republic Bank?

Viking, I just want to say thanks once again for all your work on Fairfax that you have been so kind to share with us. Relative to many here, I am just a small (and relatively clueless) investor. But when I first decided to enter the stock market Fairfax intrigued me and then I stumbled on to the predecessor of this forum - thank you Sanjeev. I followed the old forum(s) for about a year before I made my first venture into the market. The first stock I purchased was Fairfax in 2007 and I jumped in with both feet at $220/share. Since then I have added FFH at the dips and have yet to part with a single share. While there were times when Fairfax under performed, there were also a number of times when the markets seemed to be falling apart, yet Fairfax either held it’s own or outperformed, especially during the GFC. With the runup over the past couple of years, FFH has now worked itself up to about 55% of my stock portfolio, while that does tend to make me a little nervous at times, I ain’t going anywhere yet. But the insight that you and others on the Board have shared, has given me a much better understanding of the company and much more importantly, insight into the company’s most likely future trajectory. There are a good number of regular contributors here, some are newer and some are ‘the old guard’, but all have shared their valuable insights into the inner workings of Fairfax in a forum that could have been assembled in no other way. Sincerest thanks to all and especially Sanjeev for making the board possible. CWEB

Today both the Dow and TSX were down over 300 points. Prime hurricane season is almost upon us. Fairfax stock has been setting new highs for several days. And yet today, Fairfax stock defies the market trend and hits another new high with a substantial 1.6% ($17.29) jump* and firmly plants itself much closer to $1,100 CDN than the $1,000 mark we had been celebrating. Seems people are finally starting to take notice of Fairfax. Friday may be interesting. *fair volume too

The Canadian Press Mon, July 31, 2023 at 3:34 p.m. ADT BlackBerry software to be used by international electric vehicle consortium BlackBerry Ltd. says some of its software and services have been chosen for use in a Foxconn-backed electric vehicle consortium. The Waterloo, Ont.-based software company says the Mobility in Harmony consortium will use its QNX and Ivy offerings to build the platform. QNX is a cloud- and artificial intelligence-based software foundation while Ivy is an in-vehicle software platform helping automakers monetize data. Software giant Microsoft, South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution and luxury electric vehicle manufacturer Karma Automotive are among the thousands of consortium members. The consortium is working on building a single-row, three-seat vehicle geared toward Asian consumers that it calls Project X. The vehicle is due to launch in Japan later this year, and will be followed by six-seat and nine-seat vehicles.

Careful Sanjeev. Wasn't it a year or so ago that some twit was out to get you and thought he could organize members and have you fired and take over the board? Funny how quickly he got 'disappeared' from the board Hope you got his $50. Could be the same guy? Or perhaps it's Cardboard and his loony ideas, still pissed about being turfed from the board? Just for the record, and perhaps we don't say it enough, but you know that we all respect you for what you have done with this board and we all owe you our thanks.

Added a little more of both Fairfax India (FIH.U) & Clarke Inc. (CKI)

But Berkshire does have A and B shares.

Now that we have hit this new milestone, I wish Prem would do a stock split and lower the per share of Fairfax and make it more attractive to smaller shareholders. There must be a ton of small investors in the market place with smaller portfolios. But for a small investor who would like to add say, $2,500 in FFH shares to his portfolio, what? he needs to buy two and a half shares? With all the complaints about the market not recognizing the true value of Fairfax I think this is one of the reasons why. Lowering the share price to, say $50 or even $100, would not only focus a lot more attention on Fairfax but it would likely soon lead to an escalated share price. Most of the Canadian banks have done this from time to time. What’s so special about Fairfax? Ego? Or am I missing something? JMHO.

On the subject of making stuff up. Would you care to show where you obtained the information that "by roughly 5 years from about 28 down to 23" and to what specific dates do your numbers refer? I ask this because I cannot find those numbers and as you accuse others of "making things up" I am sure you can be much more specific. Thanks.

http://choufunds.com/

It is not like the term "lumpy returns" just came out of nowhere. Prem used the term 8 or 10 years ago to warn about his plan for Fairfax's future and made no bones about it. It was a case of like it or not, but that was his personal prediction of how he was going to run the company. As far as the ups and downs are concerned, I sure like the direction in which we have been going lately. Like it or lump it.

Analysts really are a bit of a joke. In theory they look into their crystal balls and make predictions of the future when all too often the reality is that they simply react to what has already happened. When it comes to Fairfax, really, is there an analyst out there who can match Vikings knowledge of the subject? I very much doubt it - and Viking (and others here) provide their knowledge and insights of Fairfax to board members without charge. Thank you.