cwericb

(For Canadians..) Please forward to Stephen, Mike, Pam, etc? :)

I have Google set to notify every time there is something in the news about FFH. I usually get a couple of items a week, but for the past several months I am getting five or ten a day a day or more. For a lot of people FFH has been flying under the radar for a long time and you have to wonder if all the recent talk about BBRY has made a lot of investors take a closer look at it and they like what they see. HOWEVER we've seen these ups and downs many times before and one has to wonder if its time to take some profit to re-invest later. Is anyone doing this now?

Don’t know why you guys are laughing. If he sold one to his father, his mother, sisters & brothers, he probably made a thousand bucks. Furthermore, while others scoff, at $5.56 per page this could be one of the most expensive books recently published. I also note that the book ranks #241,990 on Amazon’s best seller (cellar) list. Also I believe you have to buy a book before you can review it on Amazon. Therefore, one might deduce that there are at least seven in his family since he has seven positive reviews. For some reason, every now and again, and as recently as last week, I receive an invitation to join Harry’s Linkedin network. I think I’ll pass, but if anyone wants his email address....

This might be a little off topic, but here is some food for thought. Certainly housing in some of our major cities seems over priced and a correction may be overdue, but in the longer term consider this. When I was a child the world population was about 2 billion. Today its about 7.2 billion. The UN projects that by 2050 the population will reach 9.6 billion. That’s a 33% increase in just 37 years! These people have to go somewhere. Canada is one of, if not the least densely populated industrialized countries in the world. People are becoming ever more transient and if you think we have a lot of immigrants here today, you won’t recognize the make up of this country in 20 years. This is simply a fact of life. Think about these numbers... The population density of India is 380 people per square kilometre, Japan - 339, South Korea - 487 and Bangladesh - 1035. The population density of Ontario is 12 people per square kilometre , Quebec - 6, British Columbia - 5, Saskatchewan - 2. Yes, some of that may be presently considered uninhabitable (at least by today’s standards) but Nova Scotia has a density of 17/ sq. km. and New Brunswick with 10. I also believe we are seeing another shift that I have been predicting for some time. There is going to be some levelling out of the population within this country along with property values as geographical location becomes less important than it once was. I am seeing more and more people moving to desirable locations outside of the major centres and commuting to the city perhaps once a month while they work from home through cell phones and computers. Example: I met a guy last week. He lives in the Maritimes, but he is in charge of equipment and personnel for a mid sized airline based 2,000 miles from here. He does everything from his house on the beach and commutes to work once a month. His wife also works for another company in a different city and both are able to spend most of their time here. This is not an isolated example by any means and I see it more and more frequently. While this may have some downward pressure on some of the high priced real estate in major centres it will have the effect of increasing prices in other areas. You just can’t have a forty year old bungalow selling for $1,000,000 in Vancouver and the same house selling for less than $200 k in a nice, low crime neighbourhood elsewhere. Maybe in times past, but not today. That demographic is changing.

“It is profitable” That’s great! So we all share in the profits. We put up with a few ads and we get a great, well monitored board at no cost!

What goes around, comes around. :)

While it’s unfortunate for Madoff victims it obviously looked like a good deal to both sides at the time or it would not have transpired. Hindsight is 20/20. No one set out to take advantage of anyone. It seems like someone did their homework and someone did not. If I sell a stock tomorrow and it triples next month that is just my bad luck or mismanagement, I certainly don’t think the people on the other side of the trade should refund my money or pay me more. This might be a bit of oversimplification but doesn’t the same principle apply?

There has got to be money in this field. Last month when I went to pick up a couple of Lego sets for my Grandson at Christmas I was floored when I saw that many of the sets were priced in the $3-400 range!

SD, I guess I'm mostly ticked off at myself for not dumping SFK/FBK when it was bouncing around $2.00, but that's what happens when one gets greedy. I wonder if we are seeing anything something similar with RIM?

CONeal knows what he is speaking about. Credit scoring is a joke as it ignores assets like cash, investments, and property. But the more debt you have the better so long as you are servicing it. If you have no debt then they seem to assume you don’t own anything. No mortgage - then he must not own a home. No car loan - then he probably doesn’t have a car... Many years ago, before credit scoring was widely credit histories were kept on card files that were updated manually. Whenever two people married their files were inter-referenced. As cards were being matched up I can remember frequently hearing, “OMG, does he (she) know what they are getting into?” (More often “he” than “she”) I have always believed that before a marriage licence is issued it should be mandated that a mutual disclosure of credit histories be made.

"Put another way: I am going to let FFH do some of my investing for me." Uccmal, you have said this before and You are probably right. After the FBK experience I will, for the most part at least, do the same. I'd rather be with them than against them. As for the "Fair and Friendly" I really don't know how they could justify that in the FBK story. Perhaps it should be "Fair and friendly when convenient"

"I don't feel good about their rejection of a higher takeover offer for Fibrek" Ditto. As a former FBK shareholder I am quite unhappy with FFH. However as a FFH shareholder I have no complaints. So I guess the lesson here is that if Fairfax owns a significant position in a company stay away from it.

I have no connection with Pizza Delight but I am rather surprised at the apparent prejudice against these restaurants. Pizza Delight restaurants in this area are quite nice and have been very popular and successful for many, many years. It is not uncommon to have to wait for 10-20 minutes to get a table. While at the same time, giant Pizza Hut closed its doors several years ago and Domino’s offers only take out. Combined with their acquisition of the Prime group of restaurants perhaps Fairfax knows what they are doing and are in the process of building something. While these restaurants may be more working class that upscale, that may not be the point. An old boss of mine used to have a couple of sayings that seem to fit this scenario. One was "Is there any money in it?" and the other was "Everybody’s gotta eat" Fairfax Restaurants: Pizza Delight Mike’s Score’s Baton Rouge East Side Mario’s Casey’s Pubs: Fionn MacCool’s D’Arcy McGee’s.

Very funny...and very accurate. I couldn't agree more. Cheers! I find it neither funny or accurate. Apply it to freedom of the press. Do you want your rights to be limited to the publication formats in use 200 years ago? The point of my comment is that when the right to bear arms was given, the concept of today’s weapons was beyond anyone’s imagination. Today is a different world. It is only logical that as society has evolved some rights must evolve as well.

I am somewhat torn on this debate. Allowing the ownership of automatic military weapons by ordinary citizens of a civilized country makes little sense. Of course it probably follows that if one truly believes in the necessity of having the right to own those weapons, then that probably defines how he sees his country. However, as one with some past military training in the use of firearms, I cannot conceive of the helplessness and frustration of being caught in one of these shooting incidents, defenceless and without access to some type of gun.

When people use a 200 year old law to justify their “right to bear arms” perhaps the type of arms they are allowed to bear should be limited to those in use at the time the amendment was written?

It seems that whenever Ms Morgenson runs out of copy she rehashes this same old story. She wrote nearly the same thing back in March and I believe prior to that as well. No doubt she gets paid by the word so she writes an article, then a few months later rephrases it and gets it published it again. Used to do the same with essays in university. It gets a bit tiresome. I'd give her a B in creativity and and F in originality.

Am I the only one who gets tired of hearing the nit picking, the whining and complaining about how bad our government has handled our Canadian economy? Today it was announced that the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney has been appointed Governor of the Bank of England to help lead Europe out of its financial mess. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer... said "[Carney] is quite simply the best, most experienced and most qualified person in the world to do the job. He has done a brilliant job for the Canadian economy". Carney will be the first foreign national to head the Bank of England. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/11/26/pol-mark-carney-bank-of-england-canada.html?cmp=rss

Seems like last week was a Black Friday sale for FFH, but a week early. Bought a little at $348 and wish I had the money to have bought more. But congrats to those who filled their pockets below $350 because it could be a while before we see another opportunity like that again.

Ten bucks is more than reasonable and it still costs nothing to read the posts. I know that it has taken a lot of work to set up this board, a lot of time to moderate it and very likely some expenses in maintaining it. Surely no one would object to the board producing a small amount of revenue to be used by Sanjeev in whatever way he wishes. The fact that the fee will discourage scammers and trolls is also a benefit.

One only has to look at the Stockhouse or Yahoo boards to appreciate having a moderated board. Some time ago I suggested charging for membership but there was a legitimate concern that a membership fee might restrict some younger people from joining. So why not make it a nominal fee of $15 - $25 to join and $10 per year thereafter for all members? Would that not achieve the objectives? I sometimes wonder if the newer members realize that it is Sanjeev who is responsible for creating, supervising, and the overall quality of this board? While I personally don’t always agree with him when he banishes (rarely) a poster, but in the end he is the one who takes responsibility for the quality of posters and he is also in a better position to ascertain the motives of those few posters that he excludes. When this board migrated a few years ago, when it was attacked by a certain “coincidental” virus, and when various improvements were made, it had to involve a lot of time and/or expense on Sanveev’s part. I don’t think it unreasonable that all members should contribute to help compensate for that and I think few, if any, would disagree. Keep up the good work Sanjeev and be proud of what you have created and know that the members respect you for what you are doing.

Very interesting reading Regnar. I too have had some interesting encounters with inspectors, regulators, etc, they can be very difficult to deal with because you walk a fine line. You can’t let them walk all over you, yet you can't afford to alienate them because they can cause you a world of trouble. I participated in building a couple of small subdivisions some years ago. Numerous inspectors were involved as you can imagine and some were extremely ‘picky’ and were driving me nuts - especially the guys from Highways. At one point their engineer requested a change in the radius of a curve because it missed code by a couple of feet. Changing it would not be easy since the street had been surveyed and the rough roadwork had already been done. I pointed out that the radius change would actually translate into a difference of only about 6" in the actual placement of the asphalt which would really amount to nothing since the actual path of the asphalt can vary by more than that anyway. “Nope, the radius has to meet the minimum specs.” Once again I said “Okay, no problem” since strictly speaking they were right and I did not want to cause future problems for myself. A week or so later they pointed to a paved private lane accessing the subdivision and informed me that this curve didn’t met code either and would also need to be changed. I told them that it was a private lane and there was no requirement for it to meet code. Their response was that it could become a public street at some future point and because of that it should be changed to meet code. This went back and forth for several days until I politely, but firmly told them that it would be expensive and time consuming to do this, that there was no legal requirement that it be changed, and that I would not be changing it. Not only did that end the discussion, but amazingly it was the last time I heard from them until the project was finished. When I applied for ‘Final Approval’ they signed off without question or comment. I learned from that experience. As the line from “The Gambler” goes, “You gotta know when to hold them and know when to fold them”.

I guess what I am suggesting is simply that Prem is in a position to know what RIM has on the drawing boards. Not only does it appear that he likes what he sees, but has enough confidence to increase Fairfax's position. But people don't seem to grasp the fact that RIM may be moving well beyond the saturated smartphone market. Just because the Blackberry name has lost its shine in some markets does not mean that RIM does not have other potentially successful ideas that may have absolutely nothing to do with the smartphone industry. It could be anything from military software to driverless car controls, perhaps it involves the nuclear industry who knows? They changed the landscape with the Blackberry, perhaps they can be as successful in their next endeavors and in the meantime maintain a decent grip on the smartphone/tablet industry in developing markets and elsewhere. Of course it may not work out but isn't that the potential for nearly any investment? I just think that Prem, and Hamblin Watsa are shrewd investors that have have a certain advantage over those of us who speculate on the pros and cons of RIM's future. I too, doubt he ever envisioned that he would see RIM selling for eight bucks, but at eight bucks it could be a real bargain.

I think UCCMAL is right on the assumption that RIM is evolving into something different from what it has been on the past. In fact Thorsten Heins has stated as much. As I quoted in the other RIM thread: "The new lineup uses technology from its 2010 acquisition of QNX Software Systems, which RIM bought... which is used in cars, nuclear plants and military drones. " "In Heins’s vision for RIM, the company will expand the scope of its devices beyond BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets into other areas of mobile computing and what he calls machine-to-machine communications. " “Smartphones are a part of our business, but we’re looking way beyond this...” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-13/rim-says-blackberry-10-will-soon-be-ready-for-licensing.html: Everyone seems to be focusing on RIM’s past in predicting RIM’s future. Yet it seems that the future for RIM is in utilizing QNX in areas that have little or nothing to do with smartphones and tablets. They may well be working on technological breakthroughs that could lead the company to achieve the same level of success that they had in the phone business, but in entirely different areas. Does anyone really think Prem Watsa is some idiot throwing good money after bad? He is well aware of what RIM is working on and sees the potential. Licensing the BB10 may well be an indication of RIM’s shifting focus. While phones are an important part of the business there may be much more to RIM. Unfortunately it seems that many people are so caught up in the “my phone is better than yours” debate that they may be missing the real story with RIM I have both RIM and FFH but am becoming tempted to add some more RIM.

"I'm probably the only person here who has the cheapest non-smartphone that I could find running on a prepaid card of $100 for 1 year (about $8/month, hard to beat)" Nope - me too.