cwericb

I have also used the VRBO site several times and was more than satisfied with the results. Also searching is very flexible. After you locate a property, try Google Earth Street View to look around the neighbourhood and see how that looks. I also found prices were negeotiable in many cases. I booked three locations in Hawaii two years ago through VRBO and would recommend it.

Thanks for allowing us to participate. I am boxing up an East Coast hamburger purchased at Burger King. Am sending it postage collect, hope you don’t mind. Since it is so small (6" x 6" X 4") you get a good price from Canada Post as taken from their website: Base Price $32.99 Collection on Delivery $7.25 Fuel Surcharge $4.37 Tax $5.35 Total $49.96 That is for two day delivery. But for about four times that amount, on a seat sale, I can fly out and hand it to your personally. Please send tickets

As one who buys desktops and laptops for our company here is my theory on their relative value. Laptops are great for offices. They take up less space and have less connecting cables and if someone comes in to talk to you, you can shut the lid and not have to look around a screen. They also eliminate the need for a power backup and of course, they have portability when necessary. This is particularly convenient if a laptop gets a virus or needs to make a trip to the computer doctor - much easier than disconnecting a desktop and lugging it off to be fixed. Desktops on the other hand are much more practical in locations like sales desks or other high traffic areas where a laptop could be stolen or dropped. The other advantage of the desktop is that when someone spills their pop or coffee, two minutes and $15 replaces the keyboard, try that with a laptop. Tablets are nice and portable but they way too portable for office use, ie, they would tend to walk or get damaged - and who wants to try and type a letter on one? But for someone on the road, tablets, netbooks & laptops are great and each has their niche.

I see Fairfax as a relatively safe long term investment, so for me I use it partially as a hedge against some of my other investments. When markets drop, Fairfax usually rises and takes some of the sting out of it. If they drop enough I will probably buy some more. The biggest concern I have with Fairfax is what happens if all you fellows on the left coast drop into the sea in a massive earthquake or some other catastrophic event. Is anyone else doing this?

Let’s be fair here. Francis Chou is a very honourable man, but he is not clairvoyant and every investment of his will not be successful. Believe me I know, as I have invested in his funds for several years. And while he is certainly not in the same league as some of those people mentioned in Hester’s post, shouldn’t posters be allowed to express dissenting and critical views of investments and/or fund managers? Are certain topics to be above criticism? This board is of very high quality entirely due to the fact that our moderator spends a lot of time ensuring that it stays that way. We all respect and appreciate Sanjeev for what he does because without his work this board would degenerate into something like the Yahoo or Stockhouse boards. However, the beauty of this board is that it is a forum where we get intelligent and informed debates and opinions on topics that illustrate the pros and cons of the subject at hand. Surely we don’t want to censor posts just because we disagree with them. Hester once made the point that shorters provide a good balance against the paid PR departments pumping their companies. So long as information is reliable should we not have access to it whether we agree with it or not?

I got a message from RBC to call them re FBK. What did you tell them, I'm not sure I'm going to call back.

"There's a difference between Anchoring and "expecting not to be swindled". That is still a valuable lesson, though." Agree with both those sentences.

Tyska: "Changed my opinion of Fairfax forever also." Alertmeipp: "Same here regarding Fairfax - I see the dark side of Prem from this." Add me (and a lot other people) to that list as well. “Fair & Friendly acquisitions” is great PR, but obviously a lot of bunk - and please, don’t try to tell me that Fairfax is some sort of innocent bystander in this. Sure business can be ruthless, that’s the way the game is played. Just don’t try to tell me what a great guy you are while you have your hand in my pocket looking for my wallet.

Doesn't management have a whole lot of options that kick in at $1.60?

Liberty, wouldn’t this be the answer to your question? During the next period of time, do you think the position you want to take will increase in value more than one of, or several of your present holdings? If you think that it will, sell and buy, if not, hold and wait. Of course a crystal ball would help :) However, all too often I rush into something because I am afraid it will go up in price. And there seems to be some sort of rule that whatever I buy immediately drop by 10%. Also didn't someone say "Never fall in love with a stock"?

Yup, there goes the "Fair" part and the "Friendly" part was never in the equation. Sorry to harp on this and I'll try to let it go now. QED

"If FFH wants to give away their shares for $1.00, let them." Now there's an interesting thought. If FFH was asked to sell their shares to an unrelated party for a buck, would they? Or would they consider that an unfair offer?

As a poor dumb, humble, small FBK shareholder, here is what I see - and remember in the public eye, perception is everything. I see one party offering me $1.00 for my shares while another offers me $1.30. Great we have a bidding war for our shares. But then I learn that the first party wants to force me to take the lower bid and that doesn’t sit well and seems to be contradictory to any form of bidding that I have ever of. What next, are we going to go backwards - do I hear 90 cents? 80? That tends to tick off us little guys. But when it appears that Fair & Friendly Fairfax is manipulating this hostile and unfair situation (to us FBK shareholders) and forcing this lower bid, one starts to question the limitations FFH applies to their credo of “Fair & Friendly”. "Aaah, nobody knows were here let's rip off FBK shareholders and everyone will blame ABH. (Perhaps a little strong but remember 'perception')" Of course everyone is operating in their own best interests. But only FBK (and again this may be a first) is operating in my interests so is any one surprised that we FBK shareholders are not happy about this situation? But since many of us here are also shareholders of Farfax this doesn't sit so well. Lessthan & SD. Thank you both and please keep up the debate. This is the value of our board to those of us who are less knowledgeable than others. When smart guys like yourselves argue the pros and cons you present a balance of information not available elsewhere and that is appreciated by myself and I am sure others.

“FFH is not buying FBK. FFH is selling their shares to ABH who are hoping to buy FBK. This talk about FFH not adhereing to their "fair and friendly" acquisition mantra is ridiculous. They are acquiring nothing.” That’s simply a matter of technicalities and semantics. Yes ABH is buying FBK. But Fairfax is the driving force behind the takeover, the largest shareholder of ABH, and a VP of Fairfax sits on Abitibi’s board. By no stretch of the imagination are they an unrelated party and they are orchestrating this takeover of FBK through ABH. Through ABH they are attempting to take over FBK - of which they are also a major shareholder. I know the car analogy over simplifies the situation, but the bottom line is that there are two offers and shareholders are being forced to accept the lower of the two. It is not so far astray if you look at the situation from a shareholder of FBK’s point of view. I fully agree with what you say about FBK management and I have never been a fan. I now find it ironic that their goals are finally in line with shareholders. With the agreement of the participants, could not the hard lockup price be increased if they were so inclined? If they are locked into a position that they cannot get out of, why are they perusing legal action to push the matter so hard? If they want the company, offer a fair price, don’t try to force shareholders to take an lower offer

“FFH, Pabrai, Oakmont etc are well within their rights to lock up shares to an offer” They certainly are, but the situation has changed since that time and just because they are within their rights still doesn’t mean that their offer is either “fair or friendly”. I guess that if someone goes through a red light in front of me I would be within my rights to hit him, it still doesn’t make it the "right" thing to do. The real situation here is simply that our shares are up for sale and we have two offers, one is $1.30, the other is $1.00. Related parties are colluding to force us to take a the lower offer and also eliminate any other potential offers. They voted their shares in a manner that they believed gave them the best opportunity for success at the time. Yes but that was many months ago when there was no other offer on the table. If I make an offer to buy your car for $10,000 and you say,”No that isn’t enough, I know my car is worth a lot more than that”. Then someone else comes along and says “I’ll give you $13,000 for your car”. Then you might expect for the first guy to come back with a higher offer, but when he says "I’ll still give you $10,000 for your car” should you not be free to accept the second offer? Sure in the FBK situation there are lots of technicalities involved and that is why this mess is in court. What really ticks me off is that when this gets settled, what will FBK be worth after all the expenses that they have been forced to assume?

When this all settles out, doesn’t it simply come down to a battle between Fairfax and the board of Fibrek? Initially it appeared to be a good idea to amalgamate and streamline the operations of ABH and FBK and take advantage of the FBK’s low share price. But the bid just simply didn’t fly because somebody thought they could get away with getting FBK on the cheap. But then this seemed to degenerate into an ego trip and everyone dug in their heels. Ever since, both sides have been frittering their shareholders money on what is probably a personal battle. Tere is one common factor in this battle - Fairfax. And yes business is business, but at some point Fairfax should have realized that (theoretically) they hold themselves to a higher standard and therefore they should have made a more reasonable offer rather than try to force an unreasonable offer through by any means available. Look. when one faction offers shareholders $1.00 and the other offers $1.30, nearly everyone looking at this can see who the good guys and bad guys are. Fairfax has to be embarrassed over the bad press they have received over this already so why haven’t they done something about it? While others can participate in this sorts of wars, how do you possibly justify it when you derive your name from your motto of “Fair and Friendly Acquisitions” ? Does anyone suppose that Perm will be inviting FBK’s people to the annual dinner this year?

As I was writing this I see that gordoffh had just posted something similar... The word that comes to mind to describe this mess is "bizarre”. It seems that every second day that I pick up my mail there are a couple large envelopes sitting there from one side or the other. Out of curiosity, does anyone have a count on the mailings we have received to date? I have gotten to the point where I don’t even open them anymore. The useless expense involved in these mailings alone must be horrendous. I guess it will all come out when someone writes a book about this.

Excellent idea.

Prince Edward Island

"Actions speak louder than words" Exactly. It is not that one company is trying to force a takeover at the expense of shareholders. It is that the company behind this pretends to take the high ground and even derives its name from its motto of Fair and Friendly Acquisitions when nothing could be further from the truth in this case. As has been suggested, there would appear to be something going on here that beneath the surface and perhaps at a personal level. There have been all sorts of justifications and excuses given for Fairfax's actions. Some of those might be applicable in other takeovers involving less reputable companies. But when you have of "Fair and Friendly Acquisitions" and then back an "Unfair and Unfriendly Acquisition" it definitely changes one's perception of Fairfax - and for what??

"And the fact that ABH keep using the legal process to fight for this obviously inferior offer is disgusting." Can't help but agree and if you look at the reaction in the press there is more and more criticism of Fairfax part in this. It seems so contradictory to FFH's "fair, friendly acquisitions" creed. How do they corelate their position in this takeover with their moto? Obviously the friendly aspect was missing from day one. And where is the fairness in trying to stiff shareholders out of a legitimate bid that is a full 30% higher? The costs in this mounting pile of crap I have been receiving must be horrendous. May drive up the price of paper though...

It seems this debate boils down to a single issue. Do Goldman’s employees have an ethical responsibility to their clients or is their only responsibility to Goldman’s bottom line? But clients pay Goldman, and thereby Goldman’s employee’s, to look after the client’s best interests, not Goldman’s interests. I guess I am old school but I believe that if you accept money to perform a service you have an ethical responsibility to perform that service to the best of your ability. When you take your car to the garage, is it okay for the garage mechanic to slap on numerous unnecessary parts and repairs to boost the garage’s profitability? Just my 2 cents worth.

rkbabang “...as an anarchist...” One thing I have never understood about anarchy and anarchists is what sort of society do they see themselves living in in their ideal world? I mean, taxes, law, government, etc all have their downside and we undoubtedly have too much of each, but what is the alternative? Somalia? “Taxation is theft” For sure some of it is and nobody likes taxes, but again, what is the alternative? Privatization? Do you see Wall Street as a shining example of honesty? Do you really believe that if there was no law and law enforcement that you would be able to live in any semblance of safety?

Speaking of CMHC, does anyone have any idea of total potential liability that CMHC and the Canadian taxpayer has if a meltdown occurred in housing prices?

"Owning a house is not seen as something you achieve (by saving a lot and then waiting for the right bargain), it's seen as something you have a right to (price doesn't matter, it'll go up anyways!). That's dangerous." If you mention the idea of "saving up" to buy something, people tend look at you as if you were out of touch with reality. The idea today is that you use other people's money so that you can get what you want - now - and worry about paying for it later. That is when the problem comes in - later. Eventually later comes around. Then, when they find themselves in deep it's everyone else's fault, the bank, the government, the credit card companies, etc. Here is another scary scenario. I have had people actually say to me, "We doing pretty good, we are making the minimum payments on all our cards and we still have enough credit to buy that new ....... we want. First off, I cannot believe people think of their credit capacity as an asset rather than a pending debt. Secondly, I received this month's Visa bill. Hidden on the last page (and required now by law), is the statement "if you only make the minimum payment it will take you 37 years to pay the amount owing". And my Visa bill was for only $1,770.