cwericb

Not to hijack the thread but... “Two major reasons for that is abuse by patients with many still going to see their doctors for minor scratches, colds and doing things that they could do on their own such as blood pressure. Also, how much is spent each year on free and repeated STD's detection must be out of this world. People paying a little bit for each visit would help a lot.” This is a pet peeve of mine. I have always thought that the Canadian medicare system could be drastically improved if only we had a small basic charge. Even a $10 or $20 charge per visit with a maximum of something like $100 per year. It would stop many of those nonsense visits that consume doctors time and the revenue produced would help defray other costs. For those concerned about the fee increasing and eroding free medicare, require an act of Parliament for any increases, or tie it to the inflation rate. Or does this make too much sense?

"The irony here is that I bought and held Fairfax mainly as protection against a market correction. Turns out that the only thing that corrected was Fairfax while the market soared. " Ditto. I don't know about you but I am starting to run out of antacid.

I agree. But I wonder how Trudeau can back off on the carbon tax and not lose face. I also think Trump tends to look favorably towards Canada and that Mexico is his primary target for the time being. Also - people can say what they want about NAFTA, but every agreement has benefits to both sides. It is easy to use it as a target politically, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty there has to be advantages to the US as well in that agreement.

"15% tax on foreign buyers since August 2 and major tightening around mortgage rules. If the real estate bubble deflates or worst pops, along with still weak oil & gas activity, what is going to be supporting Canada's economy? Imagine the effects of a banking crisis... " Add to this possible changes to NAFTA, softwood lumber deal, the auto sector, etc.

"USA hopefully." Haha, I was thinking the same thing. On the serious side, we will just have to wait & see.

Is this of any use? https://ycharts.com/companies/FRFHF/price_to_book_value

“When you become reasonable enough to understand that someone who did commit something vs someone who could commit something is different, then maybe we can discuss.” I have yet to see any proof as to what the Clintons did that was illegal. Specifically, to what are you referring? As far as getting an introduction to a politician in exchange for a charitable donation, that is certainly nothing new and is the way many charities work. The Clinton foundation has used that money to give hundreds of millions in aid world wide. On the other hand, is it true that the Trump Foundation donated $25,000 to the re-election campaign of the Florida Attorney General? Is that a charity? Could it possibly be connected or is it just coincidence that this same Attorney General then dropped the criminal investigation into Trump University? And then of course, there is the whole issue of Trump U.

So you're okay with continuing and expanding the practice?

"I am making a concerted effort to go 4 years without hearing Trump's voice. " Yeah, well good luck with that! :) Should we now start a new thread: Donald 'The Wall' Trump's campaign promises. Hillery is no longer going to jail. The great, great wall is being downgraded to a fence. Obamacare is not being repealed but tweeked. And how's that process of "Draining the Swamp" coming along? So what happens when the redneck portion of his supporters finally clue in that they have been duped? Now to look on the bright side of things I have to admit I would prefer watching Melania and Ivanka rather than Hillary for the next 4 years.

As that old Chinese curse goes... "may you live in interesting times". The next few years are bound to be interesting. :)

Something that confuses me. How can Trump turn over his businesses interests to his children, shouldn't the businesses be put into a blind trust? And now Trumps wants his children to have secret security clearances.

Agree with your sentiments on Rudy 100%. He gives me the feeling he just escaped from some horror movie. I have no problem with protesting, I just don't see the point at this particular time. Wait for a few months or years and see where things are going to go. But what really concerns me is that I can't help wondering how you turn over most of the western world's top secrets to people like Trump, Bannon, Giuliani and all of the rest of Trumps crew. How do you do that and ensure these guys will not use the info for their own personal and political uses? I wouldn't trust Steve Bannon with the White House's phone number let alone state secrets.

Here's what gets me. Trump won. I didn’t want to see him win - but he did. He was elected democratically and to protest his election is simply protesting against the democratic process. These protesters need to suck it up and go home. Save your protests for when you really do have something legitimate to protest against. Protesting now just discredits any future legitimate protests.

FFH.TO @ $640

"As I posted previously, Coulter is actually an advisor to Trump and he got some policy ideas from her books." Liberty, are you suggesting that Trump has actually read some books?

Yes, the value of this board is the reasonable exchange of differing viewpoints. That said, I still cannot understand how a large percentage of American voters will vote for a man like Trump. It doesn’t matter how bad you think of Hillary, Trump is on a whole different scale. We have seen how he has acted during his campaign where candidates are on their best behavior. If that’s the best he can do, can you imagine what he would be like if he actually had the power of a President?

And... He who ignores history is bound to repeat it.

I doubt that even the good folks at Wendy's would hire Trump with his big mouth, comments about women, bankruptcies, etc. If Wendys asked to see his resume, Trump would refuse to release it.

alwaysinvest: "It's exactly like Germany in 1933." This is exactly what I've been saying for months now. Read this on Facebook and it tends to put things in perspective: "If you needed open-heart surgery and had to pick between a doctor with a malpractice suit filed against them or the manager of a Wendy’s, which person would you choose to perform that surgery? This is the American election in a nutshell."

captkerosene: Still having trouble following your logic. So you would focus your investments within countries with higher IQ averages. Countries such as Spain, Mongolia, Andorra, Estonia and Latvia - all with equal or higher IQ rates than the US. So how are those investments working out? I see the Mongolian Stock Market (who knew?) is down 50% in the past five years and I don’t think the IBEX (Spain) has done so well either. Since you say you don’t mean to insult anyone, I have to assume that you are truly ignorant of IQ and IQ testing results and would suggest you might do some more research on the subject. You remind me of the teacher who gave his class IQ tests and then graded the students, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc and then posted the results. He got fired for that. IQ testing is notoriously unreliable and I could go on if I thought you were really serious. We probably all know guys who are dumb as dirt yet became self made millionaires and also know geniuses who don’t have a pot to piss in.

JoelS & Petec. You pretty well express my exact thoughts. I would add that it also seems that every few months Fairfax brings another insurance company into the fold as Fairfax becomes a global insurance company.

Ditto, and this seems typical of the man. When reading things like this I really have trouble following the reasoning of intelligent people who still support him.

I know a number of people who have little or no education that would do very poorly in an IQ test. Yet they have been very sucessful in business and have very well for themselves. High IQ does not necessarily mean someone will be successful in business. On the other hand, I also know numerous extremely bright university professors, doctors, lawyers and other professionals who are for ever having money problems. Anyone who thinks that they can compare the average IQ in one country to the average IQ of another knows very little about IQ testing.

"Is there any evidence that he has that much humility?" Ha ha, good point. There are those who believe that Trump had no intentions of ever actually becoming president. It began as a publicity stunt to elevate his name awareness and increase ratings for The Apprentice. But then things snowballed and he drank his own Kool aid. Now as he sees his poll numbers dropping he is obviously attempting to cover his ass by trying to float the idea that the election process is "rigged" against him and that is to be his excuse for losing, because he could never tolerate being called a "loser". What guy, he is truly a piece of work. I think he is going to face a reality check once this election is over. The one thing he had going for him was that he built the Trump brand into something that was polished and classy. But he has looked anything but over these past months. Once this is over he is going to have to answer for some of the thing he has said and done in his past. Did I hear right that there have been 3,500 lawsuits against Trump, including numerous ones from the government he wants to lead? Wow, what a jerk!

I'm starting to move into the camp that believes that Trump realizes he couldn't handle the job and really does not want to get elected. But in the meantime he has damaged his brand significantly.