cwericb

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.

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.