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Tim - You are probably right but the 62 years is quoted directly from my Visa statement. For the record I’ll be 129 when I hobble in to make that final payment. I think we all agree with the theory that we are all responsible for our own actions. But there are a lot of people who simply do not understand compound interest. While it is fine to say ‘Well that’s their problem”, the simple truth is that it isn’t. When Joe Blow gets into financial problems it effects a lot of people and the end result is that we pay for his losses either through higher prices or interest rates. Printing payout times and interest totals would definitely be a wake up call for a lot of people. Sure people still smoke dispite the warnings, but only a fraction as many people smoke today as when those anti-smoking programs started. Same applies to junk food, people are much more aware today. We just need more disclosure in the credit card industry. As far as the banks or credit card companies making money, I have no problem at all with that which is why I own shares in them. And by the way..... ubuy2wron : 1 Capital One : 0

"If you believe that they take advantage of people who don't have knowledge or skills, and the implication is that they do this on purpose, then there isn't a lot to discuss." The point is that these companies have not provided the information that consumers need to make sound financial decisions thereby contributing to some consumers getting in over their heads in debt. When that becomes as widespread as it is today then it begins to effect our economy. If you were aware that it would take 62 years to pay off $6,300 @ $132/mo than I would suggest that you would be among the minority. The problem I have is that this information was not provided until forced by legislation. There are a lot of people out there who think they are paying down debt by making minimum payments when, in fact, the pay down is infinitesimal. I agree with your other examples, however we are not talking about quite the same thing. Eg, I am not for a moment suggesting that fast foods, bubble gum or bank cards be outlawed. Perhaps it is common knowledge that bubble gum will rot your teeth intricacies of credit card interest charges are not so simple. And yes, I am suggesting that banks intentionally withhold information that consumers can use make informed decisions because it is in their own interests, ie, the above example. I have come across many people who have been under the impression that "minimum payments" for bank cards are like a mortgage payment or car loan payments that have fixed amortization periods. They are not and there are people who do not understand this.

"No offense, but why are the credit card companies loan shark companies?" Perhaps because they take advantage of people who do not have the knowledge or skills to know what they are getting into? Perhaps because they had to be legislated to inform people that the minimum payments were unrealistic? Do you think that it is ethical to tell customers that it is okay to make a minimum payment that would take 60 or 70 years to pay off? Until recently they did not inform their customers of this fact. And this is just for starters. Several years ago one of my sons did not pay his Bank Card bill of $500. It was eventually placed for collection. After about three years I paid it off for him. Within two months they issued him with a new card with a $5,000 limit. I could go on. "That's right. But 20% is damn high!" There are others that are higher.

I received my Visa Infinite statement today. This month I owe $6,295.96 and I always pay the full balance. My minimum payment is $132.00 per month. In the fine print (recently legislated in Canada) it says: "If you only make the minimum payment every month it will take approximately 62 years to pay the entire balance shown on this statement" That is: $132 x 12 months x 62 years = $98,208.00 to pay the $6,295 balance. BUT $132 x 48 months = $6,336 So it takes less than 4 years to pay the debt AND 58 years to pay the INTEREST. And this is at a rate of 20%. Now here is the scarey part. I have worked in various areas of the credit industry for over forty years and many times I have had couples sit in front of me and proudly announce that they are making all their minimum payments and still have some money left over to take on some new debt. This is just an example of why I have always felt that a short course on credit should be mandatory before anyone graduates from junior high school. Of course, on the plus side of all this, I do appreciate the fact that Visa has so much faith in my longevity.

bookie71 Further to "Them that can, do, those who can't, teach" Them that can't teach, administrate, Then that can't teach or administrate, go in to politics. I sometimes think there is more than a little truth in that.

“The only thing that annoys me is that they will likely get sold/do some asset sales the day after I sell.” - Cardboard My sentiments exactly. This started out to be something that I had high expectations for in the short term. I still think that there is a good opportunity here, but instead of months it may be years before we see this company start to reach its potential. The painful part of this is the money that I have tied up in the meantime. But I hate to get out because there is always the possibility of something major happening right after I sell. But managements options and the fact that they also have shares in the company does align their interests with ours as shareholders and there is also the fact that Fairfax is still substantially involved. So, like Cardboard, I just really hate to get out at this point, now if perhaps if Cardboard could be convinced to sell ... Down around 8-10%. Markets don’t seem to know what to do here as the price has really been bouncing around from $1.42 to $1.58 Same thing every time earnings are released. You can`t keep disappointing shareholders after every quarter, if you want to build your share price. If they ever could get contracts for RBK plants to operate fully on a cost plus basis and then sell them off, things would be very different. Perhaps that’s their long range plan?

Some of our members need to keep a couple of things in mind. 1) This board is moderated in Canada. 2) I believe Canadian libel laws differ somewhat from those in the U.S. 3) You may call a crook a crook. However that crook can haul you into court and make you prove that he is actually a crook and this can be very difficult and very expensive. If that crook is far wealthier than you he can cost you an enormous amount before (if you are very, very lucky) you get a judgement in your favour. Then he can apeal it until the cows come home. Just look at some of the far fetched things SAC is throwing at Fairfax to delay and drag things out. Now, no one wants to see anyone on this board get into that kind of trouble. But we all have to keep in mind that it could be Sanjeev who could end up having to protect himself from a libel suit for something that I wrote because he missed it and allowed it to be posted on the board. This is of no little concern as several Stockhouse board members have been sued, so that should serve as a warning to us all. And I don't for a minute exempt myself from this as I have written more than my share of venomous letters in my time, however there are ways of telling someone to go to hell in such a way as he cannot wait to get there. So the bottom line here is that if you want to call a guy a crook, just be careful to do it in a nice ambiguous way so that no one gets in trouble.

Couple of diverse comments that might fit here 1) I see that Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada is being mentioned as a possible replacement for SK. 2) Yesterday I saw where an individual on a Stockhouse thread that I was following was apparently forced to write a retraction for comments he made. In the past others have been sued for comments made on that board. I only mention this because sometimes we have to remember to be a little careful what we write here or elsewhere because there can be ramifications if we get to little carried away. This is especially true when we comment on matters that are before the courts such as this or the Fairfax lawsuit. However, Sanjeev keeps close tabs on things but he can't read everything all the time. I am not referring to any particular posts or individuals, but I have seen comments that run pretty close to the line. So I just wanted to remind everyone that there are some vultures out there who would like to take a shot at people who made negative comments about them.

"maybe she had evidence of the racqueteering i.e maybe she knew something that she wanted to give to Fairfax to hurt her spouse." If she had such evidence, then it would seem that she had every right to present it to Fairfax or in fact, to the appropriate authorities if she wished. Furthermore, if she had evidence of Cohen's wrongoing, then you would think that Cohen's lawyers would want to supress that evidence, not expose it.

IF this was true, so what? What relevance would such a meeting have to the Fairfax suit? And furthermore, that supposed meeting occurred long after the events that are the basis of Fairfax suit took place and would be irrelevant, which is probably why this was thrown out. SAC & Cohen's lawyers are doing everything they can to delay the Fairfax suit and this is just part of that sideshow. No doubt it was no surprise to them that this was thrown out, but now they get to waste more time and money by appealing this decision. It will be a long, long time before we see a resolution to Fairfax's suit, but the fact that SAC are using tactics like this clearly indicate that they know what the end result will be. If they had any hope of winning it would be in their best interests to have this resolved quickly, so their only defense is to delay, delay and delay. Even when a decision is reached it will be appealed.

"BRK B vs BRK A must be the greatest long/short position in the history of mankind" Come on now, you don't want to really confuse this guy.

Just blows my mind to read that quote. Guess this guy wouldn't be buying FFH any time soon with a share price around $400, be way too expensive. Do you suppose he woke up this morning and said "What was I thinking?"

Question? Anyone know how many board members do we have now?

" I've changed the features so that members cannot delete their own threads." 1) Until this subject arose I wasn't aware that a poster could delete threads. I wholehartedly agree that we should not have the power to do this as a person could start a thread and not even participate in it and then for whatever reasons, delete everyone's valuable participation. 2) It would also be nice to tone down the personal attacks. Surely we are all grown up enough that we as a group can avoid this. Certainly we will often disagree and see things differently. That is the value of the board. There are always more than one view of a subject. I WANT to see the pro's and con's so I can help make up my own mind with some decent information. Also when we present our own opinions we should all be open to other views. I would never be so arrogant as to think my view was the only correct one. I certainly have the right to defend my view and disagree with others, but not in such a way as to personally attack anyone. You guys are all brighter than that and I only wish I had a fraction of the knowledge and expertise that is shown by many members of this board.

Well said Sanjeev. We all appreciate the work you do to facilitate this meeting place. After constantly following this board and its predecessor for 4 or 5 years now, it is funny how one starts to recognize the personalities associated with the various user names on this forum. I feel that I know some of the people here almost as well as I know as people I see every day. I often regret that board members don't provide a short bio and perhaps a picture.

Point taken. I don't often check out the (3) comments so I may have taken your comments out of context.

ValueCarl you are one of the more outspoken members and that's fine, I have no objection to that, but your attack on Bronco is a little over the top and unecessary. We all can get a little carried away at times and you might want to use the edit feature on your comments about his kids as I am sure the 'monster' remark that he made was in jest. As has been said in previous posts, Sanjeev has the power to turf anyone who gets really obnoxous and has done so. What I could really use though is a spell checker rather than an ignore button.

"Why subject me to your views on whether I have to read other's views?" If you are not interested in other views why would you read this thread or the board for that matter? Isn't that the whole idea behind a message board - to exchange views?

Alpha 23 posted while I was writing this and I pertty well echo what he says. I say no, at least at this point. I very much value everyone's opinion. Particularly when there are discussions about a particular company and some members like the company and state their reasons, then the detractors raise their own points and questions. I don't know about everyone else, but this is what I value most about this board. It is a balance that I have trouble finding in the press or other boards. If there are members or comments I want to ignore I am capable of doing that myself. As the saying goes ' Opinions are like a**holes, everybody's got one'. I like to see both sides of the coin and even the dumbest person can sometimes come up with a view I haven't considered. Also, some may consider some of the humour or wit that is displayed by certain members to be frivolous, but personally I quite enjoy most of it.

"If they continue to buy shares, perhaps they will start to think MORE like shareholders and start paying us a portion of our income. " Agreed, and you would think that those options they own would give them incentive to get the share price up as well. However, in their defense, they have access to a lot more information than we do and there is hope that perhaps they are following an agenda that looks good to them, but may be a little more long term that we would like. They said they had plans to improve the results from the RBK plants and NBSK prices have been running in a pretty good range for quite a while now. I also saw somewhere (here?) where chip prices have dropped, so it will be interesting to see the results of the first quarter. You would also think that FFH would be keeping tabs on what is going on within the company and perhaps they also are looking at it with a more long term view as well. The concern there is what happens if NBSK prices start to decline? With the pressure on commodity prices this week it will be interesting to see if there is a dip in the NBSK price on Tuesday. You know, back when it was first announced that 2012 date for the power generation used to seem like such a long way off. But now it doesn't seem like so far away.

Seems that for the last couple of years there has been a run up in share price prior to quarterly earnings release. Then the market would be unimpressed with the results and the price would drop - sometimes substantially. This time, however the price has been slipping for the past week as we wait for the earnings release in a couple of weeks. Perhaps the reverse will happen when the results are released this time for a change. javascript:void(0);

LONGUEUIL, QC, May 4 /CNW Telbec/ - Fibrek (TSX: FBK) will release its 2011 first quarter results after market hours on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. President and Chief Executive Officer, Pierre Gabriel Côté, and Patsie Ducharme, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will host a conference call on Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) to discuss financial results.

Agree 100% with Crip. I was brought up to believe that "constructive criticism" is always valuable information and I never cease to be amazed at people who get insulted or offended over helpful advice. It may not always be correct, it may not always be complementary, but it is always useful to see what others think of you or your operation. It involves thinking outside the box. If you are involved in managing a corporation like FFH or some of the other companies mentioned on this board that Sanjeev has built, where a high percentage of the board members are very astute and intelligent investors (not me), it must provide a valuable source of commentary that reflects shareholder's view your operations. It is reassuring to know that FFH management are receptive and interested in outside ideas and criticisms involving their operations.

Yikes! I hereby retract anything uncomplimentary that I have ever said here. Seriously though, just from the timing of some things that have happened I think that there are some other company execs (FBK?) that also must keep an eye on what is said on this board. Kudos to them for at least listening to other opinions.

Here is some more info on Pabrai/FBK http://canadianinsider.com/coReport/allTransactions.php?ticker=fbk