nodnub

Tiddman I agree with you, but I can't bring myself to feel sorry for the girl in the article you linked. some quotes: It wasn't supposed to be this hard for the young couple who married in May last year. They thought they'd done the right things. They worked hard, got an education and went about their day-to-day lives doing pretty much the same things they saw friends and relatives doing. "I went to school like we were taught our whole lives to do so I can be successful, and now I can't find a [better] job or pay my bills." She was taught to go into debt to get a liberal arts degree to be successful? Really? After paying about $12,000 -- using their savings and credit cards -- for the wedding and reception in May 2008, they settled into married life with $10 in the bank and thousands in debt. The weeklong honeymoon in Virginia Beach didn't seem extravagant compared with the exotic getaways in St. Lucia and Bahamas some of their friends had enjoyed. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts and $88,000 in private student loans, she took a job as a home health aide making between $300 to $500 every two weeks. She thought it would be temporary while she planned for the wedding. In addition to the student loans, both of them have car loans of about $6,000 each. Mrs. Obringer has another $6,000 in credit card debt, and Mr. Obringer has about $5,000 in credit card debt, a $650-a-month mortgage and a $250-a-month payment on a home equity line of credit. Mitchell Allen, author of the new book, "A Survival Guide To Debt: How to Overcome Tough Times & Restore Your Financial Health," said the Obringers, like many others, may have to consider right-sizing their life. That means giving up one of their cars, giving up their house and moving someplace more affordable even if it's with family members. "They are living paycheck to paycheck, and that's the situation that 53 percent of Americans are in," Mr. Allen said. "There's a sense of entitlement, especially among the younger generation who wants things right now. "They have a sense that tomorrow will be better than today and they don't always plan for the worst. They had no savings going into the marriage and serious trouble occurred." ---- Why do people think they will be okay if they do the same things that they see everyone else doing (getting in debt $90k for liberal arts degree). It's their life, they have to learn think for themselves. I'm sorry, but if they can't see that then they have received a piss-poor education, both from their college and from their parents. Why do people insist on driving nicer cars than they can afford? Why do people insist they deserve material things only because their friends can afford them? (You often can't tell exactly where your friends get their money (family), and usually do not hear about their own private debt problems).

Just because someone is willing to pay you to do something, doesn't make it worthwhile, or even meritorious. By your logic this guy should take any job, whether its using guerilla marketing tactics to sell addictive pharmaceuticals for off-label uses, or marketing candy bars and soda pop to school lunch rooms. I would sleep under a bridge before taking some 'jobs,' money just isn't all that. Sometimes jobs comes with intangible costs that are hard for some to identify. I'm not in a position to cast judgment on this kid's decisions, and give him credit for leading his own life. Opihiman, with all due respect, did you read the article? The kid graduated 2 FULL YEARS ago. He has a degree in poli sci from a liberal arts college with a B average. His parents have paid all of his expenses for the last 2 years including his cell phone bill and life insurance premiums (probably a waste of money as he has no dependants). He has only done a few small jobs (fence for a neighbour). From other posters that went to Colgate: he only had a GPA higher than 3.3 in one semester (only won the dean's award once). Keep in mind that serious grade inflation has occurred in the last 30 years. REALLY? He is a lazy bum, I don't call that leading his life. He has wasted the last two years doing nothing useful for himself or society. The article didn't mention anything positive that he had done in the last two years.

American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation http://www.cnbc.com/id/38126526/ Title is misleading: The american dream will never come true (unless by accident) for such lazy, spoiled brats. I would never hire anyone like this guy.

MS has come out with some good products... but I agree their historical strength has been in salesmanship as well as copying competitor's products (such as office) and improving upon them. It was rare for MS to be first out of the gate with a new poroduct. Visicalc --> MS Multiplan --> MS Excel, Word Perfect --> Microsoft Word, PC DOS --> MS-DOS. (I probably got some of these details wrong)

I am a little curious as to who is selling rights at $0.01? I seems unlikely to be the small shareholders. Say one had 5,000 common shares and then received 5000 rights. The rights would have sold for $50 today. After they subtract commission costs it is hardly worth the time it takes to log in to their accounts and click on 'sell'.

More just curious about seeing them trading a few days ago already and not being in any ones accounts. Was wondering how that is possible and were did those shares come from just to get an understanding on how things work. I don't have a definite answer for you. However, the fact that they didn't show up in retail investor accounts until recently doesn't mean that some holders (maybe instituational) didn't get theirs as early as June 21st. Perhaps rights transaction like this require some paper shuffling at the backoffice of the broker/carrying broker. It might not happen as quickly for retail investors?

This is the marginal tax rate at 50K. A much more representative figure would be the total % tax paid. If you go to Taxtips.ca you can see that someone earning 50K in Quebec, pays a total of $11,759 federal and provincial tax. When you add in the mandatory govt pension and Employment insurance taxes then the total is $14,703. This makes total tax paid only 29.4% of income (ignoring impact of sales tax/VAT) In BC, that same 50K salary would only be taxed a total of $11,091 for a total tax, pension, and EI tax of only 22.2% of income. http://taxtips.ca/calculators/taxcalculator.htm Can anyone add detail on how that compares to various states in the US?

One of my Canadian friends moved from British Columbia to Oregon for a promotion and a raise. His new salary was higher even when you ignored exchange rates. However, he told me that even with a higher salary, his take home pay was lower in Oregon than it was while he was in Canada. (Oregon does have the benefit of no state sales tax though)

I think Bruce Greenwald was referring to Greg Alexander who has worked for Ruane, Cunniff since 1985.

Thank you Tariq, I hoped a transcript would turn up. Your hard work is greatly appreciated.

In my mind there is a distinction when you are the party that chooses the premium amount and takes the bets (closer to bookmaking than gambling).

Perhaps--but at least he is willing to appear humble in public--which is a form of humility in and of itself.

You can see volume/quotes on TSX website: www.tmx.com The rights are not in my account yet either.

Thank you for the response Sharper -- this sentence answers my question.

Once again, I am not talking about when I am actually going to receive the rights. The prospectus itself states that the rights can be exercised beginning June 21st 2010. This date is not important to me, since we have 3 weeks to exercise them. What I am trying to determine is: did anyone receive notice from their broker about the rights offering prior to the ex-rights date of June 16th, so that they could actually buy additional shares that would earn additional rights in the offering. Just curious if anything was sent out by SFK that my broker has not sent to me. (I had some problems with late delivery of corporate proxies in the past)

I should clarify, I don't mean notification of receiving the rights in your account. In the past, dealing with another broker, I was mailed a copy of the rights offering prospectus when a different company had a rights offering. I was wondering if anyone received any advance notice of the rights offering by mail? Either a notification or a copy of the prospectus?

I have a question for SFK shareholders that use a discount broker: Did you receive a copy of the rights offering prospectus from your broker? Or any notification of the offering?

Canada has socialized medicine and it looks like they have also have a fully funded social security program. These systems are not necessarily bankrupt from the beginning... For example social security: keep it funded, keep reserves, and keep the benefits/promises to retirees in line with reasonable expectation of incoming funds.

We have to account for T+3 settlement... the same as ex- dates for dividends. You are not a holder of record until T+3. The record date from the prospectus is June 18th... so Fibrek is ex-rights as of yesterday. (i.e. Anyone buying shares yesterday will NOT receive rights in the offering)

I don't think there is anything ironic about that. The slaves still weren't allowed to vote (that didn't come until 83 years later). The slave owners were clearly acting in their own interests. wikipedia: "three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. It was proposed by delegates James Wilson and Roger Sherman. Delegates opposed to slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, slaveholders would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the House and the Electoral College. "

yup. exactly. I agree that they should stop subsidizing corn production for ethanol.. but I also think should be subsidizing other promising alt energy sources. Subsidizing corn for ethanol never looked smart... I believe it was just designed to win votes from the mid-west.

My understanding is that holds true for corn-based ethanol... but ethanol from sugar cane is supposed to be much more practical/economical in comparison to corn.

I'll read the annual report. Off the top of my head--I wonder what happens if Greece figures out how to effectively tax its citizens? I think it could result in reduced discretionary spending on mobile use.

ah, I found this, this free foxit reader appears to have the ability to annotate and save notes on PDF files. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/reader3.php

Tariq, this sounds great but only seems to run on Mac OS X. Are you aware of any similar software for use on MS-Windows?