nodnub

Shortly after this meeting, my host informed me of an audit recently done on one of the largest hospitals in Athens. This hospital was hemorrhaging Euros, and the Greek government is required to make up the deficit with capital injections. Officials began an inquiry into these losses and found 45 gardeners on staff at the hospital. The most interesting fact about the hospital was that it did not have a garden. The corruption is endemic in the society, and it is no wonder that Greece has been a serial defaulter throughout history (91 aggregate years in the last 182 – or approximately half the time). It is unfortunate that it is about to happen once again. Although – as we have previously stated, restructuring is actually the gateway to renewed growth and prosperity over time – we have identified at least two assets that we would like to own in Greece in a postrestructuring environment. That sounds like a pretty good job if you can get it. :D

it would be nice if they posted transcripts. I didn't see any there though

I have seen CEOs do this on several occasions. I think some of them are delusional but I wonder if some of them were just trying to instill confidence in the company through the share purchases, it might have generated some positive press for the company and make supplier and customers think everything is A-OK. Once your suppliers think you are going bankrupt they will all start pushing for payment. If the CEO had significant ownership in the company or other source of wealth then dropping $100,000 on share purchases might be considered a reasonable sacrifice to boost confidence get the company through a tough spell. -- and of course, some of them are completely delusional.

cwericb, i don't disagree with most of the points you've made. but in what sense do you find the current www.fibrek.ca website non-functional today? It appears to have the essential information. I agree that it does not include a long flowery description of their business.

are there any Canadians here with any experience investing in US residential real estate? I would love to have some feedback with someone who has done this before: 1) Were you able to get a $US mortgage in the States? 2) Did your credit rating in Canada give you any positive standing when it came time to apply for credit in the US? or did you have to pay much higher rates? 3) Did you invest at the bottom end or mid-market in terms of housing quality. 4) What did you pay for property management? (10% of rent?) 5) Did you run into any unforeseen issues?

His wife also works. I find that hilarious. Doesn't the guy boast of how he retired at a young age? Maybe I just need to get married to a generous working woman so I can "retire" as well.

I visited a Target in the US for the first time last month. I had a hard time finding any difference between it and Wal-Mart. I admit that many of my friends express a preference for Target (some even refuse to shop at Wal-Mart). It may have had a slightly better clothing selection.. I'm not sure.

I read that these cards aren't accepted for hotels or rental cars since it's not really acceptable as a security deposit. That is interesting.. I thought that this would work if you had a card balance higher than the temporary authorization required to hold the room. The temp auth would prevent you from spending that balance that is held in reserve for the hotel deposit. No personal experience though..

I agree that it's a terrible product. It probably does serve a purpose for people that can't get a credit card because they can use it for over-the-phone hotel reservations etc. where a card is required.

In Canada, you can buy on other stock exchanges through a discount bank broker like BMO Investorline by phoning it in (it's quite expensive last time I checked). Or you could open an account with Interactive Brokers (foreign purchase is cheap, but the account must generate $120 in minimum commissions per year or pay that amount as a fee)

Ben - reclamation between Canada and Finland? As a Cdn, I have NOK shares (ADR) and get double-taxed (with-holdings both by Finland, and then the U.S. by way of the ADR) that I haven't been able to figure out how to avoid. The U.S. with-holding is not so critical, since I get tax credit for that. But is there some way of getting back, or preventing, the Finnish with-holding? RBC Direct Investing (through which the shares are held) claim it is out of there hands ... but I'm skeptical. Roundball, you asked this same question several months ago. I tried to answer it here:

Isn't APR kind of meaningless here? Imagine that I bought BRK and sold it one day later for a 1% real gain. The effective APR gain is 3678% Perhaps you did not mean to refer to APR?

SEDI is the original. The system kind of sucks though, hence the popularity of Canadian Insider.

Does satellite radio have ads? I never listen to commercial radio stations anymore for this reason. I would rather listen to a cd I have heard 1000 times than have music interrupted by ads.

]\ I think it helps. Kindle is the kind of device that people appreciate more after seeing it in person and holding it in their hands.

Sanjeev, I think it's possible that you have misinterpreted the direction of Dual_bid's comment. I *think* he means that you are establishing a legal precedent by taking responsibility for removal of copyrighted content... The problem arises if in the future IF you fail to remove some copyright material (or don't remove it fast enough) then the copyright holder might make a case that you infringed by not removing copyright material (as you had previously established responsibility for this).

James, can you recall any of Grant's other comments on thrift conversions (or the significance of the closing of the Office of Thrift)? Thank you

that transcript is absolutely hilarious. What a dumbass!

If in the USA, I use www.newegg.com or www.ncixus.com if in Canada, www.NCIX.com, www.newegg.ca search for "NETbook" There is a huge variation in prices between different models and in the value received for price. Most of the ASUS laptops I've seen a reasonably well-built. But then again, I am not using a 10 inch netbook as my everyday computer. Note that these 10 inch netbooks have slightly smaller keyboards too, which some users do not care for. The 12inch models seem to have full size keyboards.

I bought an ASUS 10.1 inch netbook recently. The vast majority of netbooks have a 10.1 inch wide-aspect screen with a resolution of 1024x600. I was disappointed by the vertical real estate of the 600 pixels. I spend too much time scrolling up and down trying to read parts of webpages that are designed to be read at once on a single screen. I really wish I spent the extra $150 and got a 12-inch netbook. Asus makes some of these and so does Lenovo (although the Lenovo model S-12 can be difficult to find on their website). I also dislike the crippled version of Windows 7 Starter that came with the netbook I bought. I would pay more to get a full version such as Windows 7 Home Premium or Pro.

I use this YF Quote add-in for Excel. It pulls data from Yahoo Finance (which sometimes has more data for obscure stuff than Google Finance) http://fransking.blogspot.com/2006/06/getting-stock-prices-into-excel.html

It depends where you plan to use it. If you need to read outside I would get a kindle DX. Even in sunlight it's pretty much as easy to read as real paper. Try taking a laptop outside on a sunny day to get an approximation of what reading on the iPad would be like. (ipad will be better than a laptop but nowhere near as good as Kindle.) -- Comparison in different lighting environments: http://www.futile.com/2010/04/ipad-vs-kindle-lighting-test/ If you want a color display (not black and white e-Ink like the Kindle) AND you want to read easily outside, then you pretty much need to get a device with a transflective display. http://blog.gsmarena.com/pixel-qi-transflective-lcd-trounces-the-ipad-unit-in-broad-daylight/ These don't come installed in many large screen devices yet.

I agree. They might both be wrong. After researching this a while back, it became one of those stories of seeing potential value, but there is now way to tell when they can unlock it. Like the Buffett quote from 1999 to Sun Valley group of having two birds in the bush, "but [Aesop] doesn't say when." They can put off heavy losses more or less until they decide to take them by selling, and Einhorn probably goes a bit too far in trying to be a catalyst by saying they can't cover their expenses -- they've cut those down to skeleton level and appear to be covering them adequately so far. Things are horrible down there now, true, but that's what piques one's interest for a value investor, right? Prices will eventually recover, at least somewhat, as there is plenty of good property in the panhandle, and some of the best beaches in the country. But real estate is a very very long cycle, and it could take 20 years to start to really realize it. The area around Destin and Panama City Beach got developed hugely between 1990 and 2006. During those 16 years, property near the beach (say, within block) went from around $100,000 for a third of an acre lot to $1,200,000 a lot, then recently (in past 16 months) has fallen to $350,000 for a lot with a tear down but usable small house. These anecdotal prices are all for the same lot, and this is based on a friend's personal experience, right around the main St. Joe developments along 30A. St. Joe has a ton of this type of near-beach-front property, from Tallahassee to Pensacola, which even though a fraction of their 577,000 acres, is probably the lion's share of the value when zoned and eventually developed with upscale amenities. Maybe there is real value there, but the stock will stay flat for a dozen years or more before it starts to be realized in real estate sales. Berkowitz and Einhorn would both lose. I passed because I can't say either what the value really is or when it can be realized. In the Depression it took real estate values in and around Manhattan 20 years to recover, such that home prices in 1949 were 2/3 of their values from 1929. That's a serious recovery time. RRJ, great post, thanks for your perspective

reading that interview is painful. maybe I should be running yahoo. :D

thanks Bronco, that gave me a good laugh :)