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jollyjumper324

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  1. Also curious about Munger's answer: In the past, you've extolled the virtues of Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore's economic growth to the top from being a swampy, mosquito-infested backwater. However, Paul Krugman and others have claimed that the growth of Singapore is due largely to the import of capital and labour and not increases in productivity. What are your thoughts? http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2015/03/singapores-miracle-uncovered/
  2. I've always wanted to ask this: In your Caltech lecture of 2008 you spoke about how instructive it was to you to learn about Moonie conversion methods. You said you found little help in your search in academia, but that you found "a popular book done by some psychiatrist funded by the Rockefellers". What was this book and what else do you recommend we read if we want to learn more about how the Moonies are so good at brainwashing? http://www.hikingat45degrees.com/a-conversation-with-charlie-munger/
  3. Reports attached. Coastal_States_Gas_-_AR_-_1965.pdf Coastal_States_Gas_-_AR_-_1966.pdf
  4. Hello All! I was listening to the Longform Podcast interview with Carol Loomis and Loomis mentioned something that piqued my curiosity at around 28:55: http://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-152-carol-loomis?t=28m56s She talks about how upon first meeting Buffett in 1967, they clicked on a little bit of financial minutia where they had both been looking at a company, Coastal States Gas, where there were revenues in the footnotes that weren't in the financial statements. I looked for more about this incident and found this interview: http://www.marketplace.org/2015/04/29/business/big-book/warren-buffett-jamie-dimon-treasury-secretary-fiscal-cliff-and-taxes After some digging, I found the annual reports she was talking about. It's an interesting situation. Screenshots are attached.
  5. The recent drop in high yield bond prices made me cast my mind back to the mid-year 2015 Chou Funds report written on August 14th: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/business/dealbook/high-yield-fund-blocks-investor-withdrawals.html?_r=0 http://choufunds.com/pdf/2015%20semiannual%20final.pdf In it, Francis Chou opines on junk bond prices: "Junk bonds, the biggest beneficiary of easy money, should be trading at 70, not at 100 cents on a dollar with a 5.5% coupon rate." He also says that he's starting to look into buying CDS: "We are starting to look at credit default swaps (CDS). One way of assessing investors' appetite for risk is to check the prices of credit default swaps (CDS). In a CDS, one party sells credit protection and the other party buys credit protection. Put another way, one party is selling insurance and the counterparty is buying insurance against the default of a specific third party’s debt. If the protection buyer does not own debt issued by the third party, then CDS are more appropriately viewed as an investment transaction, rather than a hedging transaction, for the protection buyer notwithstanding the insurance-like features of a CDS. In most CDS, the protection buyer makes the premium payments over the life of the CDS, frequently on a quarterly basis. We believe that CDS are starting to sell at prices that are becoming interesting. It is not as cheap as it was in 2006-2007. We are continuing to monitor CDS prices and may potentially invest in CDS in the future. We are looking at who deals in such investments and we want to examine carefully what counterparty risk we may be exposed to. The mechanics of investing in a CDS have changed somewhat from six years ago. To make money in a CDS, you don’t need a default of the third-party’s debt. A dislocation in the economy or deterioration in the credit profile of the issuer may cause the CDS price to rise from these low levels. The negative aspect is that, like insurance, the premium paid for the protection erodes over time and may expire worthless. There is no guarantee that the Manager will make money for the Fund on any particular CDS or correctly predict an increase of value in any particular CDS." With HY prices falling and spreads blowing out I hope that Francis was able to take advantage of his convictions and make some money on some CDS'. Looking forward to reading the next letter from Chou Funds. :)
  6. Whether or not we would have heard of him is irrelevant, a) Munger's ideas would be the same and worthy of study. b) He would be a billionaire c) Buffett would not be as rich, his presumed purchase of excellent companies at fair prices would have happened much later, if you believe what he says. d) Almost certainly they would have met anyway: super astute investors from the same neighborhood in Omaha, the world isn't that big. Agreed netnet. Also, we would have almost certainly have heard of him. The man is no investing slouch: Charles Munger Partnership Annual Percentage Change Partnership (%) S&P 500 (%) 1962 30.1 -7.6 1963 71.7 20.6 1964 49.7 18.7 1965 8.4 14.2 1966 12.4 -15.8 1967 56.2 19.0 1968 40.4 7.7 1969 28.3 -11.6 1970 -0.1 8.7 1971 25.4 9.8 1972 8.3 18.2 1973 -31.9 -13.1 1974 -31.5 -23.1 1975 73.2 44.4 Average return 24.3 6.4 Standard deviation 33.0 18.5 [Compound annual return 19.8 4.9] [$1 at inception becomes $12.57 in Munger Partnership and $1.96 in S&P 500] From: http://www.fool.com/EveningNews/FOTH/1999/foth990415.htm
  7. Hello All, I'm a long-time BRK fanatic and board member, but haven't posted in years. Recently I've been trying to follow the breadcrumbs that Munger has left us in his speeches to have a deeper understanding of human misjudgment. Re-reading Poor Charlie's Almanack, I remembered Munger's mention of Carl Braun and his admiration for Braun's corporate culture. I started doing some digging, but found surprisingly little has been written about this company or its managers. I ran into Guy Spier at the FFH AM and asked him if he had any insight into Braun. I sent the below email to him afterwards to let him know what I'd found. I forwarded the email to Norm Rothery too, who encouraged me to share with the board so here it is. If anyone out there has more insight into the Braun corporate culture, inter-office communication policies or accounting system, I'd love to hear about it. Hello Guy, You may remember me as the Indian guy with glasses who sat in front of you at the Fairfax AGM and cornered you to grill you on Carl Braun and the Moonies as it relates to a Mungerian understanding of human misjudgment while you were trying to make a break for the toilet. For reference, Munger talked about Braun in this talk: https://old.ycombinator.com/munger.html I did a bit of digging and came up with some stuff. Thought I'd share it with you. It seems like the entire family were fanatics. I found the following anecdotes from ex-employees on this LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/C-F-Braun-Co-Alumni-1372987 "I remember all the slots on the screws throughout the facility had to be straight vertical." "I began getting Christmas cards from suppliers and taped them on the wall. The next morning they were sitting on my desk in a neat pile. I assumed they had fallen down so I again taped them with more tape. The next morning they were sitting on my desk with a poorly written note saying if they were on the wall again I was fired and signed 'guard'." "When Larry started there in 1965, you could only have one piece of paper on your desk at a time. One family photo. No plants or other decor." "Remember having to staple all your papers from the backside so that the staple wouldn't scratch the desktop?" "You had to wear white (maybe pastel blue) shirts. I have a copy of a memo from '74 allowing pastel colored shirts." "I had heard that Carl Braun had talked to a young engineer about his hair being too long. The engineer said he didn't have enough pay to always get haircuts. So Braun went to payroll and increased his pay by $2.00 a month or something and told him to get it cut." "Another story was when the retaining wall along the main walkway through the campus was constructed, Carl was out "inspecting" the work. He "sighted" down the wall, then found a foreman to tell him that the wall was not where it should be and to relocate it. The foreman, like any of us, had some doubt. He checked where the wall should be on the drawings, measured it and found it was out by one inch! The wall was moved!" "One day, I was driving in to C.F. Braun and had basically had enough of the "you must dress the Braun way." So when I parked my VW bus, I grabbed my "tweed" jacket, put it on in the parking lot and decided to walk in the building where I worked without putting on a tie. Well, needless to say, the "agents" of the "secret society" intercepted me by the time I reached my desk. Was I shocked, you bet! I couldn't believe I was seen without my tie. The "agents" told me to not let it happen again and said to drive back home and get one. So I drove all the way back to Long Beach for my tie. They said they would let it slide this time and not dock my pay." "Even as a Computer Operator, a matching suit with tie and white shirt was the standard outfit and you could be sent home if attire was not proper OR if your hair was too long. Facial Hair would be grounds for termination." There's plenty more on the LinkedIn group. Seems like it was a crazy place. For more on the culture at CF Braun, there's this "Information Week" article: http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/executive-insights-and-innovation/do-your-employees-dress-for-failure/d/d-id/1113285 It seems that the books that were written by Braun for the employees were referred to informally as the "red books" due to the color of the binding. I was able to get electronic copies of a few of the "red books". You can read some of them here: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?type%5B%5D=author&lookfor%5B%5D=%22Braun%2C%20Carl%20F.%22&page=1&ft= I'll get around to them eventually. They don't seem very long. Braun also wrote one book on accounting that Munger referenced specifically. I ordered that one off of Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Objective-Accounting-Communication-Carl-Braun/dp/B002E5DT9S/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429326378&sr=1-1&keywords=carl+braun+accounting) and am particularly interested in reading it. I'll let you know if there's anything interesting in it. The gist so far seems to be that CF Braun was out-Japanesing the Japanese before anyone had heard about "5S" or "Kaizen". The company was fanatical about standardization, neatness, waste and professionalism. Hope you're well and that you had a good time in Toronto. -V
  8. Oh, one more question! Can I claim the fees I paid for the CFA as some kind of education expense or tuition? -JJ
  9. Thanks for the help guys! I will talk to my broker. -JJ
  10. I have a tax question which is probably quite a bit easier to answer than Nick's: I followed Pabrai into Delta Financial Corp (DFC) in April 2007 and the company declared bankrupcy and was delisted in December. I never claimed a capital loss, and I have the shares held at 0.00$ in my account. Question: Can I claim a capital loss now? If so, how do I go about it? I found some information online, but nothing detailed enough for me to use in practice. Thanks! -JJ
  11. Hello all, this is my first second post since the move from MSN. Considering all of the people here who own BRK and FFH, I'm sure someone knows the answer to this. Does anyone know any good books to learn about the insurance industry? I've read all of BRK's ARs and a few of FFH's, but still feel like a neophyte. Thanks! -JJ
  12. I'm interested in this company only because Pabrai, Fairfax and Leucadia have all recently bought stakes: (Leucadia most substantially, I think.) http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?symbol=CRESY http://idea.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/96223/000090951809000142/mm02-1709cresud_13da4.htm I'm going to read the annual report today, but wonder if anyone knows why this looks so good to these smart people? Annual Reports: http://quicktake.morningstar.com/stocknet/SECDocuments.aspx?symbol=CRESY -JJ
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