shalab

Current odds of control of whitehouse and senate: 538 blog: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=2016-forecast http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/senate/?ex_cid=2016-forecast Princeton Election Consortium: http://election.princeton.edu/

An update here: http://fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/

cardboard - hats off to you - I also admire Romney more now than I did four years back.

This topic is not worth as much time as it is given - there are more serious topics where one can add value in a better way: - buy a tesla and help an american company - you are acting like a venture capitalist - support a local small business by spending a few dollars on it - help another person whichever way we can At the end of the day, you will feel a lot better than this discussion.

Has anyone tried this and have any feedback? Allows for zero cost stock trading... https://www.robinhood.com/

Bezos has been brilliant with his business model - e-shopping would have happened with/without him. Trump's achievement is not a small one - not very many people qualify to run to be the president of the USA from a major party. In addition, he is a well known businessman and male socialite. Watsa is an iconic figure of Canada and he supports the University of Waterloo as Chancellor. Musk's achievements are ground breaking - he deserves credit for making electric cars main stream, SpaceX and of course hyperloop. He also did paypal. Biglari is the new comer - relatively young compared to Watsa and Trump. He may have a huge impact in due course. Bezos created something that affects virtually every person in the U.S. in a positive way. No one else on the list has really done anything on that level. E.g., I respect Watsa, but he's just doing his investment thing, and that mostly only impacts shareholders. I would also have put Gates ahead of Bezos if I had the choice, echoing some others.

Surprised Bezos polled as highly as he did and Watsa/Trump as lowly as they did. Looks to me that there is a recency bias as Amazon is crossing 400B in market cap.

Another vote to select the most successful person among other favorites of this board

I guess here is the proof: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hbs-competitiveness-study-politics-polarization-trust-michael-porter-104219596.html Also - here is the median wealth by country. The median Canadian is far wealthier than the median American with better education facilities, better job opportunities and better benefits. Heck, even Greece's median wealth (which is highlighted as the basket case in US) is higher than that of US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult People are much the same the world over. He would receive a lot of praise and elevation alongside some criticism in most countries too. I'm not sure that example even holds e.g. there has been a lot of criticism of the deflation bets and the hedges. However, one example does prove or disprove a generalization. Musk is Canadian and South African too. Do you think he receives no criticism there?

Not really at least not publicly - e.g:, how much criticism of Watsa you see on this board vs criticism of Buffett? Regarding giving to charity, agree, providing capital to SpaceX and Tesla is likely to better mankind, good idea to follow... People are much the same the world over. He would receive a lot of praise and elevation alongside some criticism in most countries too.

FWIW - I think Elon Musk is a national hero - he would be deified if he was a citizen of any other country (Russia, China, Israel, India etc.) as 'God' but he gets criticized here - only in America!

There is a huge difference in trying somethings ethically/honestly vs. doing outright fraud. There is no doubt that owning a successful business generates more wealth/helps society than working for someone else. Madoff was deeply unethical/fraudulent. However he had a viable business before he went off to the deep end. Armstrong was the one who got caught - there were others in the field doing the same, some got away much more lightly than him. There are states that sponsor doping and most get away without getting caught. Theranos still seems to be in business and may still produce something useful.

He is probably right that he didn't need any prep for some of the tests as he would have memorized most of the dictionary for spelling bee. However - to succeed as an investor, one needs many other qualities. WEB is a master in spotting mis-priced securities or businesses in many different situations - bonds, stocks (small cap or large cap) etc. In addition, one needs mental equilibrium to stay the course when people say random things - not an easy thing to do. WEB's mental equilibrium (not to speak of the agility) is remarkable... However, creating and running a business is a good thing - especially at a young age. He has had a good start and he will beat the indices for a while if he sells everything and puts everything into cash. I wish the kid all the best!

seeking alpha valuation: Nevertheless, using that as a proxy would mean that Berkshire Hathaway's fair value per A share is $247,000 and per B share is $165. My preferred method of calculating Berkshire's intrinsic value is not as aggressive as the $292,000 from the "two-column" approach, but does suggest that the market is discounting the shares, currently by about 12%. If you prefer to use the market multiple of current year earnings of 19, then each A share would be worth $278,000. That is much closer to the estimate obtained from the "two-column" approach to valuing the company and means the current price is a discount of 22% to intrinsic value. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3996858-reviewing-berkshire-hathaways-2nd-quarter-earnings?auth_param=5kic5:1bqdjkl:a2a483dc7a7571a7d2c0ab5c073573ab&uprof=45

Morning star analysis: http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=763883

Don't forget that KHC is carried at below book - almost $13 B lower than today's market value. In addition, IBM, BAC etc. have recovered. It is still very cheap... Actually pre-tax operating earnings from non-insurance were flat YoY. Manufacturing increased nicely but this was offset by the declines at BNSF. The YoY growth was from insurance underwriting (investment income decreased), MTM on derivatives, and Kraft. See p. 24/25 of today's Q. Don't mean to nitpick, and I own the stock too, but to say earnings are higher because of PCP, Duracell, and phillips is not factually correct. Fair enough, agreed. MSR is only 200M of the 1B. Big delta is in Insurance and "other". I think waiting for the dust to settle, meaning a couple more years would be prudent.That said, Duracell, PCP, Phillips do increase annual earnings base by a B.

Well said... Trump has raised some good points and has upended the traditional "pubs" and "dems". Apparently most of the stuff in "Art of the deal" is fiction according to this. The author claims he should be president if a person wants the guy who wrote that book to be president. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all Also Michael Bloomberg has a different take than Icahn/Ross on this matter. Ross raises some good points but it was the "conventional wisdom" at the time and promoted by both the "pubs" and "dems".

15 bagger in quess http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/hr-leadership/people/ajit-isaac-the-man-behind-quess-corps-blockbuster-listing/articleshow/53183311.cms

By shareholder equity in Q1: BRK - 258.6 B FANG: AMZN - 14.75 B GOOG - 120.33 B FB - 47.5 B NFLX - 2.3 B Total: 184.88 B

Great going for AMZN and AMZN share holders...

I liked Kasich - thought he was the most balanced in the GOP field. Overall, some of the issues raised by Trump (and to a certain extent Bernie) resonate with a large base as successive governments for generations have focused more on being a "super power" (and all the baggage that comes with it ) than the well being of the ordinary citizens.

Hi cardboard and packer - one thing about Trump I find interesting is that he doesn't really seem to have a position on anything - everything is up for negotiation or change so long as it benefits Trump. Given this, I am interested in your view on these stories and also how can anyone trust anything Trump says? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/politics/donald-trump-roy-cohn.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/trump-university-students-school-scam-article-1.2350129

I am neither a 'pub' nor a 'dem' (both the parties have their share of idiots) but Nixon is not much of a model for anything - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_genocide ... Nixon and China tried to suppress reports of genocide from East Pakistan. ... In his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens elaborates on what he saw as the efforts of Kissinger to subvert the aspirations of independence on the part of the Bengalis.[154] Hitchens not only claims that the term genocide is appropriate to describe the results of the struggle, but also points to the efforts of Henry Kissinger in undermining others who condemned the then ongoing atrocities as being a genocide. He also wrote “Kissinger was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including Sheik Mujibur Rahman”.[155]

yop

Calling the partnership "profitable" is a huge understatement. As is the understatement in the AR. The AR noted below ---- Our Heinz partnership with Jorge Paulo Lemann, Alex Behring and Bernardo Hees more than doubled its size last year by merging with Kraft. Before this transaction, we owned about 53% of Heinz at a cost of $4.25 billion. Now we own 325.4 million shares of Kraft Heinz (about 27%) that cost us $9.8 billion. The new company has annual sales of $27 billion and can supply you Heinz ketchup or mustard to go with your Oscar Mayer hot dogs that come from the Kraft side. Add a Coke, and you will be enjoying my favorite meal. (We will have the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile at the annual meeting – bring your kids.) Though we sold no Kraft Heinz shares, “GAAP” (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) required us to record a $6.8 billion write-up of our investment upon completion of the merger. That leaves us with our Kraft Heinz holding carried on our balance sheet at a value many billions above our cost and many billions below its market value, an outcome only an accountant could love. Berkshire also owns Kraft Heinz preferred shares that pay us $720 million annually and are carried at $7.7 billion on our balance sheet. That holding will almost certainly be redeemed for $8.32 billion in June (the earliest date allowed under the preferred’s terms). That will be good news for Kraft Heinz and bad news for Berkshire. What's Berkshire's cost? Also, do you have the figures for QSR, also a major Berkshire investment, right? :)