shalab

Pretty interesting blog by Mr Money Mustache who lives in Colorado an retired at age 30 and has a family as well. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

boiler -the article you attached is in the same spirit. The addition of pensions/health benefits makes it more expensive.

The problem is administrative staff http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323316804578161490716042814.html

US Budget deficit is shrinking. - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-14/u-s-deficit-to-fall-to-642-billion-says-budget-agency.html US house prices are increasing. US Trade balance is improving. US retail investor is not shying away from the stock market. US is not experiencing a deflation - yet.

Are there some companies/type of accounts people would recommend for a kid? I have contacted Fido/td Ameritrade..

I came across this in silicon investor: http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28818227

Eric - hope your move to Australia works out. It seems one will end up paying up one way or the other. From wikipedia, from the PPP stand point, it seems Australia is 40% more expensive than the U.S and Canada 23% more expensive than the U.S. Large cities in developing countries are as expensive or more expensive than the U.S. ( if one wants to have the same standard of living ) I was in Canada recently and to have the same standard of living, I would have to pay up a lot more than 25%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

You will get dividends. In your taxable account, they will withhold canadian taxes before it is distributed to you. In your tax-free accounts, there won't be any withholding.

Here is what I got for compounded returns from 2000-2011 inclusive for FRFHF: 7.2% ( annual book value increase from 2011 report ) Although Fairfax is smaller in market cap compared to AIG - there are many headwinds it faces: 1. It mostly operates in the property casualty space - it has some pretty large amount of float it is working with. I am thinking it is somewhere around $14 billion at the end of 2012. It is hard to grow from these levels at a significant pace. 2. It faces competition in the property/casualty space from others - now that many U.S companies are recapitalized, there will be more people chasing the returns. 3. Prem is not spending time on ideas compared to fifteen years ago as he is busy with meetings and other commitments. He is relying on Hamblin Watsa analysts which seems to be run as a committee. Hamblin-Watsa are very good with hedging - their returns without hedging is no match to their return with hedging. 4. Smaller players such as GLRE ( and BH though it is not yet officially in insurance ) can move faster and have the same or better investment acumen as Hamblin Watsa.

Is this info disclosed in the sedar filings? I couldn't find it as I find the ownership in Berkshire proxy statements...

Morning star is pegging it at around 347 as an estimate but it seems right on the ball with all the insurance losses factored in. In addition, there is the annual dividend of atleast $10. If these two estimates hold good, we are looking at a post dividend book value of about 337/share which is about 7 billion. Looks like FRFHF can be had for a lower price in 2013 than now.

~50% gains this year including dividends and BRK owned 11.3% of Munich Re as of Dec 2011.

Munger/Buffett are called rational by many folks - it would be interesting to see what this board sees themselves when it comes to rationality.

Opening the discussion on portfolio sizes - there are a few ways to go about it. Mohnish has gone from 5% positions to concentrated portfolio of four stocks. Ericopoly has one position only Munger has three- four positions in djco Biglari has a concentrated portfolio with CBRL/BH as the main ones as well It would be good to hear from the current super investors such as gio, Sanjeev, twacowfca, valuecfa, Moore, uccmal, tariq et.al ( I am sure I left a few out - error of omission, not of commission... )

FRFHF has a lot of employees ( majority ) in the U.S and does most of its business in the U.S. In addition, there are a lot of U.S based shareholders of FRFHF. Lastly, all shareholders are interested in dividends - in this poll, everyone gets two votes on the dividend ;D and do it anonymously.

Gio, there is an answer for your question in poor charlies almanack - not sure if it would give you confidence though. ( it doesnt solve the actuarial table problem )

> it is completely a different thing to invest in RIM, just because Mr. Watsa did it Probably this was done by some other folks in HWIC with Prem's approval. It is not clear to me how much Prem is involved in the day to day operations at FRFHF. Sanjeev mentioned that leadership succession is taken care of at FRFHF. Prem is still the CEO and his family owns a good chunk of FRFHF.

Gio - thank you for your analysis. I dont see investments/share moving anywhere in the past nine months - can you explain the discrepancy?

I think BRK will do fine - if you think Buffett has any predictive powers... http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/21/warren-buffett-hedge-fund-bet/ To ensure that $1 million would be there at the end of the bet, Buffett and Protégé each put up roughly $320,000 to buy a zero-coupon Treasury security. The total of about $640,000 was used to purchase a bond that will be worth $1 million at the bet's conclusion. This collateral is being overseen by the Long Now Foundation of San Francisco, which administers "long bets" set up by any competitors wanting to memorialize a gamble. .... So a second plan was devised and is now going forward. It calls for the bond to be sold and the total proceeds to be invested in Berkshire Hathaway stock. Naturally, some set of dire circumstances could make the roughly $930,000 put into Berkshire worth less than $1 million at the bet's conclusion on December 31, 2017. So Buffett has guaranteed $1 million by giving Long Now the right at the bet's conclusion to "put" the stock to him (or his estate) in exchange for that amount. In other words, $1 million becomes the floor for the winning charity, with the Berkshire investment establishing the prospect for more.

Doesnt look good to the OEMS http://macdailynews.com/2012/10/17/morgan-stanley-microsoft-will-sell-3-million-surface-tablets-in-2012-9-million-in-2013/

5 year CAGR: BRK book value growth last five years => 7.3% MKL book value growth => 9% FRFHF book value growth => 19.4% ( 10 year => 12% ) Why investing is hard - here is the return on these three over five years. ( dates don't match with the CAGR return as CAGR is for end of year 2011 ) BRK => 4.84% MKL => -12.22% FFH.TO => 58.7% (without dividends) SPY => -8.66% (without dividends) And to good measure, let us add BH which has returned -8.6% after the name change.

Business: It is commercial property that has an initial yield of 8%. Increase in rent is about 5% per year. Leasehold improvements to be made by the tenant and the tenant pays all the utilities. Property tax is paid by the owner. Risks Tenant vacates for lack of business If tenant vacates, difficult to find another one in a suitable time. So the return will go down. Some hands on work needed to find another person to occupy the place. Demographics - favorable, increasing population and income Can the place be re-modeled: Yes, other than furniture, signs, paint and some equipment; it is pretty straight forward. Question: Good idea to invest in this? No - there are other good ideas in the market which will provide greater returns

Peter Lovell, counsel general for OdysseyRe, said "neither our parent company nor any other foreign nationals were part of the decision-making process to contribute to the SuperPAC." The subsidiary chose to donate to Romney because, as an international reinsurer located in the United States, it operates under "one of the highest corporate tax rates in its industry," Lovell added. "Gov. Romney has proposed meaningful corporate tax reform that would help to level the playing field; consequently, a victory by Gov. Romney in November would be beneficial to OdysseyRe." Nonetheless, officials at Campaign Legal Center — a non-profit, non-partisan campaign finance watchdog — have said OdysseyRe's donation "raises some legal red flags."

Business: It is commercial property that has an initial yield of 8%. Increase in rent is about 5% per year. Leasehold improvements to be made by the tenant and the tenant pays all the utilities. Property tax is paid by the owner. Risks Tenant vacates for lack of business If tenant vacates, difficult to find another one in a suitable time. So the return will go down. Some hands on work needed to find another person to occupy the place. Opinions/comments?

This is a personal comfort call. The variables at play are: Interest rate Inflation Property value growth Return on capital if you invested it yourself The only certain thing when you do this is the interest rate you are paying at the moment.