bookie71

Thanks

Read, read, read, then some more reading. They will show up in the dangest places.

About a month before the dot com bubble burst,the State of Alaska Permanent Fund Trustees fired the last "value investor" because they just didn't understand the market.

Gio, Thanks, a good one.

They tried this back in late 70's or early 80's and got so much flack they repealed it. If I remember it was some type of "grandfather election" that we made to keep the amounts over what they felt was "fair".

An app on my smart phone that stops all cell phones within a certain distance from working. Force people to communicate with each other.

Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree should keep you out of mischief for awhile.

The best thing about Dave Ramsey is he helps folks get out of debt. The worst thing is he wants them to use his commission brokers for investing.

If you want to short the housing market then short whoever owns (not services) the mortgages on the houses. When Alaska had it's last bust (in the 1980's) 44.45 % of the banks failed according to FDIC. In 3 years over 10,000 homes were repo'd. Just before this (only a few months) the papers and everyone were saying to buy Anchorage real estate, it never goes down. Bubbles always go on longer than anyone expects, then BAM.

No, we bail them out when they get too greedy :-(

Smaller credit unions - yes to no tax When they start making commercial loans, selling insurance, selling title insurance then tax

The problem is that the credit unions have grown so much. In the early days they were member oriented. When I started my CPA practice in 1974 we were doubled up with the Teachers CU as their new building wasn't finished. The manager came in on a weekend to get some cash for a member who had a death in the family and needed to fly out. That is "service". Wouldn't happen today as too big. The smaller ones are still member oriented.

Alaska USA owns a title insurance company, insurance company, and at one time a trust company. https://www.alaskausa.org/service/ultrabranch/

Gee, I knock out my wife in an elevator and I only get a 2 game suspension. What kind of message does that send to young folks?

With his security detail it might be hard to just run into him.

Doesn't part of share drop come from gift to Gates Foundation (A shares converted to B shares)?

FBAK just came out with first Q report http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-national-bank-alaska-announces-191800856.html

Carl Sandburg's series on Lincoln is great. (I listened to it last summer.)

FBAK pro's: selling near book value, good reserves, very conservative balance sheet, bank is aggressively re-buying it's stock con: Alaska's oil based economy AND stupid legislature

At least 50+ % of the tax free exchanges that i have seen in my practice over the last 50 years wish they had taken the cash and paid the taxes. Mostly because as the time limits get close they picked exchange properties that didn't make sense. You have to be very disciplined to make it work right and willing to pay the taxes IF you don't find ideal properties.

Besides BRK, BH, Fairfax and Sequoia, what meetings are worth attending? I'll start it off with First national Bank of Alaska (FNBK). It is usually very interesting and they have good comments on the Alaskan economic outlook that is usually right on. It's not quite as live wire since Mr Cuddy (in his 90's) has turned it over to his daughter, but he still makes a few comments similar to Mr. Munger's.

I have a lawyer friend, from Omaha, whose parents had a chance to invest in the first partnership, but decided it was better to put the money in savings for his college. As he says, "They could have bought the college"

I wonder how many of Costco's members will renew their AMEX if they are charged a yearly fee? I know I had dropped mine in the mid 1980's because i was using a Visa all the time for airline miles.

I think I'll buy a lottery ticket, and beat all of you. :-)

Because we are bookaholics, we use the library.Our local library lets us put the books on hold,(done on line),then sends us an email when they are ready for pickup. They also will get the books from other libraries. We have hauled several pickup loads of books to the local thrift store.We are trying to decluter