ERICOPOLY

I've had the Big Green Egg XL running twice a week. Want to cut down on sugar. I just ordered some Scott's Carolina sauce. Vinegar based, no sugar. Ribs! Any other tips?

There is so much wrong with my mental picture of this: 1) If my math is correct you are over 40. What are you going to do next - a few lines of coke and fall out of a tree. 2) Two legs = two skis (Not One). 3) Independent wealth is apparently bad for ones health. That Rhymes BTW. I last snowboarded when I was around 35. I was sore for two weeks from doing face plants from 8 feet (5 feet plus 3 feet of hill). Still ski though. Beat my nephew on a straight downhill speed race last year. Happy Thanksgiving! To all! LOL! I thought he meant a halfpipe in surfing, because I know he took up surfing several months ago. Now snowboarding! Then again, Eric is wrapping his broken thumb in $100 bills...that must numb the pain a little! :) Cheers! I had a 4' miniramp built for my kids only two weeks ago. A 12' wide,24' long, 4' tall halfpipe I was showing them how it's done. There would be fewer workplace accidents with demonstrations like that one.

There is so much wrong with my mental picture of this: 1) If my math is correct you are over 40. What are you going to do next - a few lines of coke and fall out of a tree. 2) Two legs = two skis (Not One). 3) Independent wealth is apparently bad for ones health. That Rhymes BTW. I last snowboarded when I was around 35. I was sore for two weeks from doing face plants from 8 feet (5 feet plus 3 feet of hill). Still ski though. Beat my nephew on a straight downhill speed race last year. Happy Thanksgiving! To all! I'm down to my last 3 percocet so I'm open minded to that and other exploratory drug ideas tonight.

Sunday, I fell on a halfpipe and dislocated my right thumb while tearing a ligament off the bone. I'm grateful that I underwent surgery without feeling the knife. Imagine the horrors of surgery without anesthetics.

I perhaps had a chance of becoming grid independent if I had covered my house in solar panels -- but then once my Tesla came home, any chance of that is permanently gone. Now, if my wife also had a Tesla it would be ridiculous how grid dependent we would be. Think about that... with two Teslas and each charging 85 kWh batteries, we'd be using over 200 kWh some days!!! There is absolutely NO CHANCE that we'll stop needing the grid if we all get Teslas. So what is that you were saying about Tesla investors? I misquoted. Meant to say Solar City, not Tesla. Elon Musk is great and all that but a big part of what goes on around him is the investment hype around his ideas. That same hype creating machine behind Tesla, the stock appears to be behind Solar City, rooftop solar, storage etc. To me at least. Ex. this idea of giant batteries sitting in everyone's yard, and very soon. Giant batteries are going to make RVs (and boats) really cool. No more noisy generators! Just silence. And think of those laborer guys who work jobs everyday with their pickup trucks -- they just run their power tools off of the truck. On houses like mine, they make a lot of sense. I will be the first customer -- it would pay for itself so quickly given my electric billing situation (9 cents per kWh to charge it at night, and then that stored energy offsets my daytime usage when I currently get charged 49 cents per kWh).

I perhaps had a chance of becoming grid independent if I had covered my house in solar panels -- but then once my Tesla came home, any chance of that is permanently gone. Now, if my wife also had a Tesla it would be ridiculous how grid dependent we would be. Think about that... with two Teslas and each charging 85 kWh batteries, we'd be using over 200 kWh some days!!! There is absolutely NO CHANCE that we'll stop needing the grid if we all get Teslas. So what is that you were saying about Tesla investors?

From what I've read, this drought is caused by a high pressure ridge off the west coast that is pushing incoming moist storms to the north (Arctic Circle), that displaces frigid air that then gets pushed southward into the rest of the US. So this makes other regions in the US frigid and buried in snow, and we're 70 degrees and bone dry. I suppose I'd rather be warm and dry. http://coyot.es/slowwatermovement/2014/09/29/ridiculously-resilient-ridge-possibly-dismal-climate-scenario-for-california-and-beyond/

I miss all the posts about gold. Today, GLD is lower than it was 5 years ago! I suppose that explains why it's out of favor.

Even if it's long term gains ? Corporations don't get a different treatment of "short" vs "long" term gains.

Another bonus... He can now sweep all the dividends he wants from Duracell tax-free. Instead of continuing to pay tax on PG's dividend.

A. Gary Shilling believes that in 4 years we'll be back to our normal long-term rate of GDP growth. He is aware of all the issues you've raised. So even though they sound convincing, there are other things to think about as well that are also important. For one thing, I doubt the debt has to be repaid as you suggest (one form of repayment is to issue more debt as the old bonds mature). You just need to grow it slower than GDP and you're golden long-term. So you can run deficits in perpetuity and yet still be deleveraging at the same time. There was also a boatload of malinvestment over those 19 years. Did that contribute to the slow growth (and relatively poor market returns) that we've seen? I imagine it didn't help. Could the next 19 years not have this drag?

So he gets to swap his PG shares for Duracell. No capital gains tax due on the PG shares. I have an idea... Could Bank of America purchase some Berkshire Hathaway shares and then swap them with me for my appreciated BAC shares? That way I could get out of my BAC shares without a capital gains event. That would be an awesome way to have a shareholder friendly buyback program. You just notify the company that you want to tender your shares, and specify which shares they should purchase and deliver to your account in exchange.

That chart indicates that since roughly the end of 1995 (nineteen years ago) the market has gone up by... 3.4x A mind-blowing 6.7% annualized. So with dividends included, less than 8.5% annualized total return (the dividend yield today is higher than it was back then). But during the 20th century the market returned 10.4% a year. So, it's been a period of sub-par returns, tractor beams or not.

Therefore, Mr. Market gets a pass for not recognizing their forthcoming unusual capital gains. Long term shareholders will get paid either way.

Current interest rates are night and day from when Fairfax began operations. They not only had the higher yields, they also got a tailwind from capital gains as rates fell. We might very well wind up with low yields and capital losses as rates rise. 3x leverage on bonds returning 2% is only 6%. Hmm...

What is the subject "doubled my capital for first time" mean? you went from 25,000 to 2millions, that's many times of doubling... what am I not understanding? I first thought he meant that yesterday he doubled his money in one day -- a first for him. In that case he's got me beat because my record is two days.

From where interest rates are today, and with the hedges, my point has been that needing "only" 7% on the portfolio is a tall order. Now, if underwriting kicks in (as it did last quarter) it changes the calculus. 15% isn't my goal though. I will be happy to make 10% a year from this investment. I think 10% will be easy if underwriting stays like this.

I find this a bit surprising. You've been fairly critical of FFH and of insurers (leveraged bond portfolios) in the recent past. Was this you trying to kill your thesis and still finding it an acceptable investment despite the flaws that you highlighted, or did your thinking on their prospects change in recent months? I don't think I've been negative on them. It wasn't negative when I said they were trading at 1.3x book after stripping out goodwill when others were claiming it to be 1.05x. I pointed out that they were merely trading at the private-party, arms-length valuation that they themselves have paid recently for their own component parts. I commented that it should always trade at a discount to IV if they are truly value investors -- I still hold that view. Mostly what got me to buy was the feeling that if the underwriting results keep coming in at these levels, it will result in higher valuation (the underwriting profits being capitalized and reflected in the stock price). I could have made that decision last quarter, but as thing go I made the decision this quarter.

I am a psychic. I was really bored as a phone operator, so I left that gig and started investing my retained earnings in stocks that I know will trade higher within a couple of hours.

This is just the next iteration of buying it with the intention of holding it forever. 3,000 shares is 1/8 of what my position was in June-Nov 2006, although in that case it was all options and no shares. Now it's all shares and no options.

I'd say I waited until the last hour before my Monday purchase at $511: Monday.tiff

I remember losing my coverage in 2012 when I moved from Washington to California. I was no longer a resident of Washington so they were forced to drop me. Nobody in California would take me on due to a pre-existing condition. You guys are right, can't wait to go back to that system again.

I'm ready for the coming ban on incandescents -- I'll go back to gas lighting! http://carolinalanterns.com/

I think the benefit would be clearer if they came from wealthy families with an estate-tax burden. The money is 40% lost to taxes already -- by purchasing the education for the kids, you pass along their future income stream estate-tax free. It would be harder to directly gift them the future income stream -- let's put it that way. So you save taxes while also giving them something to do that is respectable.

This one is a gem: Similarly, the solar industry cannot use Master Limited Partnerships because the federal statute creating this structure makes fossil-fuel companies eligible, but not renewable energy companies. https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/17499-shrinking-solar-soft-costs