Sea Island

Or maybe greater personal accountability. If there were no regulations telling Mr. Watsa how much he had to reserve to cover expected/unexpected losses, how different do you think his reserving would look from its current levels?

BP had a powerful lobby as well and they were lobbying for additional regulation that they thought would benefit them in the form of Cap and Trade. Why should any area be off limitsto exploration and production? The offshore drilling business was highly regulated, did that prevent the accident from happening? And if they allowed inshore drilling in shallow water this thing might be over already. The Communist USSR was highly regulated, did that prevent Chernobyl? It did allow for using nukes on out of control wells which is pretty interesting.

Correct, but what did the US govt. do? Hiked tariffs on sugar imports and increased subsidies for ethanol.

Amen Beer Barron. Lets hope free markets have some life ahead of them. Comsumption leads to effeciency. We continue to get better at finding fossil fuels as demand increases. The best thing governemnt could do to get to alternative forms of energy would be get out of the way, reduce regulation, reduce taxes, reduce subsidies and let the best source win. By the way ethanol, biodiesel etc. consume far more energy in their refining process than they save.

"'THE END OF THE OIL AGE is in sight,' says U.S. petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert.... If present trends continue, Dr. Hubbert estimates, production will peak in 1995 -- the deadline for alternative forms of energy that must replace petroleum in the sharp drop-off that follows." from "Oil, the Dwindling Treasure," National Geographic [June, 1974] Say what?

Anybody still believe in peak oil? We have no idea of the vastness of the resources of our earth.

Definately LA NINA currently. Weather forecasting accuracy is abysmal past the hourly. Also regarding the rig insurance, it might not matter if there isn't any drilling taking place and perhaps rates in Brazil are not as good as they are in the GOM?

They will definately call the A shares at first chance. I think they will wait on the B shares as the cost to them is relatively light.

A pretty good question about this was asked at the AGM. Someone asked if Fairfax would call these, both issues A and B would be about $100 million, or if they would prefer to hold onto the cash. Prem said at the time that they were considering it but that it would be important for them to maintain about $1 billion in cash.

Is it time for BP yet?

Maybe Brian Bradstreet was upset about having his Fairfax sells being posted

Thank You for getting the board up and running, is there something that we can do to assist you?

Although, in the final analysis it may not matter. I am sure there is someone much smarter and wealthier than me who really understood Chrysler bonds right to the point that the government wiped him out. My belief is that this comes down to how much is Europe, and by extension of the IMF the U.S., willing to pay to preserve the failed experiment of the EMU. NBG will be around when this is over but you may getting your dividends in drachmas.

I agree that the knives are still falling. I have been watching the NBG.A preferred which traded at its 52 week low on February 8th, when this was a $30-40b problem, not a $120b problem. I think the bank will survive even if the governement and its euro participation does not. You are likely going to be able to acquire the common of NBG lower than its current price and I would not buy the NBG.A preferred as it is non-cumulative and there is the chance that a dividend would be suspended at some point.

SD CHK SJT Frontier Telecommunications (FTR?) Also in addition to stocks a question was asked about reading materials and I believe Sam Mitchell recomended the following: Matt Simmons on Energy Michael Porter on Competitive Advantage Phillip A. Fisher on Investing Mr. Mitchell also made reference to the local optima of ants

Thank you to all those who made the AGM and annual dinner a terrific event. The sense of community amongst my fellow investors and open exchange of ideas with shareholders and management was especially rewarding. Thank You to Mr. Parsad for his efforts, it was great to be able to do good by doing well. Note to future attendees: The Canadian BackPackers Inn was conveniently located to all the events and at $25 per night for the dorm room accomadations, it was quite a value. It is a short walk, 15 minutes, from Greyhound bus station for those of you travelling from the states. They were so nice I felt a little guilty not paying more but they were offering an internet discount.