CONeal

I'm sure most of us have our own preference. Given what these CEO's have done with their respective companies over the last 6 month and looking out through the end of the year. Who would you vote for. Thought this would be a little fun and give us insight how people view these two.

I'm not real fond of this program. As a landlord, the issues and bullshit you have to put up with renters, having people trash the place then leave. On a small scale this can be a hassle at times. On a large scale this could turn into a major pain for the bank. Wait till they try to evict someone for not paying rent. You end up having a squatter for 6 months while the legal proceeding compelte to remove them legally.

The bank is also going through another wave of restructuring. More cuts will be finalized next month. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bofa-cuts-cap-markets-research-221127763.html;_ylt=Ah8z3AqrLK8Y85nG06FhInyiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0MzYzNG1lBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIFRvcCBTdG9yeSBSaWdodARwa2cDYzNmOTVmNDMtZDNiOS0zMzYzLWJhODMtNjdmMDg3Zjc1MGQ0BHBvcwMzBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyA2U3ZGUzOWYwLTczYWUtMTFlMS1hZWVhLTM3MmVjZDc1YWRiOA--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

It's kinda funny how alot of us got in at a nice price (below $8) but with a little runup everyone seems to be trying to daytrade the fluctuations of the stock now.

Oh yeah sorry, he works with only one analyst...himself! He and his administrative assistant, Jing, look after $1.2B. He started as a worker at Bell, where he grew a investment club fund of $50,000 to $1M over five years. It was then converted to the Chou Funds after he got his CFA. Fairfax has funds invested in the Chou Funds. Cheers! 50k into 1m in 5 years? Was he using options or some other kind of investment that wasn't more then just common stock? Was there large additions into the club fund that helped toward the 1m? Only asking bc my mouth dropped in awe after reading your statement.

24% in stock and 5 % in warrants before the move. AIG is a similar holding.

Hoping someone could provide an answer to why 900 shares sold on 8/29 is considered as a wash sale? Stopped purchasing on 7/28 and sold on 8/29. Purchased 637 on 9/30 but my understanding is that since there was a stop of 30+ days from the time I went from buying to selling and then another 30+ days from buying again its not a wash sale. Is this right? ABC SEL 04/26/2011 08/29/2011 300.0000 ABC SEL 05/12/2011 08/29/2011 200.0000 ABC SEL 04/29/2011 08/29/2011 200.0000 ABC SEL 04/25/2011 08/29/2011 200.0000 ABC SEL 06/03/2011 11/10/2011 122.0000 ABC SEL 07/11/2011 11/10/2011 375.0000 ABC SEL 06/03/2011 11/10/2011 537.0000 ABC SEL 07/28/2011 11/10/2011 716.0000 ABC SEL 05/16/2011 11/10/2011 250.0000 Purchased 637 shares of ABC on 9/30

It would be interesting to know what exactly the performance measures are regarding the restricted stock available in 2015. Would provide alot of clarity of where they expect to be at that time.

There is alot of redundancy in the positions before the ML and CW acquisatios. Now that those companies have been fully integrated and streamlined they are taking out some of the excess.

I enjoy his story. He's actually got me watching NBA games again, that a feat in itself.

I do not agree with the way the guy got his wealth. It's one thing to take a small personal loan with a family member. It's completely different when your parents put up their house b/c your underwater. One minor glitch and your parents are homeless.

WOW!! Talk about playing dirty. Trying to bash a mutual fund to force redemptions thus lowering the stock price to cause capital raise problems. Guess it's alright to be a crook on Wall Stret if you tell the public your a crook. :-\

I haven't really started digging into the company to know if there are hidden assets. Was pointing out that Diamond is up against a few headwinds that could in the end provide some value if they can avoid bankruptcy. it maybe a good long or short idea whatever a person decides. I have seen several comments saying the company is worth $15 a share. Would not be surprised if it goes dramatically below that. There are still some negative news to come out. I think the merger will be called off, shareholder lawsuits, and they still haven't restated earnings. If it only had to do with how expenses were booked in a couple of quarters it should be taking this long to restate. All of this is with a low cash balance.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Diamond-Foods-names-new-CEO-apf-724295443.html?x=0 The audit committee came back with what most expected. The payments to the growers were accounted for in the wrong period. 2 years of financials have to be restated. Kinda sounds like the Pringles deal is off as they can't afford it now. Share price has taken a beating after hours and probably more to come over the next few months. Might be interesting to look at if they can avoid bankruptcy.

If anyone is still thinking about Mannkind the following article is interesting. Seems there was a shadow hand behind the drug approval. http://www.gurufocus.com/news/159641/mannkinds-afrezza-was-to-be-approved-what-happened-next- Even better (in a scarcastic tone) this is the same guy that has tried similar methods for a couple of companies I hold/held.

Historically speaking there should be a wave around the middle of Feb.

Sold a large chunk of RIMM awhile back to offset other gains. Not holding a loss in other stocks or those would have sold those up to a point of offsetting gains or at least enough to place me in a lower tax bracket.

Adopted a couple of families for Christmas and help canacer patients through the year with bills while they are in treatment. Last year had a family that was pretty gut wrenching. A 6 year old girl and her mom wound up homeless a couple of weeks before Christmas. It all started with her mom just trying to save a few dollars to provide her daughter something for Christmas. Helped her get into a apartment a couple of days before Christmas and Christmas Eve had Santa Claus come and visit the little girl and give her a couple of toys. The girl was so shocked and happy that Santa was visiting her that the toys really didn't matter.

Who wants a job http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=2256493&srchIndex=3&trk=njsrch_hits&goback=%2Efjs_berkshire_*1_*1_I_us_*1_50_1_R_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2

I know of a couple of people that are stock owners. None of them look at it as an investment in the traditional sense. More along the lines of bragging rights of being owners in their favorite team. Also, the alternative to this would be higher taxes in other NFL cities. Earlier this morning their were already over 1,600 shares already sold.

Savant, I actually know a few programmers in India that would be able to pay the house off in full, thus the example. With the housing bubble in China a person would just need to flip an apartment or two and they would be able to do the same thing.

People who build houses for a living (and related industries) are unemployed. They go back to work when the housing supply is gobbled up. I think I've read that it's 3 jobs for every house built. So if we build 1.5 million homes again, then it's 3 million more jobs (that's 1 million homes more than we currently build). That alone cuts unemployment by nearly 25%. Then those people spend more and yet more jobs get created. Takes a lot of stress off of government revenues and jobless benefit expenditures as well. 1.5 million was about natural trendline demand -- 1.2 million from household formation, and 300k from destruction. Maybe I am looking at this wrong... so bear with me, working on experiences over the last few years in the Technology field. US companies are outsourcing almost all their technology needs to BRIC countries for several years now. On average 1 programmer in the US can be traded off for 3 - 4 programmers in India. This is part of the reason why profit margins are nice right now for US companies. Now lets say you have 100k programmers that says lets move to the US and buy a house. All of them will require Visa's and will need jobs. Companies that provide Visa workers do not pay on the same scale as regular W2 workers in my experience so a company is either going to hire the Visa worker at the lower rate (layoff the fulltime employee), continue to outsource all their technology needs, or stay the same. I really dont see why a company would hurt their profit margins in order to help correct the housing mess. Basically the way I am looking at it for, every 1 job gained, 1 job is lost as a company is just switching out the workers. Really hasn't been a mass hiring spree in the last few years and by bringing in more people really it would just be adding to the problem. While I understand where your coming from on housing starts and hiring construction workers, it all starts with providing employment for people that can support purchasing a $500k home. With the gut of available houses at this point, I really don't how this would make a meaningful enough impact to spurr new housing developments. For every house that is purchased there would need to be a high income job associated with it and there really are not that many out there that I see. If I am being perfectly honest, after thinking through this, I see this proposal as a way to help the banks get rid of some houses that are a little more difficult to move. Nothing that would actually lead to new housing builds. Justing thinking out loud as this proposal would probably change 20 times over the next year. :-)

While it maybe good for the housing market my concern is what would occur with unemployment. Sending most of the jobs overseas would only make the unemployment picture worse.

IBM is set up to provide the logistics for this venture. Might be part of the reason behind Buffett's investment.

http://www.railroad.net/funding-secured-for-first-phase-of-california-high-speed-rail-399.html Approval for funding has been secured for the 1st phase of the Calif high speed rail system. Amtrack the only operator for HSR in the US, if anyone has close to the ground information regading this project would be interested in learning more. My understanding is CAT is providing the engines but haven't really started looking into this.