compoundinglife
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Posts posted by compoundinglife
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I dopped out of high school when I was 16. It has worked out well for me. Luckily I had motivation that I was able to harness outside of public schools and I was also was able to learn some life lessons that most people probably would not learn until later if they ever did. I think this eventually became an edge.
IMO when you find someone who took a non traditional path such as dropping out and became successful, chances are they would have been successful no matter what. They had the nessecary drive, confidence, apitutde or other character traits that are needed. Their success is based on their character and maybe a tad of luck, but the choice to drop out of school or not to college in the big picture is IMO probably not a big deciding factor in the grand scheme of things.
I am glad your "dopping" out of high school worked, and that you had the " nessecary"drive, and "apitutde " . Sorry couldn't resist. We will just assume these are typos. :-)
I agree with taking your own path, when you have one. I didn't. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I realize I could have gotten a job anywhere, learned everything I could have, rinsed, repeated, and done very well in the end. I was raised and fixated on having an education.
My son is 10 and has realized that most of his learning isn't happening at school.
Touché, thats what I get for having spell check turned off :)
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Well, that's unfortunate.
What's even more unfortunate is how so many people are marks for the formal education system. After decades of indoctrination through after school specials and government propaganda, it has become almost a sacred cow that going to school is good for you.
It probably is, to an extent, but it's no silver bullet and can be very harmful to yourself if you take it too far. As a fourth grade dropout, I am in a better position than a lot of people who spent money on college educations because they bought in to the delusion that college is the golden ticket to the good life.
This is the sort of thing that happens when people don't stop to ask questions. College must be good for me, because I've been told it was ever since I was 4 years old. Everyone else is doing it, and the whole country can't be full of idiots, right?
The combination of social proof and positive reinforcement from those in authority makes for a hell of a cocktail, and an even more wicked hangover.
Scott, I would think you make an error here. It is not because it worked out well for you than it would for everyone. I tend to think that statistically, people who drop out of school so young won't really succeed, they would proably have many problems just dealing with simple real-life situation because they would miss important skills like reading, writing and counting a bit. Education is statistically better for the whole population, even though there always will be some people that would have done better otherwise.
I dopped out of high school when I was 16. It has worked out well for me. Luckily I had motivation that I was able to harness outside of public schools and I was also was able to learn some life lessons that most people probably would not learn until later if they ever did. I think this eventually became an edge.
That being said I have never encouraged anyone to take the path I did because I think that most people are not cut out for it and being a drop out will put most at a huge disadvantage.
IMO when you find someone who took a non traditional path such as dropping out and became successful, chances are they would have been successful no matter what. They had the nessecary drive, confidence, apitutde or other character traits that are needed. Their success is based on their character and maybe a tad of luck, but the choice to drop out of school or not to college in the big picture is IMO probably not a big deciding factor in the grand scheme of things. I think for these type of people life is basically a "choose your own adventure" where as long you stay aware from all the choices that lead to early death, prison etc..Then the pontential outcomes are all above average.
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They have this brand here in Pittsburgh, Berkshire Hathaway Real Estate, seems like they bought out another company to move into the area.
Not sure who's in charge of their branding, but they have an issue on their hands. They use such elegant paint colors and fancy text that the For Sale signs are unreadable in a passing car. They should re-do their signs with bigger text and stop using the burgundy/creme color combination. The company they replaced used white backgrounds with giant red/white/blue text.
Agreed. I have seen more BRK branded listings in the Seattle area of the past few months and the signs are awful IMO. If I was not on the lookout for them I would not of noticed the name of the agency.
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Buffett has said somewhere that he wants a business that even an idiot can run. He was wrong in this statement. Coke required really good CEOs to maintain its leadership position. Buffett has been involved in ousting weak CEOs at coke. Management is always key. There are no exceptions.
He wants a business that can be run by ham sandwhich because someday a ham sandwhich will end up running it. I think one of the deeper points in that statement is a company with a strong moat will be more likely to survive sub-par management for quite a while. If you own a business for a very long time there is a good chance you will get some bad managers in there. The Moat can help mitigate that. The bad manager does some damage for while and you boot them out and recover. In the long run the brand or company is not severely damaged. The new coke fiasco might be an example of that.
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I agree with this post, it's fascinating to think about. Apple is doing something unique, they create new products that capture the large upfront margin and then let the product drop off as margins shrink.
The author states his position is that "Apple does not believe in moats". If they have a moat and how strong that moat is if it exists is a slightly different topic. I don't believe the "Apple does not believe in moats" position, even though their ecosystem is not as strong a moat as switching costs from IBM or Oracle it is still a moat. It may not be as deep or have as many crocidiles (yet to be seen). Moats as we know can be based on switching cost, lowest cost provider, network effect and intagible assets (brand for example). It seems to me to that Apple has for a long time been strategically focusing on intagibles (brand), switching cost (eco system) and now network effect (payments). Even if you believe they don't have strong moats in these areas it seems hard for me to swallow that they don't believe in moats.
Some of his point might be lost on a non-technical audience. Substitute moat with vendor lock-in. You purchase ILOG from IBM and rearchitect your call center to use it. IBM can never release another update and you're stuck with them paying for years, that's a moat. That's no uncommon in the IT world. If you saw some of the outdated stuff that companies are using and paying IBM to support you'd be shocked.
Yes. Worked in IT for a long time and I know exactly what you are talking about. But switching costs is a particular type of moat. I agree that Apple that does not have the switching cost moat that IBM does. I always chuckle when I am on a flight and I see someone fire up Lotus notes, or some app to access an AS/400 app over in flight wifi.
I'd disagree that the Apple ecosystem is a moat. I love Apple products, they work well and I like their build quality. Recently I needed to buy a Windows machine for a business project. I'm on that machine almost all the time now, if I had to never use OS X again it would be fine. The fact that songs are in iTunes or whatever isn't a big deal. The important things (documents/code) works on both environments.
That is your opinion based on your experience and personal prefernce. I can provide similar real life stories that provide a different viewpoint. Moats take a long time to build and it remains to be seen if Apple is building a strong one in their ecosystem, but I still argue they believe in moats.
Apple needs to continually be pushing the ball forward. A company with a moat can sit on a crappy product and fail to innovate for years and still reap giant rewards. Look at the telecom carriers and their moat, it's giant, telecom innovation isn't exactly thriving in the US, doesn't matter.
Telecom is essentially a utility from a moat perspective. Different type of moat. Not trying to come of as a crazy Apple bull here but does anyone here really believe that they do not believe in moats and not actively trying to build them?
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I think I feel dumber after reading that, could almost pass for an Onion article.
Would that make you a dummy? I love arguments that start out: If you disagree with what I'm about to say you are stupid.
I am a dummy, so I can't afford to get any dumber :)
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I think I feel dumber after reading that, could almost pass for an Onion article.
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Congrats! Another chapter in your and the COBF's story :) Looking forward to watching it all unfold.
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All,
I am just starting into the field of value investing and while reading about Warren Buffett / Charles Munger / Philip Carret, they repeatedly mention the importance of patience. With regards to patience, I have few questions. I would be immensely grateful if the experts in the board can spend few of their valuable time in expaning on this.
1. What do Mr. Buffett / Mr. Munger / Mr. Carret mean when they say patience?
2. How is patience going to help in the investing process? Is it going to help when one says no to an investment and / or one selects to back up the truck and / or one decides to stay and / or increase the stake and / or decrease the stake and / or part with the stock and / or other scenarios?
3. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger mention about being honest with oneself. Given that, how does one find out for himself if he is patient?
4. If one realizes that he / she is not patient, what is the best way to improve patience? Hopefully this includes a robust form of feedback loop that tells him / her if he / she is going in the right direction.
Sincere regards,
Thiru
1. Charlie and Warren have said (I am paraphrasing) that a few really good decisions over one's investing career can end up being the determining factor in supieror performance. Look at the Daily Journal Company's investing habits as an example.
"“The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient."- WEB
"It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities." - CM
"There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back." - CM
2. I believe it helps with both aspects metioned.
"The big money is not in the buying and selling … but in the waiting." - CM
"In fact you can argue that if you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get compared to the people who do have the temperament, who can be more philosophical about these market fluctuations.” - CM
3. I try to ask myself questions like this:
If I was unable to sell this stock/position for the next 10 years would I still make this investment? This question usually gives me a good idea of how confident and comfortable I am in with an investment. It has changed my mind on some really cheap stocks because I realized I probably don't know enough to understand the risks I am taking on. In some cases I have passed on the opportunity all together or taken a much smaller position because of it.
4. Some people meditate to help calm the mind, some people find hobbies to take their mind off the stock market. I would suggest be very slective about what media you watch/read in an effort to reduce noise. You need to experiment to find out what works for you. I think in the case of investing, your feedback loop will be your results over an extended period of time. Next time you are at the grocery store pick the longest line and commit to waiting in it, practice paitience.
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My thought on the "It's who you know" angle of things. I work in technology not finance but I hear this quite a bit in my industry as well. Most of the work I have done over the past 8 years came to fruition through my network or "Who I know". Resumes and interviews as this point are usually just a formality. However these relationships are generally built on experiences I have had working with the people in my network over the past 16 years. Part of the reason why knowing these people is valuable is because they know me, my experience and work ethic.
In my opinion "Who you know" is a product of working hard from the ground up and creating a reputation for yourself. Knowing people without having the rep and track record will not get you very far IMO, it may open some doors but if you don't have the work ethic to back it up it will fizzle out. However if you work hard and don't know anyone, your network will materialize over time. Its hard to go unnoticed when you are bright hard worker.
My suggestion would be to study something your sincerely interested in, something that excites you regardless of what it is. When the time comes to look for a job, find some places you want to work and do whatever you can to get your foot in the door. Take positions or work you think may be beneath you if needed and then kick some serious ass once you are there. Maybe you won't need to do that, maybe a great opportunity will find you. But don't wait around for it.
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Folks,
Last minute work travel requires that I skip the event this year :(. I have a ticket to the dinner that I am not using. I do not want anything for the ticket but would like to offer it to the highest bidder who commits to making a donation to the The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada.
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Thanks for picking up the torch on this, my work life has been crazy for a while so I never took the time to get the ball rolling on the second meetup. I am interested in meeting up.
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Been using HSA Bank via my employer with a linked TD Ameritrade account for a couple of years now. Love it! I usually do a transfer every 4 pay periods from the HSA to TD. My employer does not max out the contribution so I will be maxing putting in the difference this year (didn't know I could do that last year). I have not taken anything out of the market yet. I just keep track of medical expenses and plan on taking the reimbursement some day.
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I do everything with limit orders just to be safe and generally price the order so it will execute right away. I am buying because I think stand to make some decent money so I am not going sweat paying a tiny bit more to get the stock.
In the past I have thought about leaving a few real low ball orders open on stocks like BRK.A to see if I get lucky but haven't bothered.
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By joining the board you are not required to post all of your ideas or what you are long/short why should Parsad be required to do so?
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Architecture for me.
PS...In the design and engineering field, Autodesk is a monopoly, and has always been. Their moat is an ocean. They have complete pricing power, there are no alternates for us. This has been the case for decades. Adobe as well but not to that extent.
Yeah, I recall that Autodesk is the goto software for the drawings. Is there a price point where people say I'll try something different? Kind of like what's happened with Gillette's razors? What do you think is separating them from the #2 and #3 guy in the space? Is it kind of like Excel for investment bankers? You're not going to send your clients a file in google docs Excel.
Autodesk is doing a ton of research in genetics right now and I believe is trying to position themselves similarly in that industry.
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We speculated this on the SHLD thread earlier today.
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18 years of tech. Fortune 500 and startups. Software development and systems/network engineering. Also spent some time on commercial fishing boats in Bering Sea but that was a long time ago:)
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I just figured out that I did not follow directions on my original post. It is now sorted alphabetically.
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Haha, I've seen them called such everywhere that I read.
I don't have the setup for mining, though I do have a nice GPU on a desktop that I don't use all the time. Rather than fool with the hassle though, I'm just looking to toss a little money in an see what happens. I don't know if $50-$100 in each coin is enough to move the needle, but overall it's a decently-sizable amount ($5k-$10k).
Actually, I'm really surprised people are having such issues with Crypsty. It's clear that they have to transact through their own wallets in each of those currencies so it's pretty amazing they can get it done with a day or two delay at all among so many transactions. It's not like I can go right now and instantaneously buy stocks of similar market caps as these coins with at least a slight delay if I'm not making a market order.
1 GPU probably isn't worth the trouble, also there are only certain make/models that get decent enough hash rates to make worth while.
The big issue with cryptsy is the deposit time. For example I currently have close to 20 doge deposits from my miners that are in "pending" even though some of them have close to 500 confirmations and are 12 hours old. Other exchanges process them much faster, I have been using Cryptsy though because they have an auto sell on deposit feature that allows me to run the operation with little manual intervention. Sometimes they go through much faster but the current situation is not uncommon. These transactions if done from one wallet to another (or to coin-e) would have been done in 20 minutes or so.
Your approach reminds me of a little of Templeton's buy $100 of every stock under $1 approach :)
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Yeah I've read that. Honestly, I just want to buy and hold for 1-2 years. I don't really care to read the "trollboxes" on the exchanges and look for short-term, daily gains. If this is going to big or a bubble at least, it should raise in aggregate from here.
Makes sense. Just figured I would let you know so your not surprised. The only reason I care is because I am generally trying to mine the most profitable coin at the moment given the capabilities of my hardware so the faster I can to get to USD the more certain I am to capture the amount I am expecting before price changes.
I did not know the chat boxes were called trollboxes, lol :)
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Personal Account: 38% (maybe a tad more once I account for some withdrawals)
largest positions as of today are BAC Leaps 31%, AAPL Leaps 15%, SHLD common 12%, USG 8%, SD 7%, STAR 4%
BAC and AAPL leaps played a big part this year. Was looking much better when SHLD was in the 60s :)
Account I manage for a family member (intentionally more diversified): 33%
largest positions as of today are IBM 8%, FIATY 7.5%, BRK 6%, AAPL 5%, BAC-WA 5%, GM-WB 5%. Recently traded larger BAC and GM common positions to the same notional of the warrants to free up some cash. Lots of positions in this account so hard to say off the top my head largest contributors were for the year outside of the BAC common.
Reflections/Mistakes:
- I think my biggest mistake was not buying more FIATY when it was cheaper. I really really like/liked this idea but I didn't match the position size with my conviction.
- I have been holding SHLD for a while and each time it goes over 60 I think about selling half to buy back later but never do, would have added a bit to my returns over the past couple of years. Could of done something similar with AAPL leaps.
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Good luck. Which exchanges are you using to buy the non-btc currencies?
I guess Cryptsy. I don't see many other options with as many options. At least they're in the US and could potentially be sued via class action if there is some really bad tomfoolery. I am also looking at getting a little in each cryptostock, but have to find a place I feel at least semi-OK with.
FWIW, I am much happier with coins-e but they don't have as many coins as cryptsy. Trade execution on cryptsy is generally pretty good but getting coins in and out has a tendency to take a long time because their engine gets fairly backed up. I would not be surprised if your BTC deposit into Cryptsy takes up to 24hrs to show up. There is always some delay as the network verifies the transactions but cryptsy deposits take much longer than coins-e in my experience. That being said they do always go through and their support usually replies to my requests within 24 hours. I am mining and then trading for BTC so the delay matters to me because I generally trying to mine the most profitable coin at any given moment and quickly convert to btc then cash.
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Waiting on my Coinbase transfer to go though and then buying a little ($50-$100) in all 85+ cryptocurrencies, and holding 1 BTC :P Hope this Bitcoin New Year's Bash mentioned in the article doesn't make my gamble even more expensive.
Good luck. Which exchanges are you using to buy the non-btc currencies?
Bob Dylan And The Band – The Complete Basement Tapes
in General Discussion
Posted
Love Bob Dylan. He played in Seattle a few weeks ago it was great show. Amazing energy for a guy his age.