elltel

Does anyone know anything about PCP? Precision Castparts Corp.

is this what you are looking for? MungerUCSBspeech.pdf

Interesting... "Crum & Forster, through its Fairmont Specialty and United States Fire Insurance companies, has underwritten Hartville's pet insurance plans since October 2006. No changes in existing policyholders' coverage will occur due to the completion of the agreement, and plans will continue to be underwritten by the United States Fire Insurance Company." I wonder what other companies out there already use Fairfax for their underwriting "and" could be taken over.... Just a thought.

Robotics... http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/index.php/products/baxter/

if anyone knows any Chinese people, they will have this sauce in their fridge... http://www.laoganma.com.cn/english/e_index.jsp It was set up many years ago by a lady in her home and now sells by the millions. Privately owned though, but if it ever lists this is the Heinz of China.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca ;)

hi everyone... how does one go about getting a ticket for the Fairfax annual meeting? Thanks in advance.

Thank you Sanjeev for the amazing board!

read "In the Plex". that will answer your question. When google was 6 employees they set up a research lab to concentrate on other ideas. The rest, is history.

They (Greek people) cant withdraw Drachmas even if they wanted to... and why would they want to? If and when they exit the euro the New Drachma (or whatever is will be called) will get killed in the markets. Holding euros is the sensible option.

Anyone attend from outside the US or Canada? I think I will make the trip from the UK next year. :)

are you saving it in a low resolution jpg or gif? sometimes to compact the image you get issues like this. save as BMP.

I dont know what it is... but no matter what I read, and it is a fair amount whenever I know that it is Buffett writing I read it slower and find it more interesting than everything else.

I am looking to record something using a jack lead with my ipod touch. Anyone know an app that can be used? Can a 3.5mm jack lead on either end be used? Thanks!

I have a few: A way to view photo thumbnail pics in my Dropbox folders. Ability to set a folder on my networked hard drive an exact copy of my documents folder. Instead of having to copy every time overwriting all the existing files which takes forever! This software would just copy the files I have changed or added etc every so often when I am not using it.

about 10.7$ billion of IBM.. has 5.5% stake !

realistically... who is going to sell though? I see one big natural seller... The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...

agree... fantastic article. on a side note - has anyone heard from OID recently? They have gone very quiet in recent years.

not only London, other cities around the country... Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham....... but market has rebounded from its 5% falls today and is now up on the day (just). Wait to see what the US does.

ROR.LN Rotork. UK based company. Slightly larger market cap than $500m though.

so only one other then!

from The Times today (UK Based newspaper) "Mobile Banking: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have begun a service - clearXchange - that enables cusomters to move funds directly from their current accounts to another person's account using an email address or mobile number."

Buffett’s Rail Wager Paying Off With $3.25 Billion in Dividends 2011-05-12 21:00:00.5 GMT By Mark Clothier May 13 (Bloomberg) -- A little more than a year ago, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett made his famous “all-in wager” on the economic future of the U.S. Berkshire spent $26.5 billion to buy the 77 percent of Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad the company didn’t already own, essentially taking it private. It seemed a daring bet at the time, considering that the U.S. had fallen into a recession that had crushed consumer spending and created the highest unemployment in a quarter century. Yet in only 15 months the Burlington investment has played out better than even Buffett said he expected, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in its May 16 issue. The recovery from the recession, which ended in 2009, continues to strengthen, unemployment has dipped and the jump in oil prices has worked to railroads’ advantage. All that’s buoyed Buffett’s financial return: In the first 13 months since the buyout, Burlington paid $2.25 billion in dividends to its new parent, Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, and will fork over an additional $1 billion this month. “It’s worked out really well, and I’m surprised at how fast,” said Bruce Allen, president of Bruce G. Allen Investments in Denver. Burlington Chief Executive Officer Matthew K. Rose is determined to take advantage of the industry’s improved climate and the flexibility he gets by having only one shareholder -- Buffett. Capital Spending This year, Rose is boosting capital spending by 31 percent, triple the increase of other major railroads. He’s buying about 200 locomotives and building more transfer facilities where rail freight containers are switched between trucks and trains. Rose’s goal: To bolster the second-largest U.S. railroad’s competitiveness relative to long-haul truckers. Rose estimates companies spend $10 billion in the western U.S. to truck freight that could move less expensively by rail. That gap widens with higher pump prices -- up 31 percent in the past year -- since locomotives are more fuel-efficient. “Maybe a big consumer-goods company ships 25 percent intermodally today,” Rose said, referring to shipping that uses both rail and trucks on a single trip. “Can we convince them to go 35 percent because of higher fuel prices or driver issues? Those opportunities are everywhere.” About $500 billion is spent each year to haul U.S. freight by rail or highway. More than half -- $300 billion -- is spent on shipments between cities. Rails today get about 13 percent of that business, Rose said. Fuel Efficiency To expand rail’s share, he pitches trains’ greater fuel efficiency -- railroads can carry a ton of freight two to four times as efficiently as trucks -- and improved reliability, in part because of heavy capital spending in recent years. A shortage of drivers and rising emissions standards also are eroding truckers’ advantages, as is growing road congestion. “People need to know that the trains are going to run on time,” said Chris Ferrell, a logistics consultant with Tompkins Associates. “They don’t mind that you’re a day and a half slower, they just want to make sure that you’re a day and a half slower every time.” So far, Rose has received the hands-off management that Berkshire companies typically enjoy. “Every morning he can wake up and spend all day on Burlington and do whatever makes sense,” Buffett said. Intermodal Expansion Lately, that has meant expanding the intermodal business, part of the consumer-products unit that generated 31 percent of Fort Worth, Texas-based Burlington’s $16.9 billion in 2010 sales. Intermodal took off in the 1970s as manufacturers expanded the geographic breadth of their supply chains to lower costs. Burlington now has 32 intermodal freight hubs in places such as Haslet, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. At the Haslet facility, three workers at computer terminals in a control tower coordinate the arrivals and departures of 17 trains in and out each day. A crane, guided by a worker on the ground and controlled by one in the cab, takes about 45 seconds to pluck a 6,500-pound container off the train and place it onto a truck. Workers can unload a train with more than 100 cars in an hour and 45 minutes. From there, truckers haul the goods the final leg to a customer’s store or distribution center. Railroads still battle perceptions of delayed departures and inconsistent punctuality, said Walter Spracklin, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. ‘Leap of Faith’ “Railroads are not known for service -- trucking companies are,” he said. “They’re actually asking the customer to do a little bit of a leap of faith.” That’s why Rose in the past year doubled to 12 Burlington’s national sales team, which pitches the benefits of intermodal freight to customers such as Best Buy Co. and Home Depot Inc. Rail’s sweet spot is for hauls longer than 750 miles (1,200 kilometers). It would be $1,002 cheaper to transport a freight container by rail the 2,020 miles from Los Angeles to Chicago, with half of the carbon emissions, Burlington said. Landing a sale can take two years, said Chief Marketing Officer John P. Lanigan Jr. “In some cases, you’re overcoming long-held beliefs that may have been grounded in fact two decades ago but are no longer,” he said. One recent win was FedEx Corp., which in February started using Burlington for freight hauls of more than 500 miles in the western U.S. after years of being courted, Lanigan said. “We were relentless over time,” he said. “Finally, at some point, it just makes sense for them.” FedEx declined to comment. Ferrell said shippers don’t make such changes quickly or lightly. “Once they’re convinced service levels will not suffer, then it’s Finance 101: Am I going to be decreasing my costs?” he said. “If the answer is lower, you do it.”

just wondering how many are based in London, or the UK in general?

do you have it lying around? would be very interesting... incidently, this is quite interesting... http://www.google.com/patents?id=uFpRAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false