alwaysinvert

I always stress that I have a sizeable hidden asset and that it will double in the event of a merger. Can't believe I'm still single.

Elderly people self-report higher well-being everywhere, and actually had positive correlation with high age, so unless that's something that's been observed throughout their lives it seems extremely shaky. And I guess it hasn't been since hindsight bias kind of comes with the territory.

The general consensus seems to be that it's mainly down to genetic factors when you grow that old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_into_centenarians

and how is it a "sticky" point? could you not say the same thing about John Malone? yet his stock falls way below prices he paid to buy back stock. review history of LINTA. the market is going to do what it will do. there is no stickiness. I am not predicting this trade won't work out. It may work. It probably will work. because I don't see the market going down much in the next few months. but I really think it's being sold as something it's not. BRK has always been more resistant than the general market in downturns? Also, even if you don't agree with the sticky point argument, which I happen to do, it still would provide an excellent buyback opportunity if the stock tanked, one which Buffett would be able to use opportunistically. It's not gone that badly for Malone either. It's basically a win-win proposition to buy at these prices if your time frame is long enough. Either we won't have the downside in the stock or we will get buybacks at low prices or we will get aqcuisitions at prices even more attractive than depressed BRK stock.

[amazonsearch]Leading By Design: The Ikea Story[/amazonsearch] Halfway through this one. The book was originally released in 1997 but it lingisticually it sometimes reads like it was written in the 30s. Maybe the English translation is better. That notwithstanding, it paints a pretty good picture of the development of Ikea and is mostly a biography on its founder Ingvar Kamprad. As such I think it should probably be read by all serious students of businesses. In some ways the similarities between Kamprad and Buffett are almost eery. Sure, these characteristics (like extreme thriftiness, extreme focus, focus on core competence etc) may only be correlations... but somehow I suspect a causal relationship between these attributes and wealth. Another thing that they have very much in common is that they both are identified with their respective hometowns. In fact much of Ikea's brand relies on being Swedish. But it's not only that. The particular part of Sweden in which Kamprad grew up, Småland, is very famous for uncomparable Lutheran work ethic, thriftiness bordering on miserlines and successful entrepenurship. I'm not sure to what extent a mere readthrough of this book can capture this deep-rooted culture, but, from what I can gather, I think the closest US equivalent might be the midwestern ways of Omaha. Grab this book if you like business biographies and want to read about one of the world's most successful companies of the post-war era.

From quickly scanning the lists in OP, I identified two books that I have read which has not yet been mentioned. Bad Pharma was basically a book which could be summarized in an article. I guess you know what it's about - wrong incentives for pharmaceutical companies that leads to bad science etc. It's enough to view the TED talk by the author, in my view. The other one is Why Nations Fail, which I enjoyed - but I enjoy just about anything that has to with economic history. Anyhow, it's the same story that Douglass North always told: institutions, institutions, institutions. But from the other perspective. Some of you may have watched Niall Ferguson and his 'killer apps', which is the exact same concept. Powerful model, especially in conjunction with Jared Diamond.

This is a very important point. Assuming that there is a fairly unrestricted right to bear arms under the Second Amendment that may not be infringed by either federal or state governments, what exactly should be the scope of this right? Does it cover anything more than single or six-shot firearms or shotguns? What about assault weapons and explosives? What about war machines, such as tanks and military planes? What about drones that can be loaded up with weapons and explosives? Chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons? Using a cost/benefit analysis, I prefer to draw the line at allowing non-automatic weapons for self defense and for hunting (it's a cultural thing -- especially, here in Texas). If we must use an automobile analogy, I suppose I would say that gun control is like requiring people to wear seat belts or forbidding them to drink alcohol when they're in their cars. It will, in fact, prevent a number of unnecessary deaths, and it is worth it to do so in this case. The one important benefit that gets lost with such policies is the ability to "overthrow the government." Frankly, in the modern age, the level of bearing arms you would need to overthrow even many local governments would require so much firepower that I think would be dangerous to society, generally. So I would prefer other systems and policies to be set up that keep US governments in check rather than relying on the Second Amendment. I also would heavily restrict gun manufacturing capacity and output in the US. I think it's terrible that guns manufactured here flood into the world and are used in wars, genocides, drug violence, etc. If some other country wants to specialize in gun manufacturing, let them. We don't need to make it so easy and efficient to manufacture and distribute these assault weapons. To be fair I don't think the argument is that you are going to be able to stand up to a national army or even 'beat' the police force with your handguns or shotguns, but rather at least make it uncomfortable for the people acting on behalf of the government if they try and enforce tyranny. I.e if the government one day knocks on your door with the intent of confiscating all you own and rape your daughters you at least have the option to go down fighting and cause some collateral damage and maybe public policy problems for the government if you are armed. If you are unarmed you can't do diddly-squat. And yes, I do realize this is goofball territory for most people, but stranger things than rogue governments have happened in history - they are pretty common. Now, this may be a strong argument or not, but I think this is a more correct representation than the idea of a militia full of nutters fighting nuclear weapons with peashooters. When studying philosophy I learned the charity rule in logic class. That is you should always use the best possible version of the argument you are trying to knock down. If there is any board on the web where we should be able to adhere to that rule this is it :)

Case is similar to Man with a hammer syndrome.... You won't be able to present any arguments which will fly. I hope you do realize that goes the other way around too. If there were no sensible, emotionally appealing or logic arguments for the opposite position then surely there would only be one opinion, period. 'Gun nuts' by and large are not utilitarians so obviously you aren't going to convince them with utilitarian arguments even if the facts in that case may be on your side (I'm not sure).

As for the topic of marginalization of young men, which actually is the question I found most interesting in all of this, I actually find myself leaning more and more to an autocratic/conservative point of view and I can assure you that makes me feel very ill at ease. But young men are dangerous as hell and if mitigating their explosive power means stressing traditional values or implementing/keeping societal structures that cement old 'outdated' gender roles (which may be the 'correct' ones from an evolutionary standpoint) it may very well be worth it even if doesn't fit a political ideology that I'm comfortable with. I don't know, reality IS messy.

I don't understand how this point of view jibes with the statistical fact that the western countries with more stringent gun laws have lower rates of violence per capita than the US. (Can't speak for poverty and corruption, though I doubt the US is on top there either.) There is an implicit causal inference from this that I'm not sure is so easy to make as you seem to think. There are probably very strong cultural factors at work here. Easy solutions are great for soundbites but reality is a lot messier. As an aside, I heard no mentions of gun laws being problematic when the Norwegian massacre happened last summer. Marginalization of young men is a far more worrisome problem than gun laws, not only when it comes to these crimes but for a number of societal ills. There is no causal inference being made. Rkbabang said that black markets lead to violent crime, which suggests that less restrictive gun laws should lead to less violent crime. My point is that ALL the statistics I am aware of suggest the opposite correlation, so I'm really unclear where he's coming from. Agreed that there are very strong cultural factors at work. And surely the culture is shaped by the legislation, just as legislation is (at least originally) shaped by the culture. There are plenty of confounding variables at work here. A big tobacco executive would have a field day. The phrase "Easy solutions are great for soundbites but reality is a lot messier," is very interesting: It is, in itself, a soundbite. You hear it most every time a large change is proposed to a well established system. It's quite patronizing. (Maybe you know some people who think that gun control laws will completely eliminate such atrocities. I'm not one of them.) 100% agreed on marginalization of young men. I find that situation to be very alarming, particularly in Europe. In the past, lunatics have been eerily opportunistic at such times. I thought your point was that the social behavior and social conscience followed the laws and there was no chance of it being the other way around. If that was not the case, I apologize. I think that most of the time people think that prohibition will make the problem go away and this probably stems from an evolutionary advantageous way of acting. Repulsion -> get the f away from it and fast. The brain knows no difference between moral repulsion and bodily repulsion. In some cases we appreciate that this model does not work so smoothly, but in others we don't. Why that is I don't know. Alcohol is bad but should be legal - no sweat Taking loans at 12% is dumb but should be legal - no sweat Taking loans at 500% is dumb but should be legal - free-market nutcase Suicide is bad but should be legal - no sweat Illegal drug X is bad but should be legal - nutcase/addict Homosexuality is natural - some controversy, although almost non on the legality Paraphilia X is natural (evolutionarily) but perhaps immoral - nutcase Guns should be legal for all to bear - some controversy in the States (complete nutcase where I live) Maybe it's just me but I find it highly interesting where and why we draw those lines and as an agnostic on many of these things (who leans libertarian in most cases) I sometimes feel like an alien species :) I'm meandering away so I'll stop here.

I don't understand how this point of view jibes with the statistical fact that the western countries with more stringent gun laws have lower rates of violence per capita than the US. (Can't speak for poverty and corruption, though I doubt the US is on top there either.) I'm also curious as to the ability to purchase automatic weapons without a license in your world. Why stop there? Should one also be able to purchase grenades and rocket launchers? And why even stop there? In general, do you believe that anyone, anywhere should be able to purchase any item someone is willing to sell? Honestly trying to understand your point of view, not pick a fight. There are gobs of very smart people who feel this way but I am totally confounded by the line of thinking. There is an implicit causal inference from this that I'm not sure is so easy to make as you seem to think. There are probably very strong cultural factors at work here. Easy solutions are great for soundbites but reality is a lot messier. As an aside, I heard no mentions of gun laws being problematic when the Norwegian massacre happened last summer. Marginalization of young men is a far more worrisome problem than gun laws, not only when it comes to these crimes but for a number of societal ills.

Optics schmoptics. I really don't see how this in and of itself could be considered unethical and from my viewpoint it's clearly accretive to shareholder value, so I am more than happy. If you are going to worry what every nutter might think all the time you aren't going to get much done. As for the buyback programme, I would personally prefer if it was not set in stone (at least as long as Buffett is still at the helmet - I might not trust others as much not to dilute shareholder value via buybacks) but Buffett wouldn't be Buffett without watching out for the interests of his 'less sophisticated' partners.

I'd still buy me some Dell. And one or two microcaps that I already own. And Berkshire. But that's about it at the moment. Boring market.

He's the Swedish Tilson.

One of the shows I always hated was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Champagne days and caviar dreams. Yuck! That was a very tacky show. At first I was mentioning NetJets metaphorically, but since moving to Santa Barbara I'm finding it to be practical (albeit very, very expensive). The airport here is awesome but it just doesn't fly directly to many places -- everything is a connecting flight. And I'm terrible at planning -- if it snows in Tahoe, I want to be able to make a Thursday night decision to take the kids skiing for the weekend. That means picking them up at school at noon, driving 10 minutes across town right to the plane, getting on, and being in Truckee 1 hour later. Driving to Truckee from Santa Barbara is a non-starter. Flying commercial means getting a connecting flight in Los Angeles and then on to Reno, then we're still at least another hour from Truckee if we're lucky to get our bags right away. So it's like a 4 or 5 hour trip probably counting the connections. Maybe 6 hours including early checkin with security and all. Compare that to just 1 hour on NetJets. That's great! Please keep us posted if you get a share or a time card of Net Jets. I use to say, " If we get to X dollars, we'll get a jet or at least a time share in one. Well, that turned out like Onyx' story. We're now at 2X and still flying coach, although I have convinced my wife that it will be OK for us to spring for an extra $25 to get an exit row seat with more room. F-k me, that's get to be a big X.

Great little bit, and offering something different than the usual rehashing. Thanks.

Thank you so much! Annoying how almost all boards are set to so few posts per page as a standard. Never noticed it much here before, though, since most threads don't grow that big. Now, back to the BAC thread!

Is there some way to get the forum to show more posts per page? I can't find anything in my personal settings. A bit tedious clicking for new pages in the gigantic threads :)

Some interesting stuff on Intrade: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/11/was-intrade-being-manipulated-over-the-last-month.html

Yes, it's just about perfect weather here. Just what I needed. You probably read that I started riding horses (first lesson today). I will soon be taking surfing lessons too (got a board from Costco). The Santa Barbara area is pretty much kick ass. You should probably consider ecstasy instead :)

I hear you! It's been a humbling year for me too. Only just pulling back to break-even for the year after a rough ride, where my valuation skills certainly have come into question as events I never even considered have been unfolding. I guess I should have just bought Apple in January, huh.

Ouch!

I'm really skeptical of the valuations of Inditex and H&M. They are priced for perfection. As if the new stores will give as much revenue as the old ones years out and that they will be able to keep the same huge margins and not meet increasing competitive pressures from other chains, online or offline. H&M is so loved and widely owned by Swedes, giving me Nokia vibes. It's priced like a bond for heaven's sake! Inditex seems much the same although I can't speak to the sentiments of the Spanish public. Even Swedish value blogs are hugely bullish on H&M, almost across the board. When both growth investors, value investors and Average Joes own it I run screaming.

I don't think it detracts attention from the bigger deals he might be able to do maybe once a year. I found a good idea this year but it was an extremely illiquid one, so I have only been able to commit just below 1% of my capital in about 6 months of buying, but it was fun researching and putting out buying orders is not really a time consumer. If it keeps Buffett happy and excited while also earning a good return it's a win-win.

Moats are a continuum and not a binary sort of thing. Buffett speaks of companies with BIG moats with crocodiles, that is there are also smaller ones. Putting huge emphasis on moats and moats only is a beginners' disease to me (not saying I'm a non-beginner myself). Some people start with the moat and work on valuation from there. These days I start with low price and worry about the rest only after that is established. That has mostly lead me towards micro caps, but most recently I have been buying Dell. Looking for moats in particular would on the other hand skew me towards larger caps right from the outset, an area in which I'm not overly comfortable and where I suspect the possible edge is generally smaller. I figure that being an expert on Amazon may prove beneficial but I'll worry about that stock when it's at 9 times earnings instead...