gfp

the dirty little secret is they don't even need to borrow it. why would be government need to borrow their own "money" in order to spend? It's a choice to issue treasury securities.

100% a political choice. Social security or the US government does not "run out of US Dollar money." Social security's "assets" are IOUs of the Federal Government. It is a political choice what to provide to retirees.

"Inside the Culture and Strategies of Berkshire Hathaway" An interview of Berkshire board member Chris Davis by David Rubenstein on Bloomberg. I always enjoy Rubenstein's interviews. Link to YouTube version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfjT9JHxR1w Bloomberg version (should be same) here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-07-29/inside-the-culture-and-strategies-of-berkshire-hathaway-video edit: I guess those are just short clips here is another clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_3g1UM4SF0

@SafetyinNumbers You are correct on the Fairfax ownership level in Waterous Energy Fund 3. I was curious and looked it up

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250728587320/en/Verisign-Announces-Secondary-Offering-of-Common-Stock-by-Selling-Stockholders

Are you Anthony Xerxes?

And squishmallows! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squishmallows

Berkshire owns W&W/Afco Steel since the Alleghany purchase

So I feel like every other podcast these days is about the huge shortage of electricity we are looking at as these hyperscalers and the government backed arms race pours billions of dollars (trillions?) into data centers. Additionally, all of these investments in domestic production are in the news every day. Berkshire and Greg Abel are right at the center of this but the narrative hasn't really caught on with Berkshire yet. When a big foreign chip firm builds an enormous factory in the United States, it's Berkshire building the factory. Same with gigafactory in Sparks, NV. Berkshire even builds their own bridges for BNSF. I wonder how long until Berkshire is touted as the ultimate AI / re-shoring play and Greg Abel as the ideal CEO to navigate the historic investment? Look at all of these projects or break them out by category - Afco/W&W is huge https://www.wwafcosteel.com/all-projects https://www.wwafcosteel.com/projects/manufacturing https://www.wwafcosteel.com/projects/industrial https://www.wwafcosteel.com/projects/aerospace And BRK energy ->

Don't be afraid of concentration. If you know what you own inside and out, you should be fine holding 90%+ of your liquid net worth in one security, just like many company founders and employees do. If you don't know what you own and why, 10% is probably too big.

Yeah, I meant do you have a replacement for the "reserve currency" in mind.

No way - I saw all the details in sharpie on his desk

Do you have a replacement in mind? I don't see this happening in the real world.

When any of us in the private sector renovate a qualifying historic commercial building, we receive almost 20% of the budget back as a tax credit from the Federal Government. That is the "US taxpayer" subsidizing private businesspeople who don't need subsidizing - because someone at government / the national parks service decided that we want to greatly incentivize restoring and maintaining our historic architecture by handing out free money to multi millionaire/billionaire property developers. The last thing I care about is the Federal Reserve, with no taxpayer money (and their very own magical money computer to boot) going over budget on a historic renovation of multiple landmark buildings in DC during a period of significant inflation in construction. Doesn't anybody think it's a little ironic that Trump is choosing to highlight significant cost inflation as his main avenue to exert pressure to lower rates?

The only thing we know so far is that they didn't go above 10% on it, even at the lows where that wasn't a lot of money.

accept no substitutions!

Well I agree (since I am not set up to buy expert market stocks). But I'll bet Tim Eriksen is plenty happy with the current arrangement!

Sounds kind of expensive. If it is possible to make Gold from something else but it costs a quarter million bucks an ounce to do it, I'm not sure it changes anything. Maybe someday Fusion is happening regularly and Gold is a byproduct but that seems like a 'not in my lifetime' sort of thing.

Greg's back just in time for JOE's first ever quarterly conference call!

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/23/house-bill-accredited-investor-sec-test.html "Equal fees for all" !! I'm sure some on this message board charge lower fees (lower, that is, unless your track record is shit) to non-accredited clients and performance based fees to accredited and qualified clients. This proposed test would open up the charging of performance based fees to the poors and allow investments advisors to charge performance reallocations to average folks! A win for the little guy I know some smaller investors have been buying Fairfax India and Biglari Holdings to get an early taste for themselves but now they can pay their fund manager 25% of the profits to invest in Fairfax India and Biglari Holdings!

OMG! So you are telling me that this profitable company that pays no dividends is in a long term uptrend?! Maybe I should start drawing uptrend channels on my passbook savings account and brag more to my wife

Deepening the bench at Berkshire's insurance group https://www.insuranceinsiderus.com/article/2f3imlk15kldyoqquuozk/all-topics/talent/ex-corvus-president-gangu-joins-berkshire-hathaway-as-svp?zephr_sso_ott=T6CTpU Former positions https://www.reinsurancene.ws/corvus-insurance-welcomes-prashanth-gangu-as-new-president/

You gotta love Warren - It's not the merger speculation I find distasteful, its the notion that we would hire investment bankers

I haven't read it. I did see her short movie "finding the money." I assume the book has a lot of policy ideas in it and would turn most people off for that reason. If it doesn't - if it is just a straight intro to MMT aimed at average folks - maybe it is worth reading. If you understand the reflection of the deficit like a reflection in a lake already, you probably get the gist of Kelton's book

Funny enough - and this is not a whopper - my Father went to high school and played in the marching band with the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Evergreen Park, south side of Chicago. My Dad certainly didn't know he was posing for photos next to a future domestic terrorist.