Sweet

The paper losses are only a problem if they have to sell them at market value. They can just hold them to maturity and recoup par value. They may only need to sell them at market if there is a sudden withdrawal deposits or they have to get regulatory capital fast.

Even though BAC bought way too much low yielding debt during the pandemic, they still have plenty of options to shore up any deposits that may be pulled. I think we are quite a long way off from it spiralling.

Please Jim, stop this:

Perhaps, I’m really not sure.

It’s an 35% energy profit levy which the UK government announced and which the company will have to pay this year or in the near future on any oil extracted in the UK. This is in addition to a 40% corporation tax applied to UK oil and gas companies. Therefore the combined tax rate on any oil extracted in the UK is 75% until 2028 when the levy expires. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-energy-oil-and-gas-profits-levy/energy-oil-and-gas-profits-levy Why this is a non-cash deferred charge I don’t understand.

Came to post this article. From the BBC: “Harbour Energy posted pre-tax profits of $2.5bn (£2.1bn) for 2022. But tax - including $1.5bn set aside for the Energy Profits Levy - left the company with $8m in post-tax profit. The company has not revealed how many jobs may go, but it is understood hundreds of posts are under threat.” Scandalous, from a supposedly free market government.

@nafregnum ChatGPT missed that nearly all the abolitionists that successfully campaigned the British government to end the Atlantic slave trade, and free all slaves in the then British empire, were devout Christians. It would be hard to talk about the ending of the Western slave trade without mentioning what motivated William Wilberforce and those like him. Absent also are many complexities to this story. The word ebed in Hebrew can mean either slave or servant, but in the English biblical translations it’s nearly always translated to slave - incorrectly perhaps. I mention this because there is a good argument that the ebeds mentioned in the bible had a very different life from the slaves in North America. The former being more akin to indentured servitude than the racial slavery seen in the colonies and USA. It's hard to make direct comparisons if that’s the case. Worth remembering also that it wasn’t until the invention of the printing press, language translations, and widespread literacy, that bible could even be read by anyone other than a select few. The King James translation was only published in 1611, and it was only in the 19th Century could most people read it, meaning that until only 2-3 hundred years ago knowledge was passed along from the pulpit. To therefore describe things as worse centuries ago is self evidently true, but to casually associate that as a result of a belief in god is not. Regarding human rights and whether they are natural or god given. I think you are a bit off in your argument. The concept of innate natural rights isn’t always associated with god, the French Revolution which championed natural and innate human rights was atheistic. The most important critique of that view came from Edmund Burke who was a Christian member of the British Parliament and noted conservative. His view was that god given rights do exist, insofar as god had given people a concept of right and wrong, and an ability to reason, BUT it was the human institutions of civilisation and an inherited tradition / wisdom that delivered rights - he considered innate human rights as too abstract. I don’t know much about these matters, but I know enough to suggest that it’s a lot more complex than you’ve summarised. My own personal view is that this is one for the too hard pile.

He should, just to mess with those that hate him.

I can’t be the only one who regularly reads these columns and think they are either fake or some of the silliest rich people on the planet: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-live-in-purgatory-my-wife-has-a-multimillion-dollar-trust-fund-but-my-mother-in-law-controls-it-we-earn-400-000-and-spend-beyond-our-means-whats-our-next-move-5e3d3820?mod=home-page This isn’t even that bad.

On the diversity topic. I know there were some Universities in the UK adverting grants only for women. I believe it was a L’Oreal women in science scheme, promoted by the Universities. Wonder if Gillette sponsored a men in science scheme, and only men could apply, how long it would take to make the BBC news front page.

EIA providing an explanation as to why the US oil weekly, and to a lesser extent the monthly, are all messed up, and what they intend to do about it:

If they are expecting oil to hover around $70 - which I understand is their upper limit for purchase - I think they will be disappointed. They should put a giant bid at $70 and just let it sit.

Is oil likely to be at the price they want to purchase at, especially sour crude? Not sure I see prices at that level for a while.

Yeh, not sure why I was of the view that it was a million minimum buy. I looked it up years ago on my then broker

Thanks. For some reason I thought it was much higher. I'm on Schwab, will check it out. I thought it was 1 million minimum buy for some reason.

I have never bought a Treasury before, what’s the minimum buy size?

This is the same type of argument I’ve seen again and again from 2009 on as the market just ripped higher. We always associate the ‘this time it is different’ phrase with irrational exuberance and market tops. However I see it far more often from those always so negative on the markets. This time there is no ZIRP. Interest rates are gravity for stocks but it doesn’t following that the ass is going to fall out of markets. If in the long term the economy is growing and companies are making more money, stocks are likely to go up.

Yeh, I’m not seeing rampant inflation anymore. I could see it a year ago, but where has it been in recent months?

2015 did not have two consecutive quarters of negative growth: Q4 '15: +0.6% Q3 '15: +1.3% Q2 '15: +2.3% Q1 '15: +3.3% The working definition of what is considered a recession was always two negative quarter until last year. The economy did contract for two quarters - it wasn’t a quarterly anomaly. There is a chance that we have had the recession and the bottom is in. And remember, the covid induced recession was enormous, and it wiped out a lot of businesses and a lot of wealth. I’m not claiming to know if the bottom is in, because I can’t know, but I do feel there is an elephant in the room.

Didn't we have a recession? Or do believe that two negative quarters is no longer a recession anymore?

I know this model has been mentioned here before: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-close-to-being-fairly-valued-and-its-long-term-prospects-arent-great-11675975553?mod=home-page

I can read 500 pages if I skim most of it too lol. That’s how I prefer to read actually ha

I don’t think it’s possible to read 500 pages a day consistently. If you read a page a minute would take you 8+ hours to read 500 pages. Possible to do that every now and again but consistently, no way.

I wouldn’t assume that Munger doesn’t understand crypto. Just because his views don’t align with your own doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand it. Conceptually crypto is not complicated.