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The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade. Just read their annual reports. There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases. He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci. Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd... ::) LOL. Haha. True. Only recently reading this thread looking back at the last few days of posts, it is so politicized in parts, it is hard to tell what is sarcasm and what is said through political blinders. Sorry.

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade. Just read their annual reports. There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases. He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci.

Didn’t see this posted yet. Bill Gates Ted talk from today.

Yeah, its hard to see a scenario down here where there isnt both inflation and a declining official peso in the short term. It is also hard to see where any type of robust economic growth could come from. Given the terrible economic climate valuations are low and falling. Maybe if the trend continues, a good idea would be to raise some private equity money and buy a company around +/- 3 times earnings.... http://www.ieco.clarin.com/economia/venta-empresas-argentinas-efecto-YPF_0_841715949.html

good stuff. thanks for posting.

20% cash 80% equities (3 stocks are about 50%)

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/14/retirement-guide-herro-europe/

Yeah that is a crazy connection. Never would have anticipated that...

Was about to post that. good stuff. thanks.

"My point was that Spain shouldn't be tossing around blame, when it's blatantly obvious that Spain's problems, and most definitely Greece's problems, were due to the culture, excesses and reliance on social benefits within their own countries. " "No one asked Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Greece to spend billions in excess of what could be supported by their GDP." I disagree with both of these statements with respect to Spain. Spain, in my mind, is not like Greece at all. They didnt use derivatives to hide their debts, they dont have the same level of corrupt culture, and their debt/gdp is around half of Greece right now. On the eve of the crisis (2007) Spain ran a budget surplus and had a debt to GDP ratio below 40%. Yes, they had a huge housing bubble and no one "forced" their population to buy too expensive homes. But, house ownership in Spain is one of the highest in the world at +80% and over 70% of household net worth is in homes. Loans in Spain are not non-recourse. Given that Spain had one of the largest real estate collapses in europe, it is no wonder that the economy was thrown into a "balance sheet" recession as most individual's balance sheets are impaired and cant be fixed by foreclosure. 28% of all homes built from 2001-2007 are vacant. Their government was just as blind during the build up of the real estate bubble up as was the US government. Unemployment is currently 25% (and over 50% for youth) and they don't have their own currency to devalue or use as a lender of last resort. What government could have fiscally survived a collapse like that without dramatically running a deficit? And what evidence is there that austerity applied to those conditions has any chance of working?

I have not checked the banks. Historically, I feel like banks here In the big picture, serve to finance the government, take money from their depositors, and make actually doing a transaction in a bank as time consuming and as difficult as possible. Also, a lot of the local banks are pretty opaque in their reporting. I am also not sure that being in "good standing" (friendly) with the Ks is a good thing when it comes to banking...But, some of them are definitely cheap. Personally, I put them in the "too hard" pile for myself. A friend of mine that is a value investor down here prefers Banco Frances.

The unofficial peso "contado" that has no restrictions in the bond market was quoted at 5.47 last thursday. In my opinion, it is physically impossible for growth/inflation to continue at the same rate over the next couple of years and at the same time maintain the current slow rate of depreciation in the peso. Something has to give. How big the shock will be, and when it will occur, I have no idea. One main effect right now of the new currency controls seems to be slowing the real estate market as most transactions occur in dollars, and they are difficult to come by now. That being said, the stock market is priced almost as if a severe crisis was occurring right now. Relative to income, many companies seem to be priced as cheap as they were in 08-09. There is almost no "local" investment in the stock market, and foreign investors are pretty nervous right now. Disclosure: I am long a small amount of CRESY and IRS and have been trying to find some APSA USD bonds over the counter...

I liked this book: The Pretender: How Martin Frankel Fooled the Financial World and Led the Feds on One of the Most Publicized Manhunts in History by Ellen Pollock Not sure how much you will learn from it, but it is one entertaining story...

That made my ears hurt. would be funny if it wasnt so pathetic....

IRSA is basically 95% of APSA plus some office buildings, hotels, the US investments, banco hipotecario, a couple of developments, some parcels of land and more debt. In my opinion, there is something of a real estate bubble in Argentina right now (in spite of the fact that total real estate debt levels are less than 2%), and the market value of the properties in Argentina held by both IRSA and APSA is probably close to an all-time high. Relative to the current market value of the properties, the stock of both is quite attractive. And looking at the way rents increased the last 2 years, and are currently increasing this year, on the surface that would make it appear to be a very strong market. That being said, I do not think the current rate of growth is sustainable over the next couple of years. At some point there has to be an adjustment, and I dont know when or what that will consist of. But, the stock is priced as if that adjustment was happening right now. Also, yesterday I bought a regular chicken sandwich at McDonalds with my US credit card. In dollars it came out to $9.50. Crazy. (But a small part of that was collected as rent by APSA.) Also, does anyone know the current status of the convertible shares in APSA?