bmichaud

gio, if you haven't seen it you may like the blog Short Side of Long - here is a good update today on precious metals (plus he is a good contrarian market guy, preaching caution right now...): http://theshortsideoflong.blogspot.com/2012/09/precious-metals-update-part-ii.html

Unfortunately I do not have a subscription - just a good contact who passes them along every once in awhile ;D

Fascinating stuff. A_Modern_Day_D-Process_-_Bridgewater_Daily_Observations.pdf The_New_Decage_2010-2019_-_Bridgewater_Daily_Observations.pdf Asset_Class_Returns_in_Deleveraging_-_Bridgewater_Daily_Observations.pdf

Eric50, To your point about Romney's chances being low, I've been thinking the same thing recently due to A) the high correlation between a rising election-year market and the incumbent winning and B) the recent large spike in Obama's Intrade chances (recently 67% ish). However, a friend of mine is a huge political junkie and digs into all of the polls, and he is convinced that the polls are heavily skewing Obama's chances due to over polling of Democrats and not taking into account the likelihood of lower overall turnout. He pointed out today that the recent Gallup poll, which apparently is only registered voters, is now 47-47 Obama/Romney versus 50-43 last week. Then lastly he sent me this article today.... http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/secret-retirement-plans-does-obama-expect-to-lose/ VERY interesting to say the least. And this would in fact jive with what these two professors are saying about Romney's chances (see here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/university-of-colorado-pr_n_1822933.html) based on their analysis of economic data.

Imagine that Warren, Charlie, Paulson, Simmons, Klarman and Soros had been born in a hut in the middle of the Congo rainforest ~70 years ago. The difference between the life they would have had there and the one they have had in the US is called civilization. The price of civilization is called taxes. You need to brush up on your history. Civilization didn't start in 1971, it started way before that. The idea of issuing money with no backing to support irrational promises and obligations to the electorate started then. As for your birth argument, what matters is not where they were born what matters is how these super successful and special people view the world from the unique prism they have and with the exception of buffett the overwhelming majority understand what it took for them to have experienced the upward mobility they have. Essentially, small government, prosperous and productive civilization where risk takers are both rewarded and punished based on the fundamental principles of capitalism. Bmichaud, I have known you long enough now to not be drawn into your arguments. You are still forming your opinions of the world and I have now seen you jump around maybe 10-20 times on ideologies and beliefs. I wish you the best of luck but I have no energy or time to be drawn into these debates. We are actually printing money right now with our TSX V book almost back in the black after this monster week (which i predicted here a few weeks ago). The only reason I responded to the poster was that I have previously experienced such beliefs by people who somehow think the majority of capitalists or wealthy people are democrats. That is ismply untrue, it's definitely true as it pertains to 2nd and 3rd generation heirs but the overwhelming majority of first generation, self made businessmen and women are conservative/libertarian/republican. QE3 is behind us, QE4 may be next, what is the real catalyst though will be 150 oil and super inflation which should start imminently. I'd be interested in seeing an outline of said flip-flops - I've been 100% consistent with my view that we are A) not at risk of default, B) not at risk of hyperinflation and C) not dependent upon the Federal Reserve for "funding". It would be one thing of the Fed was actually pinning the yield curve to a certain rate structure such as post-WW2, but with the Fed not naming a "price" for Treasury debt, if you will, the market is free to assign any rate it wants to our debt based on credit and inflation risk. If hyperinflation was "imminent" as you say, wouldn't the 30-year bond be slightly higher than 3%?

I believe you are mistaken if you believe that smart hedgies are for the most part democrats. My experience is that an overwhelming majority are republican. Many hedgies jumped on the Obama bandwagon in 2008 IE: Loeb but have since realized that was the biggest mistake. In my experience, 9 out of 10 successful people I know are conservative and/or republican/libertarian leaning. I generally don't like ZH because they are too negative for me and I find influence people to be bearish on markets. But yesterday I was sent a very good piece from ZH: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/what-mitt-romney-also-said-glimpse-endgame This situation may have reached the tipping point where it cannot be reconciled without massive inflation. The most ironic part of all this is that in the end the nannystate will have punished the lower classes more than anything as the price of their basic goods/services/energy will rise in real terms to levels which don't correlate with their levels of productivity. The rich will have no problems buying groceries when prices double... The ZH piece is just as patently absurd as all of its other ludicrous claims. Japan has had a massive debt problem for YEARS and there has been no such endgame. Do we honestly believe that without the Fed conducting QE that the USA would not be able to issue virtually unlimited amounts debt into a marketplace starved for "risk-free" assets? Let's hope Romney doesn't truly think this way....

http://macronomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/credit-pareto-efficiency.html Great post by Martin T pertaining to deflation - he touches on the exact issue of demographics as discussed by Dent. Eventually the inflationists will be right, but as Keynes says, in the long run....

Yes he was still holding it near $0. I believe I read that in Snowball.

I'll repeat my example of Greenlight buying Patriot Coal and seeing it go up ten times, but now four years later is bankrupt. Good purchase or just lucky?

Either way 11x, 12x, roth, taxable....it's brilliant. My guess is far fewer companies would even receive a bid on their equity if investors truly understood how strongly the terminal value decided current value - Apple for example, who know what it will look like in ten years, yet anyone who has owned it looks brilliant - we'll see in ten years... Einhorn was buying Patriot Coal for example n 2008 and I believe it went up something like ten times - it's now $0 four years later. Was that a brilliant purchase back then because he was fortunate enough to get out before the market figured out it had little long-term value?

Perhaps. I think Buffett's approach in terms of purchasing inevitables is that it makes it easier to be certain that you are getting a discount to intrinsic value. Buying something that looks cheap but later isn't (because the business quickly declines)... isn't value investing. This I believe is what Warren figured out a long time ago and why he went the way of inevitables or in other words businesses with very enduring characteristics. Some value investors I believe think they are estimating intrinsic value but aren't, yet they do okay anyway because they have a selling disclipline. In other words, they're out after the first large rally. So they are trading volatility but don't recognize it as such. One of the best posts I've seen on this board, Eric. Precisely my thoughts....except I can't/haven't articulated it that well. As they say, the sign of brilliance is the ability to explain a complex topic in simple terms - further evidenced by the fact that you are up 11x since early 2008!

I'm in the process of building a home right now and don't lock in my rate until mid-October, so this announcement couldn't come at a better time....that being said, I don't see how this is anything but negative for banks' earning power. Yes they may get some gains on asset sales, but the longer ZIRP goes for, A) the more NIMs decline as higher-yielding securities continue to roll off and B) the longer it will take for the banks to cycle through to eventually higher yielding securities. You don't just flip an entire loan portfolio yielding 3% to a 6% portfolio (I'm exaggerating yes) just like the 6% portfolios of yesteryear didn't immediately flip into what they are today. Who knows....but something just doesn't smell right with ZIRP and LSAP as far as the eye can see....

Ironically you may be pitching them just in time for a large rally....

I can sympathize with this line of thinking.... RE: http://holdings.nasdaq.com/asp/OwnerPortfolio.asp?FormType=OwnerPortfolio&CIK=0001336528&HolderName=PERSHING+SQUARE+CAPITAL+MANAGEMENT%2C+L%2EP%2E Well,... only that he put the money in PG surprised me,...this might get him only a mediocre return. If he would have bought GM or CHK, as Mohnish has done, that would have been fine in my opinion, but PG... :o He put 20% of Pershing in PG whereas someone would be crazy to put that much into CHK or GM - so say CHK and GM double, whereas PG only rises 50%, Pershing still comes out the same (assuming he'd only put 10% in CHK or GM) with much less risk and, as Ackman said, fewer sleepless nights. Again only my guess, but I bet Ackman wouldn't be comfortable with more than 5% in those names....proving the point even more.

http://www.marketfolly.com/2012/09/bill-ackman-on-why-he-sold-citigroup-c.html I can sympathize with this line of thinking....

Gross also said yields would rise upon QE2 ending because demand would shrivel with the Fed leaving the mkt.....

Liberty, As I explained, I believe homosexuality is a sin, something God has forbade. Because I believe it as a sin, I believe it is no different than drunkenness, lying, stealing or murder (obviously there are varying degrees of sin...). I believe we ALL sin - thus I don't believe I am ANY different than a homosexual. I just struggle with other types of sin - equally bad, just different. This just opens up a whole different can of worms, as to debate it, we must agree on sin and its various forms. All I'm trying to say is that fundamentally I separate the sin from the sinner - I don't judge someone that goes out and gets trashed or cheats on his/her spouse any differently than someone who is a homosexual (actually I try not to judge at all, as I have more than enough of my own problems - you know, pick the beam out of your own eye before removing the splinter from someone else's?).

"Is the real ecosystem a series of Adam's and Eve's deciding to reproduce?" Perhaps i dont understand the question....Is it not? How else do we reproduce?

I'm not sure I follow you. Are you saying you believe that humans were created whole, and that they originated with Adam and Eve (presumable a few thousand years ago)? If that's the case, I think we'll have to agree to disagree and leave it at that, because I don't feel this will be a very fruitful discussion. Correct. And I agree.

So from that I'm getting that you either believe that there's a god that created gays just to mess with them, or that gays are heteros who just choose to be gay, or that people don't have a 'default' sexuality but must choose one. Is that correct? Which one is it? I'll also point out that you just called gays abominable, a pretty hateful term. Statistically speaking, there are bound to be many gays reading you on this forum. I said homosexuality the act, not the people. No different than pornography. In and of itself pornography is an egregious abomination - those that participate aren't abominable. Did I just offend the entire porn industry? You do realize a good portion of the American electorate is fought over this issue, right? Homosexuals must have a huge problem with nearly half the country, not just some dude outlining the conservative case on an anonymous investment board.

If you look at the evidence, it is. There are gay people, gay animals. It has evolved. It can either have evolved as a primary adaptation or be the side effect of another adaptation, but however it happened, it did. Otherwise we wouldn't find all these gay people and animals all around the world through the ages. Once you've got that, the question is: If you were gay, how would you want to be treated? Then treat gays exactly like that. In that hypothetical scenario, with only two humans in the whole world being of the same sex, it wouldn't have started. But I don't see how that's relevant since things didn't happen that way and it's not like that situation is likely to happen now. As long as human beings have been on this earth there has been a tendency to reproduce..... I promise you as long as there has been a tendency to reproduce there has been homosexuality. Homosexuality has not evolved, it has always been. My only point regarding how "natural" homosexuality is is to demonstrate how hard you have to work to prove human beings were created to be homosexual. If it can't pass the test of a very plausible scenario that the earth started off with Adam and Eve, it becomes very difficult....yes of course I'm close minded to think the earth could have possibly started off with two people.... None of this has to do with how homosexuals should be treated - how is granting homosexuals all the rights of every other citizen while preserving the sanctity of marriage wrong? Crazy how the founding fathers came up with a definition of marriage....

How silly of me, didn't think of that!

I have a book for you to read. Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. The author is Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. Thanks

Before going any further, I gotta ask: Why is any of this important? Pretty much everything we do goes against what would happen in nature. We build houses, we find cures for diseases, we cook food, drive cars, use contraceptives, watch TV and listen to recorded music, read books, wear clothes, have weapons to kill predators and each other, fly in planes, wear glasses, get surgery with anesthetics, take antibiotics and do large scale agriculture of species that have been selectively bred over generations to be molded to our needs, etc. So why is it suddenly so bad if something isn't how it would be in nature? Do you live in a cave? Not that homosexuality isn't natural, as it's found in lots of other species, as well as humans (those who think it's a choice are funny; did they choose to be heterosexual? And if it was a choice, who would make that choice when it's so much harder to live like that? Maybe those that had to force themselves to make the choice and constantly claim it's a choice (such as preacher Ted Haggard) are actually just repressed homosexuals who don't realize that real heterosexuals don't have to choose, that they are just naturally attracted to the other sex). The fact is, homosexual have kids; lots of gay men are in the closet and have kids with women, and lots of gay women live with men and have kids. They're part of the gene pool. But it's also very possible that straight parents have gay kids. It's only recently that more have come out of the closest to live strictly with the other sex, but they've always been there, as documented in ancient roman times and greeks and such. People who love each other and aren't hurting anyone. A total non-issue to me. We have evolved from living in caves and not being able to treat diseases - how is homosexuality part of that evolution? I just struggle with the answer to my question - how would the human race continue if it started with two dudes? Doesn't make sense to me. A loving homosexual couple isn't harming anyone. Doesn't mean they need to redefine marriage though - it is equally as offensive to those who believe in the sanctity of marriage as not wanting to redefine marriage is to those who do not believe in the sanctity of marriage.

BAC, AIG, DELL, SD, RIMM, CHK, SVU are all supposedly still well below fair value - inflated market be damned ;D