matjone

For a while I became obsessed with the topic of longevity. There are certain pockets in the world where there's a much higher life expectancy, and a lot of times it's in poor areas. The thing most of them seemed to have in common was a good network of friends and family and a lighthearted demeanor.

I had the same problem trying to read filings online with the fire. I am waiting for someone to come out with the perfect device for reading filings and articles online. It would be great to have something in e-ink with a large screen so that you could go straight to the sec website and read without any scrolling, panning, and zooming. I don't know if this type of product would make any money but I would certainly enjoy it.

I wish he could give us a hint on how to live that long, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it. I wonder if he is worried he'll jinx it?

I never had the paper white, but I have received a fire and a regular kindle as gifts. I think that I'd rather have a basic reader than the fire. The fire has a much shorter battery life and causes more eye strain, and I actually look at the easy internet access as a disadvantage. I'd be reading a book, and then my concentration would wander and I'd be on the internet wasting time.

I read a little bio about her once. I think it was on the Forbes website. I remember that she had inherited some money when she was fairly young, and had ended up pretty rich, but when I did the math using the figures they gave her returns weren't that high.

Agreed, this site is pretty much unrivalled anywhere on the internet in the sanity and manners departments, and it seems to be full of smart people that I hope to learn a lot from going forward. If that's not enough, Sanjeev has on a few occasions made calls on stocks, and they've all worked out really well.

It's true that one guy can't beat the army. But it's also true that there have been conflicts where a much larger and better armed force was stopped by a smaller force. I think that most people believe that the U.S. and other countries have advanced to the point where we never have to worry about needing to fight the government. I don't see where that confidence comes from, considering the human rights abuses we just witnessed in the last decade. This is one of those topics where I think both sides have good points, and it really just comes down to your philosophy. People who have a libertarian bent are obviously going to be opposed to gun control, and progressives are obviously going to be for it. I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever our personal opinion is on it, we are right, and anyone who disagrees with us is crazy. Since debating with crazy people is a waste of time, the logical thing to do is to drop the subject and go find some cheap stocks.

I think it's underrated what people can do against a better armed force if there are a lot of them and they refuse to give up. Look at Vietnam and Afghanistan.

They had also just fought a war against the British, so they needed to maintain a militia to protect their interests. I don't think that has been a concern for the last 125 years, so the average citizen isn't going to need to go all "Red Dawn" on an invading China or North Korea...let alone try and overthrow their government by being armed. Of all the dictators who have been overthrown in the last 50 years, it didn't come from the citizens having weapons, but the fact that the generals in power under the dictator actually turned to support the general populace. As Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Walesa and so many others have shown...the human spirit eventually takes care of tyrants and injustices. Cheers! I agree the chance of being invaded is pretty low. The chance of the government going completely off the rails, given the right conditions, is not as low as everyone seems to think, in my opinion. Like I said, look at how quick we forgot our principles after 9/11. Looking back at the past 50 years, look at what our government has done. Lied to start wars. Kidnapped people, indefinitely detained them, and tortured them. Spied on people without a warrant. You could go on for hours. This is one of those issues where I think both sides make good points. There are wise people on both sides of it, and it's pretty rare that anyone changes their mind on it. It's heartbreaking to see a school get shot up. It's also heartbreaking to watch old footage of jewish families being marched to the gas chamber.

I am with rkbabang. Crime isn't the point. The freedom to speak out against the government, and the freedom to own weapons to overthrow the government if need be, was the whole point of those amendments. The people who wrote this into law knew human nature and what happens when people have too much power. Look at what the U.S. did after one attack. They were hauling people off in the middle of the night to secret torture facilities, indefinitely detaining them, without charging them with a crime or giving them access to a lawyer. You want to give all the guns to these people?

I have way too much distrust of our government to think it's a good idea to give them all the guns. I can see why people would want to after those kinds of incidents, though.

Since other stock markets have been cheaper than the U.S., I have been looking overseas. But I am concerned about currency exposure. On the other hand, I am not so sure that hedging is the answer for me. The more complex you make something, the greater the chance it will go wrong. I am sure that you get burned occasionally without ihedging, but if you invest in a lot of other countries I would think it would tend to be a wash. Tweedy Browne has a paper that more or less confirms this. Anyway, I have no knowledge or experience in this area so I thought I would get some thoughts from other. Thanks,

I'm far from an expert on railroads but I've read security analysis and Graham had some stuff in there about them. I think I remember reading that Buffett figured BNSF would benefit because they have more rails going out west than other railroads, and he believes there will be above average growth in freight traffic there due to population growth in the west and growth in trade with China. I can't remember if it was Buffett that said this in a letter or if it was someone else in an article or blog. Seems reasonable though. Costs per ton-mile go down as the amount of freight on each trainload goes up. So, if BNSF is already running a train from LA to new orleans today, and there is no one else with the same route, and 10 years from now there is 50% more freight that needs to be moved on the same route, you are getting 50% more revenue, before counting whatever price increases you are allowed. And maintenance on the track and fuel costs don't go up as fast as revenues do.

There may not be encouragement but there is pressure. Just think about a good student who is expected to go to college who decides he's not going because he doesn't want to take on the debt. He's going to be taking a lot of heat from his family, and he knows he can't find a decent job otherwise, so he is going to borrow the money. On the other side the schools seem to want to charge whatever they can get away with. I think if they set some maximum limit for each field that is tied to what the reasonable expected income is it would work out better. I have some friends in Brazil and they have told me that their college tuition is paid by the government, but you can only get in if you place high enough on an entrance exam, which can be really tough. As the school goes up the prestige rankings, the competition gets stiffer and the number of available slots becomes fewer, so the people who get in belong there and it's not a waste of money. This way there is less preference for those with family connections and it is based more on merit (i am sure there are still rich & powerful folks pulling strings like everywhere else), and a poor kid who wants to be an engineer can spend his nights studying engineering instead of working at Arby's , and he won't be hundreds of thousands in debt when he gets out. I lean towards the libertarian side on most issues, but I have to admit that if we did it this way it wouldn't be the worst capital allocation decision the government has ever made.

Looks like it is spiking recently - maybe this is because the first crop of people who graduated during the great recession are starting to run out of extensions. I wonder what it would be if interest rates were at more normal levels. The loan/expected income ratio for some people is outrageous. I've heard several people say that they know there is no way they can pay theirs back, so they just ignore it.

I generally consider myself to be too dumb and inexperienced to try to pick out moats, and I'm not convinced that you need to be able to. But how about colgate palmolive? That is one stock that I never see anyone mention on here. They earn ridiculously high returns on capital. One stock I was looking into recently was de master blenders. They have the pilao coffee brand which is the top selling brand in brazil if I remember right. If the middle class in Brazil grows at a good rate it could mean a lot more customers for that brand. They also have brands that are #1 or close to it in several european countries. I've never looked into it but if I had to bet I'd say coke will probably earn high returns for quite a while even if consumption declines some. I think you'd have to do the math on how much unit sales are likely to decline vs. how much they can get away with in the way of price increases. Look at the returns cigarette companies are still making after all their problems.

Agreed. I think some companies are customer un-friendly because they have no competetive advantage, others because they have a monopoly. Cable companies are notorious. It is standard operating procedure when you sign up for internet with charter commmunications - you are going to get screwed on the bill and have to fight it. It's never what they say it will be. Same thing with At&t. There just isn't enough competition so they get away with it. With banking I suspect it is the opposite - anyone can take in deposits, and they want to beat each other out, but the only way to make money on these small accounts is with fees, while the only way to reel in customers is by promising no fees. I have a checking and CC acct. with BAC and they haven't been too bad. There were a couple times some weird charges showed up and I complained and they took them off. They also did a good job recognizing that someone was trying to get a CC in my name a few years ago. I can tell the difference in dealing with BAC since Mgmt changed. They seem like they have been coached to treat you kindly and respectfully to keep you on as a customer, and to try to sell other products to you.

Do you guys buy FRFHF or FFH? I bought FRFHF before because it was all my broker would allow.

Shouldn't make that much of a difference. I read an interview where Walter Schloss said "you never catch the bottom". I still think you should get one of those waterproof phones.

I was thinking IB also had a flat rate option that was cheaper than $7 a trade for u.s. equities. Could be wrong though.

Do fund managers have the responsibility to explain their investments? It would take hours for Berkowitz to explain each line on the balance sheet of these companies, and even if he did probably 99% of his investors wouldn't understand it. He's probably just responding to these questions to be polite, but he doesn't feel like he has to give any more than the cliffs notes version of his reasoning.

I don't know why he likes NYCB, but I can tell you why i don't. I used to bank with Amtrust until they went bust, and nycb took them over. I pulled all of my money out, or tried to, but there was a small amount left. I tried to transfer it out and was told that the amount was too small to transfer. I decided to it was too small of an amount to mess with so I let it go. Now NYCB is saying I owe them money for overdraft . I'm assuming they started a monthly fee and bled it down to a negative balance . Irving Kahn seems like a nice guy who deserves good fortune but I am rooting for NYCB to become insolvent, go to zero, and get hit by a meteor (during non-business hours of course). sorry for hijacking the thread but I needed someone to listen to my sorrows.

I remembered seeing it on there but I couldn't remember exactly what it had, so I went and checked after I replied. It looks like it only does average ratios, no high and low, and there's nothing for EV or TBV. It's under the "Valuation" tab.

Morningstar has some but not all of these.

I think I'll suggest to my mom to think a little more seriously about selling a piece of ground they have talked about selling for a few years. Probably won't do any good. Maybe it'll be an opportunity to buy cheap a few years from now like Buffett did back in the 80's.