Kiltacular

Allowing these huge bubbles in residential real estate is insane. It destroys the middle class; they get extraordinarily angry; the search for a scapegoat. The young people who feel it is a bubble have to argue with wife, friends, family and look like idiots if they don't go along. It is nothing like the stock market. If Canada is allowing HELOC's and all the attendant things that went on in the U.S., the pain will be massive. The whole U.S. stock crash was caused by the housing mess. (Whereas, the huge correction in the early 2000's was caused by a massive bubble in stocks in 1997-1999.) The real estate mess in the U.S. practically cratered the world. Sell Canadian banks? Or, does the gov't underwrite?

As for drummer, Ginger Baker is sure it is Ginger Baker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_Baker) This documentary from a couple years ago is worth a look (not safe for work or family): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beware_Of_Mr._Baker

An (leveraged) operating firm's change in book value is totally different from a fund's performance..... That's a good point. It's not a fair comparison.

I agree. It doesn't really matter -- at least to me (either). But, just looking at the 1985 - 1994 period for Berkshire is telling. Wasn't Berkshire's reported change in book value per share net of corporate tax?

http://fundooprofessor.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/flirting-with-floats-part-ii/ "Between 1964 and 1966, Warren Buffett bet 40% of his partnership’s capital on American Express’ (Amex) stock, which had been battered down by the company’s involvement in the then infamous Salad Oil Scandal. Buffett’s investment of $13 million gave his partnership a 5% stake in the company, implying a total market cap of about $260 million at that time."

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" is a new(ish) show on HBO. As many of you know, this guy is very funny. The new show is terrific. Here he is on net neutrality this past weekend. The bit runs a little long but actually has some investment usefulness. ;) EDIT: I see hellsten beat me to the punch! Good taste! (http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/shorting-european-banks/?prev_next=prev#new )

+1. These links are great. Thanks!

+1 +2

Enjoyed this. He looks like my highschool girlfriend's dad...could kick your ass...but a nice guy.

Though I agree with your logic, my guess is this on is Todd. They each manage about $7 billion. Todd owns more positions from what I've seen. Here are my guesses for each. Ted: DTV, DVA, GM, LMCA (and all related), and PSX (well, part of it...Berkshire rec'd some PSX when it was spun from Buffett's COP holding, then, Ted added a ton to it, then, Berkshire traded most of it back to PSX for the chemical company slotted into Lubrizol -- I think that happened already). Todd: Also DTV, (maybe) Bank NY, CBI, NOV, VRSN, VZ, SU, WBC, DE, V, MA, and UPS (maybe...not much left in any case). kilt

Ah! Of course. Thanks! http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/02/warren-buffett-buys-tiffanys-and-harley.html

WEB might have mentioned these notes: http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/FOMC20081007confcall.pdf Awesome...thanks!

Really good notes -- thanks. Does anyone know an easy way to the get the Fed meeting notes from 2007 and 2008 that Buffett mentions? On related note, I get the feeling they think that interest rates may stay pretty low for a long time -- Hoisington / Bradstreet to be vindicated. But, the funny part about it is that playing that likelihood -- if you think it is high -- is better done buying utilities and rails than bonds.

I run into this all the time, they want to memorize a technique to solve a problem but not learn the concept so they could actually apply it to a totally different situation. So I work really hard to try to get them to learn to think, instead of trying to memorize how to do something. One thing I do is the following. I tell my students that after each test they can earn all the points they lost on one problem. All they have to do is come in to my office and teach me the concept behind that problem. Many come in and just start working the problem on the test, for which I have already supplied the solution! I again explain to them what I am after, send them away with no points and tell them to come back and try again. Many eventually catch on. So it is worth my effort. This is a great method.

This. If you think you're smarter than Munger you're not. If you're not sure, you might be. It's entertaining reading and hearing peoples' responses to him. Based on how negative so many people are towards him, one can see why he is so successful with his insights. ;) If I had to sum him up in a sentence: "I'd rather be lucky and good".

The first part of the story reminded me of this story Munger told about Victor Niederhoffer (here: http://www.tilsonfunds.com/MungerUCSBspeech.pdf ) Page 16 of the doc / 19 of the pdf (and the rest of the speech is good too...thought it worth a post with it being Berkshire weekend and all): "Niederhoffering the curriculum There was a wonderful example of gaming a human system in the career of Victor Niederhoffer [www.squashtalk.com/profiles/niederhoffer.htm] in the Economics Department of Harvard. Victor Niederhoffer was the son of a police lieutenant, and he needed to get A’s at Harvard. But he didn’t want to do any serious work at Harvard, because what he really liked doing was, one, playing world-class checkers; two, gambling in high-stakes card games, at which he was very good, all hours of the day and night; three, being the squash champion of the United States, which he was for years; and, four, being about as good a tennis player as a part-time tennis player could be. This did not leave much time for getting A’s at Harvard so he went into the Economics Department. You’d think he would have chosen French poetry. But remember, this was a guy who could play championship checkers. He thought he was up to outsmarting the Harvard Economics Department. And he was. He noticed that the graduate students did most of the boring work that would otherwise go to the professors, and he noticed that because it was so hard to get to be a graduate student at Harvard, they were all very brilliant and organized and hard working, as well as much needed by grateful professors. And therefore, by custom, and as would be predicted from the psychological force called reciprocity tendency, in a really advanced graduate course, the professors always gave an A. So Victor Niederhoffer signed up for nothing but the most advanced graduate courses in the Harvard Economics Department, and of course, he got A, after A, after A, after A, and was hardly ever near a class. And for a while, some people at Harvard may have thought it had a new prodigy on its hands. That’s a ridiculous story, but the scheme will work still. And Niederhoffer is famous: they call his style “Niederhoffering the curriculum.” (Laughter). This shows how all-human systems are gamed. Another example of not thinking through the consequences of the consequences is the standard reaction in economics to Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage giving benefit on both sides of trade. Ricardo came up with a wonderful, non-obvious explanation that was so powerful that people were charmed with it, and they still are, because it’s a very useful idea. Everybody in economics understands that comparative advantage is a big deal, when one considers first order advantages in trade from the Ricardo effect. But suppose you’ve got a very talented ethnic group, like the Chinese, and they’re very poor and backward, and you’re an advanced nation, and you create free trade with China, and it goes on for a long time."

This is a most excellent contribution. Thank you.

Agree. I suspect a little digging will reveal that these are old quotes.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf I thought this was worth a read -- whether or not you own banks. Long enough to be useful; short enough to read on one cup. HT to Cullen Roche / Pragmatic Capitalism for highlighting (pragcap.com). Another HT to the person -- apologies for not recalling whom -- that highlighted his blog awhile ago. note: title edited for accuracy

Well said.

I do hear a lot of talk about a carbon tax though. This would be just a bundle of cash sucked out of the economy and into the general coffers to be pissed away. It wouldn't help the situation and could delay the development of real technologies that would. If nothing else it would make us all poorer and slow progress in the developing world as well. We went through our polluting stage and are now making progress on renewables, recycling, and conservation, the best thing we can do for the planet is get the developing world through its industrialization stage as quickly as possible. Getting rid of trade restrictions, protectionism, and tariffs will do more for the planet in the long run than just about anything else the government could do. "I do hear a lot of talk about a carbon tax though. This would be just a bundle of cash sucked out of the economy and into the general coffers to be pissed away." Yes. Borrowing from the other thread, we could call is the "Bank for America Carbon Tax" -- suck it and piss it away...with the "right" people taking a good skim. 5 to 10% of $100 billion per year seems fair. An annual tobacco settlement kind of thing. Btw, where does the money from the bank settlements really go? -- seriously (not the money to homeowners). Anyone know?

I am often in sync with Packer on these attitudes. My take would say: "While the market could certainly drop 20 - 30% in a relatively short time period, I would expect the return over the next 10 to 20 years to be about 6 to 6.5% per year over that time period." I realize GMO and others don't agree but their reasoning is too complex for me. When the whole market is really overvalued you must have one condition that we don't now have. Namely, you must have the large cap. stocks be very expensive -- think Nifty Fifty from the late 60's and the 1999 bubble. The largest stocks were wildly expensive in those periods. When that is the case, it is predictable that the CAGR from that point for the next 10 to 20 years is not going to be pretty. Aside from such a situation, Buffett expects the Dow to be at 1,000,000 by 2100 -- work backwards from there to find times of large over or undervaluation.

I agree on JPM looking good here. Anecdote: I've had occasion to deal with sales and back-office of 3 of the "big banks" in the last 2 years and JPM is in a class by itself on both fronts. It is a minor data point and could just be coincidence of whom I dealt with. Plus, JPM had me sign 10 times the disclaimers, etc. and has the strongest internet security in my experience and the best banking features of the three. Just thought I'd throw it in.

You would think that the president of an exchange would know how his exchange works? What a donkey. You don't think he knows? When there is a small coterie of people making billions of dollars from something which has zero risk, I like to invert the old saying: "Never ascribe to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice."

Totally agree with this. This is why we don't have one...the options are available, but I chose specifically not to activate them years ago. There are no revered auteurs on here, just plain people, rich, poor, happy, sad, funny, unfunny, good-natured, ill-mannered, but all willing to learn and share. I don't want to make new members feel like they have to write something transcendent to simply feel like part of the group. Everybody has something to offer and we can learn something from anyone! Cheers! +1 for No changes! This place works perfectly and someone interested in "successful culture" could make a case study of it. People that consistently and continually go over the line end up removing themselves. You can't ask for more than that in life. Well, you can...but