meiroy

Is it a financial company? What do you mean by historically, since the 1820s or the past three years?

Goldman Sachs is in talks these days with the DOJ, what impact would that have on the outcome? Did anyone hear any update about this?

Without going into a discussion if it's indeed as you say, he mentioned P/E (or, rather, E/P) because what it's all about is "yield", this is why he was talking about interest rates, inflation/deflation and discount rates etc.

The matching to the card is just a temporary measure, once you fund your account they will send a security device to replace the card. +1 IB

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/12/china-pollution-idUKL4N0PN08320140712 " Beijing, will enforce the use of cleaner low-sulphur coal from Aug. 1"

Best exercise site I know: http://scoobysworkshop.com/ He's an engineer which shows in his methods -- you can do it all at home with a pair of used dumbbells.

Yeah, this happens to me a well, not just with meditation but with exercise, die etc. It's a bit like the company who has some quality issues at their suppliers so they decide to invest in a team of QCs. Three years later the CEO goes over the numbers where he notices that they practically have no quality issues while there's a whole bunch of QC people with high cost. So, he decides they are unnecessary and fire 'em all. So, thank you guys for starting this thread, I got some Sam Harris material and Jon Kabat-Zinn, there's so much more to learn about it.

ERICOPOLY, SharperDingaan thank you for your contribution on this thread and your rational focus on a valuation method. If I ever get emotional about one of my investments like people do about this company I hope someone like you would come and just slap me out of it.

Malone is irreplaceable just as Buffett is irreplaceable. I wouldn't worry about him getting hit by a bus, though, as he'd probably spin-off himself into different body parts to avoid the collision. Or, if I'm wrong and he can be hit, then he'd probably would manage to somehow write it off that the bus would take all the damage while he himself get full compensation and ownership of the bus company.

He later added:

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

Your wife wouldn't be a victim of force/violence/aggression, no. We don't (and shouldn't) lock people up for cheating on their wives. As far as human trafficking goes. Car sales are legal and stolen car trafficking occurs. Selling cars is engaging in peaceful free-market commerce, trafficking in stolen cars is not. Prostitution is simply engaging in peaceful free-market commerce. Kidnapping and selling human beings against their will is not. In both cases the peaceful free-market activity (voluntary commerce between consenting adults) should be legal, the theft and/or violence should not. Are there any examples of human trafficking where the service is legal? Like what if you kidnapped a psychologist and forced her to see clients, pocketing her fee for yourself? Things like that just don't happen with legal services AFAIK. Actually, yes, legalizing prostitution doesn't resolve completely human trafficking. In some European countries prostitution is legal but human trafficking is common.

That is a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of evolution. How is it possible to be "violating our evolutionary instincts" through our behavior? It's like watching an orangutan demonstrate tool making capabilites in captivity that it hadn't shown in the wild, and coming to the conclusion, "Oh, that's just not natural." It's a social construct - nothing more. It reduces our chance to spread our dna. After all, if you have several partners, you can keep more of them pregnant to keep up your gene pool. I beg to differ. I've been married to one person (compared to being married to several people which is legal in some countries) and by my calculation in 189 years half the population on earth will have my facial features due to the amounts that I have donated to the local sperm bank. QED.

Well, just last month the WHO called for decriminalization of drugs http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2014/07/illicit-drugs " - Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration. - Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize the use of clean needles and syringes (and that permit NSPs [needle and syringe programmes]) and that legalize OST [opioid substitution therapy] for people who are opioid-dependent. - Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs." So, we're getting there and we will. Various drugs have gotten more ubiquitous and cheaper, and the illegal drugs industry has been just growing on *because* of current laws and regulation. Anyone who is objecting to currently illegal drug usage due to "morale" or religious reasons should be the first in line to support decriminalizing. It's not only the increase of violence in the US but it's also supporting criminal organization abroad to the point of undermining various governments, it is also financing groups which are hostile to the USA where US soldiers go to die by weapons bought by the illicit drug trade. As for prostitution that seems like a total no brainer for me as well, many prostitutes of course sell their bodies to pay for their drug addiction. By legalizing both prostitution and drugs it would take the control from the underworld society and give it back to the society we live in. In the past year I've read "Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster " and "The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World", I'm giving both a 7 so it's not an all out recommendation but it is relating to this thread so it's worth a read. The Candy Machine includes a lot of data and examples about what I wrote above.

You are in just as much trouble with your wife if you have sex with your dental hygienist for free. So legality isn't what gives us pause. Any special reason you mentioned "dental hygienist sex"? Is that a fetish? Post some pics and the crowd wisdom will decide hot or not!

I think the reason why these sectors are cheap should be included to make the list useful. For example, the HK REs are cheap because the dominoes in China have started to fall, I wouldn't touch it.

Thanks Meiroy. Do you happen to have the links to the youtube videos that got you started? I think I've read a mindfulness book, and it did seem to make sense at the time yet I was not that motivated to implement it. BTW I'm reading Thinking Fast and Slow now (yes, 'bout time) and pondering about the relationship between meditation and the concepts which he writes about.

If the debtor cannot pay the lender pays for it so the opportunity cost is still there (i.e. different capital allocation for example in another company that could have competed)

I've been doing breathing meditation for several years now and find it to be extremely effective, just as my cardio exercise twice a week, meditation is just an exercise for the mind. There's nothing spiritual about it unless you decide to make it so (personally I dislike these extra layers of nonsense) I've started after watching some youtubes clips which explained the basics and that was enough, really. You concentrate on breathing in, than out and you say to yourself "in", and "out", while trying to ignore those thoughts which keep disturbing you, then after awhile you do not require the breathing part anymore or saying in and our to yourself, you can just "do it". What I really like about it is that you can implement it at any time, for example you are at a meeting with a client and notice yourself getting pissed off, you just turn your focus on your breathing and that's it, you relax and calm down and it will cause the other side to calm down as well. Last week I bought my first arduino kit and on the project list is a biofeedback setup to see the impact of meditating among other things.

If the US goes metric, which companies would you short, which would you long, and why?

I've been buying BRK for the dividends and APPL for the coming disruptive innovations.

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. He had such a fantastic and interesting life that it doesn't take much to write a great book about him.

marcowelby shows that since 2010 it's a clear positive NET buybacks. GS is cheap.

Hopefully JPM crashes and burn so I could make a new 40% position and wouldn't have to even take a look at shittybank.

It's a bull market. The US economy will do good this year (and the hell with everything else). Leverage up and I'm all in.