meiroy

Happy Holidays to everyone, may you have a healthy and joyful 2012!

The lapis philosophorum method is on the verge of a breakthrough in answer to question number two. If on Monday morning oil goes to 300USD, people will figure out by Monday evening how to synthesize oil from Donald Trump . When China puts some restriction on its rare earth elements, forgotten and closed mines came back to life in a relatively short time. I'm simply asking the same about gold. Just noticed AdventuresInCapitalism has a new post which refers to this, although somewhat indirectly: http://adventuresincapitalism.com/post/2011/12/04/Ride-The-Trends.aspx Oh, an, don't try this at home: Gold synthesis in a nuclear reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#Gold_synthesis_in_a_nuclear_reactor "Gold was first synthesized from mercury by neutron bombardment in 1941, but the isotopes of gold produced were all radioactive.[3] Gold can currently be manufactured in a nuclear reactor by irradiation either of platinum or mercury. Since platinum is more expensive than gold, platinum is economically unsuitable as a raw material. Only the mercury isotope 196Hg, which occurs with a frequency of 0.15% in natural mercury, can be converted to gold by neutron capture, and following electron capture-decay into 197Au with slow neutrons. Other mercury isotopes are converted when irradiated with slow neutrons into one another or formed mercury isotopes, which beta decay into thallium. Using fast neutrons, the mercury isotope 198Hg, which composes 9.97% of natural mercury, can be converted by splitting off a neutron and becoming 197Hg, which then disintegrates to stable gold. This reaction, however, possesses a smaller activation cross-section and is feasible only with un-moderated reactors. It is also possible to eject several neutrons with very high energy into the other mercury isotopes in order to form 197Hg. However such high-energy neutrons can be produced only by particle accelerators[clarification needed]."

moore_capital54, I have no clue about gold or gold mining, other than what my wife has; I'm wondering about these two questions and hope you might be able to go over them: 1. Is there any possible new technology for mining gold that will become worthwhile at a certain price? What would that price be? 2. Are there any technologies that could create gold from other materials, and if so at which price would they be worthwhile? 3. The USA has USD as currency and no doubt does its best to prevent anyone else from faking or creating its currency. If it would go into gold standard, surely the USA will not be able to prevent anyone else from mining more of creating more (assuming points 1 and 2 above).

I bought the new Kindle Fire mostly because the previous kindle just wasn't suited for all the PDF documents I read. I have been reading various PDF documents since I got it and I took a PDF version of BAC 10K to read on my thanksgiving trip last week and I have to say it is much much better; But on this aspect I would assume something like the Ipad might be even better but I'm too cheap to pay that price. The other features (web browsing, videos etc...) have all worked well so far also but I don't demand much on that side. Thanks. I also considered the iPad as it has a larger screen, the down side for me is that it's iOS and expensive, as you say. Good to hear the kindle fire is decent enough for reading 10Ks.

Any of you Kindle (newer touch version or Fire) owners use it to read financial documents? Is it workable on such a small screen?

Before or after BRK starts to issue dividends?

Well, according to WFC's IR it is not followed on Google Finance.

Interview: Warren Buffett describes his experience with Dale Carnegie Training on the BBC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett Buffett returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker while taking a Dale Carnegie public speaking course.[citation needed] Using what he learned, he felt confident enough to teach an "Investment Principles" night class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. http://www.usefulman.com/2011/04/28/how-to-be-a-warren-buffett-part-ii/ "“I actually have the diploma in the office. And I don’t have my diploma from college. I don’t have my diploma from graduate school, but I’ve got my Dale Carnegie diploma there, because it changed my life.” What knowledge did Buffett learn exactly from Carnegie that he prizes so dearly? Well, like the book says, he learnt to win friends (lots of them, rich) and influence people (also rich, including government). He also learnt something not really covered in ‘How To…’ : the art of public speaking. “I was terrified of public speaking when I was in high school and college. I couldn’t do it — I mean, I’d throw up and everything. So I took this Dale Carnegie course. And as soon as I finished it — I was 20 years old — I went out to the University of Omaha and I said I want to start teaching ’cause I wanted to get up in front of people and make sure I didn’t lapse back….” It all comes down to persuasion. Going from a throwing up youth to being a steward of billions of dollars will take a few friends. Here’s a little nugget: Buffett had seven investment partnerships running before he was 30. To get that level of trust with other people’s money, at that age, takes some serious persuasive skill. Just go ahead and try. Buffett had the good fortune of learning from Carnegie in person. Today there are Carnegie training franchises around the world that teach his principles. You needn’t wait though. I recommend reading his classic text now. Carnegie wrote several great texts such as How To Live Without Fear and Worry, and I suspect Buffett may have read some of these too. I suggest you do too, and in Part III I’ll move onto the technical and psychological aspects of Buffett’s business philosophy, starting with Buffett’s all-time favourite investing book, Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor." edit: in public speaking courses you actually learn some basic principles on how to express yourself clearly, pitch whatever it is you are pitching, what works on an audience and what doesn't etc. As a side note, from listening to Buffett I got this little tool he is using to simplify and summarize whatever he just said. It goes something like: Now, I'm not saying that [whatever]... I'm saying that [whichever].

What's the ticker for these warrants on Google Finance?

An amazing treasure trove, thanks for posting it. Thanks as well to the person who wrote the lecture notes, they are fantastic. eclecticvalue, This one? http://cbs360.gsb.columbia.edu:8080/ess/echo/presentation/749b9e77-b822-456f-8784-9dff07518360

Look at all the pretty colors! (read: what is that and the connection to the subject?)

http://www.robinhoodtax.com/ 1% is a huge amount, surely they are aiming at a far lower figure?

As am I. We had about 2-3 girls per class I reckon.

Fantastic. Thanks.

You might be right, perhaps it was Quake and not DOOM, can't even remember the difference...

a very interesting read, thanks!

*polishes crystal ball* I believe you are being overly pessimistic with all that nuclear stuff, it's more likely that when all the stuff in Europe blows up and the wold comes to an end the powers that be in China would blame it all on those externalities. Which in turn would be accepted by everyone and the world (what's left of it) would continue to live happily after. BTW an interesting read: http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/huijins-head-fake/ "Will Huijin’s head-fake work? Zhen Wei, chief China strategist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, doesn’t think so: For example, last time when Huijin announced a similar purchasing plan of bank shares on Sep 18, 2008, SHCOMP and HSCEI rose by +9.5% and +15.5% respectively the next day. However, the market fell back even more after just a week’s rally with SHCOMP and HSCEI declined by 26% and 51% respectively within a month of the short-term peak. That time, the markets were “rescued” by the huge bank lending binge that followed, which pushed a massive amount of liquidity into speculative hands. This time, that option isn’t available — at least not at an acceptable cost."

Well, options, shorts and their pals indeed have a purpose, one might consider them unnecessary but they do have a well defined financial [?] purpose. HFT, on the other hand, seems to be something completely technical and detached from the actual idea of the market. It reminds me of the first person shooter I used to play many years ago in a land far away... I think it was the first version of DOOM which could be played online. This game required deep concentration and fast reflexes, you would go around in some dark environment looking for your friendly enemy opponent to shoot them on first sight. A fast reaction meant success and a delay would be having your head blown off to be splattered on the walls. Other than the speed of mouse and keyboard clicking, to determine the result of your reaction, it depended on the speed of the connection (i.e. latency). Now, in those days everyone had slow modems, those thingies which used to bridge between the digital signaling of a computer and the analog signaling on the telephone lines. The playing field was leveled. Everyone had a decent chance. Then one day, the local telecom company started to market ISDN, one of the first digital connections which was offered. It allowed a far faster connection to the game, some of the heavy players bought it even though it was quite expensive, only so they could have that extra edge. What it meant to the rest of us with the modems, is that they could easily pop our heads without too much effort. The game wasn't that much leveled anymore, nor was it fun. At one point one of the players was actually sitting at the telecom company and was zipping around like a ghost shooting everyone on sight, invincible.

Wow, so it seems Hans is this noble Knight who accepted and took George into his home out of the pure kindness of his heart. It is also well known in Hanshood, that in the welcome ceremony to his home, Hans has turned a blind eye to George's lack of pants, crazy party hat, a hamster that was stuck in his nose and various illegal behavior, and so forth, completely due to altruistic motives. Not only that, but he took in several more of George's kind, all while knowing very well that he was selling them some green stuff for medicinal purposes while not really having a doctor's prescription. What a man! (read: ph-lease!)

Some might say that is the best thing that could happen to the USA.

Hmm nice story indeed, perhaps it should be added to it that one of the reasons Hans has a surplus of money, is because at least some of it came from George. In fact Hans has been encouraging George to spend his money so it could be channeled to himself. Hans of course does not acknowledge the source of his wealth, and now pretends as if he is doing a favor to George by taking over his debts and assets.

Indeed. It's not only the Kindle Fire, but new Kindle Touch at 139USD , Kindle Touch 3G at 189USD andbasic Kindle at 109USD. Now if they'll come out with a new DX TOUCH I'll definitely be getting one.

Rotten tomatoes have it at 94% freshness (freshness = good, rotten = bad), they usually are spot on.

Could someone please explain why HFT is allowed? I just don't get it. Thanks.

You need to watch the share count to calculate the real dividend. Yes sir! I read your full post four times and contemplated it. Maybe that's one of the reasons? It's more difficult to grasp than if they were doing less stock buy back and just declaring they are doubling the dividend or something. That should get some attention. Then again, it took me four readings of your post and farther pondering so perhaps I should not be thinking about it :)