merkhet

I think that formulation is too literal. If you can't distinguish discretely, you might still be able to group ideas and rank them -- plus, there is some point where the delta between the diversification benefit and the opportunity cost becomes negative.

Availability heuristic?

Well, I don't have any additional information on the assertion, so I can't make a determination as to whether it's baseless... If this was brought by Paulson & Co. or something, I would be more likely to say they have something up their sleeves. However, I know nothing about the plaintiffs or the plaintiff's counsel.

It's unclear on both counts. IIRC, the legal case in Iowa brought by Continental Western was dismissed via claims preclusion because the legal counsel was the same and Continental Western was a subsidiary of W.R. Barkley which was a party to the dismissed case in the District of D.C. The reason the Plaintiffs can bring this case is that none of the parties here was a party to the District of D.C. case, and the Iowa court did not rule on anything substantive -- only on something procedural. At this point, it seems like this case will force the Iowa court to decide on the substantive questions like whether HERA precludes any injunctions, as Judge Lamberth ruled, or if that's not the case -- it's unclear how successful that will be though since the judge in the Iowa case seemed to agree with Lamberth though he did so in dicta (judicial opinion that has no real weight). In other words, I'm not holding my breath on this particular case. What's more interesting to me are the assertions that they brought up in their Complaint, which is what I highlighted above. The first assertion might be something that would allow one of the cases to move forward with discovery because there's a dispute of fact -- and it might allow for a deeper dive into discovery than even the current Fairholme case. The second assertion is interesting because, at least the phrasing, indicates that while Geithner was at Treasury, he believed that he could control FHFA's actions in the conservatorship.

In case anyone was looking for the Saxton v. FHFA complaint. Paragraph 68 is interesting: Paragraph 82 is also interesting: 2015-05-28_Saxton_Complaint.pdf

That's it for me also. The quality of the board has diminished noticeably the last year or so. It's been a huge influx of new members combined with some of the older posters disappearing or at least going silent. I don't mind off topic threads but the same question being asked over and over again is really annoying. Apparently some don't know the forum has a search function to see if their question of comment has been asked before. Every online community that I've ever seen, about music, tech, everything, from the early days of the BBSes in the 90s, have seen complaints about this exact thing. Quality is apparently going downhill everywhere all the time. I doubt it'll ever change. I think it's simply because everything changes, and people who were there early notice the difference and always feel like things were better when they were all new for them. Also, in this specific case, of course an investing board will have more juicy ideas when the market has just had the biggest crash in a 100 years than when things are more normal. Expecting things to go back to those crash days all the time is unrealistic. I do miss Sanjeev's and Eric's more frequent posting, and I'm not immune from this, but the only way that people can actually do something about it is by posting stuff that they think is good. I encourage you all to do so if you don't like what you see from others. I actually thought about this earlier this morning, as you've said something similar on Twitter before when some formerly more active CoBFers were complaining about the quality of the board. I agree that part of this is likely the lack of ideas that naturally occurs in an extended bull market and more posting from the quality posters would be a net benefit. The only issue is that while increasing signal will help with the signal to noise ratio, it does nothing to slow the expansion of noise. (And here, I'm referencing noise within threads on investment ideas rather than noise as the diffusion of topics.) I do occasionally wonder how much of this is the natural aversion to change though. The "America's best days have been behind it for the last fifty years" type nonsense. *shrug* I suppose the correct attitude to take is the Munger-esque approach that while it used to be easier to find quality posts, we all just have to adjust to the reality of how things are now. And perhaps our assumptions are wrong -- why should it be so easy to find good ideas? Maybe working a little harder to find the gems isn't such a bad thing. There are greater tragedies in the world.

The diffusion of topics doesn't bother me so much. The diffusion of quality, on the other hand...

Here's Fairholme's reply to the Government re the privilege logs. The bickering is starting to feel a little comical. It's a good read just for some levity. 2015-05-27_Fairholme_Reply_to_Remove_the_Proteted_Information_Designation.pdf

Very sad. Nash was the reason I became a math major.

I could see this continue dragging. There was an agreement on discovery by the end of June, but the way the government is trudging along, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to get another lengthy extension. Whether it is granted is another thing entirely.

Government's response to the motion to remove the "Protected Information" designation has been posted. Attached. 2015-05-18_Government_Response_to_Plaintiffs_Motion_to_Remove_the_Proteted_Information_Designation.pdf

Yup. I think 10% is way too high of a capital requirement. Also, they assume that none of the "dividends paid" are used as principal repayment, which is highly unlikely, IMHO.

I think parts of this discussion about BitCoin and BitChains is above my head -- I'd appreciate any reading that people could provide that might elucidate the issues/technology/process for me. My question is the following: You need both the seller and the buyer to use the digital currency, right? How likely is it that we will change consumer preferences to utilize digital currency rather than cash or credit cards? And, implicit in my question, how likely is it that someone on this board would use the digital currency to buy, say, an Apple Watch versus someone in rural Alabama using the digital currency to run up a bar tab?

The government wanted an extension on its reply to Fairholme concerning Fairholme's motion to remove the protected information designation from the March 20th privilege logs and all future logs as well.

The redacted Fairholme motion has been posted. Attached. 2015-05-12_Fairholme_Redacted_Motion_to_Remove_Protected_Information_Designation.pdf

http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Newsroom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=d870ced1-d075-f8a0-0641-2c1f7d6f3c13 The section dealing with the GSEs starts under Title VII. Important sections are listed here:

I'm hoping that we get more information on this soon, but here's what the WSJ is saying about Shelby's draft bill that will be released at noon today: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/05/12/heres-whats-in-the-shelby-regulatory-relief-bill/

Order granted for an extension to May 18th. Not surprising since it was uncontested. 2015-05-11_Order_Granting_Extension.pdf

So, no love lost for me w/ the Patriots, but this seems a bit harsh considering how Bill Belichick only got a fine and the loss of a draft pick for something that was significantly worse. Spygate >> Defaltegate

I found the answer to my own question about correlations and pockets of value. http://basehitinvesting.com/michael-burry-focus-on-bargains-and-not-stock-market-valuations/

Agreed -- I think you can find pockets of unreasonableness (CRM, Unicorns, etc. come to mind), but there are still places where value is "hiding in plain sight." Moreover, I've spoken to many people who seem to believe, as Jurgis pointed out, that in the next crash all correlations will go to 1 -- perhaps because of the availability bias that correlations largely went to 1 last time.

I wasn't a value investor in the last tech bubble -- I was merely aware of its existence given that I was only in high school. Were there isolated pockets of value within that market? I seem to find isolated pockets currently (autos, telecom, etc.) -- though, to be fair, I am not 100% clear that these tailwinds* won't disappear the way that CORT Furniture's tailwinds disappeared on Buffett & Munger. And if there were isolated pockets, how did they fare? *except for autos, since I figure the SAAR is far from digesting the "lost" auto sales from the recession

Looks like the government is getting an extension of time to reply to Fairholme's Motion to Remove the "Protected Information" Designation from the Government's March 20, 2015 Provisional Privilege Log. Originally, the government was supposed to respond by May 11th, 2015 (tomorrow). Two interesting things to note: Again, surprising to me that Fairholme is not fighting with the government more aggressively on the delays given that they expressed dismay at the March 30, 2015 status conference that things were dragging so long. Looks like Fairholme's shareholder letter (attached) made some folks unhappy. 2015-05-08_Unopposed_Motion_for_an_Enlargement_of_Time_to_Respond.pdf 2015-01-28_Fairholme_Fund_Letter_to_Shareholders.pdf

Yes, some of the commenters on TH717 are well beyond the pale.

Let's hope this isn't just me putting on a tin-foil hat. :)