merkhet

Any chance this will be broadcasted?

I suspect that lowering sugar intake is much like the max/min factor that Munger talks about with respect to companies -- it's one of the 3/4 important things to do that has a pretty large effect. Of course, if you mix that with exercise, you get a fitness lollapalooza.

Too early to say that. If China slows further, deflation will increase. Cheers! To be clear, I was talking about the U.S. only. He may be correct on deflation in other places.

I think they bought into deflation whole hog. It was the wrong decision. Even without hindsight.

I have little to no insight on this topic other than to say that we should all probably be eating less sugar. In Jacobi-esque fashion, we could ask ourselves the question of "Should we be eating MORE sugar?" and then move backwards.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/buffett-on-david-winters/msg213885/#msg213885 I was nominated to start this splinter thread on sugar and regulation. :)

That argument doesn't work. Who should decide what is good or not for my body? You? The government? Bill Ackman? This is a major problem today. Most people believe they are responsible for the decisions of other adults. When someone tries to take away another persons ability to choose they are treading on dangerous grounds for me. Personal responsibility is a huge problem in the west. If you don't want to hold individual responsible for their health why are you holding Coke responsible? You can't have it both ways. I would say a lot of harm is done to individuals when the government tells them they are not responsible either. Let me be clear. KO doesn't hold a gun to anybody's head and force them to drink their products, yet you want to hold a gun to KO's head... and claim the moral high ground in doing so. WEB is free to make whatever endorsements he wants. Do you want to hold the proverbial gun to his head too? Ultimately who should decide? It is very freeing when you believe that everyone is free to make their own decision and that they are also free to face the consequences of those decision. The government is in the business of removing consequences, for bankers to Coke. Great discussion... Thanks. Same with crack and heroin dealers, right? That's not the same! Crack and heroin are illegal substances. If you think that fits in the same category of sugary drinks you are pushing the line too far. The point that "The government is in the business of removing consequences, for bankers to Coke. Great discussion... Thanks." seems more than right to me. Why do you care about the culturally imposed restrictions? The neurochemistry is pretty much the same. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144 And the research seems to indicate that it's pretty damaging to brain function. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992 (As an aside, I think we are starting to derail this thread, but I'm happy to discuss this further on another thread since this is really about the Buffett smackdown of Winters.)

That argument doesn't work. Who should decide what is good or not for my body? You? The government? Bill Ackman? This is a major problem today. Most people believe they are responsible for the decisions of other adults. When someone tries to take away another persons ability to choose they are treading on dangerous grounds for me. Personal responsibility is a huge problem in the west. If you don't want to hold individual responsible for their health why are you holding Coke responsible? You can't have it both ways. I would say a lot of harm is done to individuals when the government tells them they are not responsible either. Let me be clear. KO doesn't hold a gun to anybody's head and force them to drink their products, yet you want to hold a gun to KO's head... and claim the moral high ground in doing so. WEB is free to make whatever endorsements he wants. Do you want to hold the proverbial gun to his head too? Ultimately who should decide? It is very freeing when you believe that everyone is free to make their own decision and that they are also free to face the consequences of those decision. The government is in the business of removing consequences, for bankers to Coke. Great discussion... Thanks. Same with crack and heroin dealers, right?

The problem was not that Winters pointed out a real flaw in KO (he did). The problem is that he was grandstanding by trying to bully Buffett into supporting him. As the saying goes, "you pays your money, and you takes your chances."

I can pretty easily see the train of thought from GM, activism, and compensation to Winters. I'm not terribly bothered by the remark. I mean, I don't really think anything he said was out of line.

Merket, this is very confusing. I think you mean: (4) People in (3) who are you willing to share their story. Yes, that's what I meant. I'll fix it in the original post.

I would not be holding my breath for there to be too many people who speak up and say that leverage ended up making them destitute. I suspect that there are four buckets here: (1) Leverage created good results (2) People in (1) who are willing to share their story (3) Leverage created bad results (4) People in (3) who are willing to share their story I suspect that the overlap between (1) and (2) is higher than the overlap between (3) and (4), and that fact is going to be responsible for screwing with people's availability bias and/or sampling.

Sure, because Aviva employees would love to go to prison for conspiracy to commit murder. Think about it, it's the shareholder's money not their own.... I would wager a pretty large sum that it has come up as a joke at least once. I would wager a smaller sum that it was then followed by awkward silence and then assurances all around that it was a joke. :P

I suspect that hiring a contract killer has crossed the minds of Aviva's board once or twice. This is life insurance, after all.

Technically, it was a predecessor company (L’Abeille Vie) that made the stupid contract, but there should be a team of lawyers/bankers that should be drawn and quartered for poor due diligence when they folded L’Abeille Vie into another company.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/02/27/2120422/meet-the-man-who-could-own-aviva-france/

What was the outside intervention from before?

Yes, he levered his position in Berkshire -- though I think his results over-time were not largely a function of leverage.

Upon further reflection, which is always dangerous given how much I have thought about FNMA already, Gretchen Morgensen may have given us the best catalyst we could have hoped for in this case: If the Republicans smell blood, they will go after the President for asserting executive privilege this aggressively -- in the hopes that where there's smoke there's fire -- and this could lead to a settlement.

Good find!

I would love to see a full copy of the 2014 letter as well.

I think that would depend on Sweeney. She seems pretty on top of the discovery schedule -- and unlikely to give a further extension from the one she granted in January.

If Buffett doesn't qualify as genius to you, who does in the field of business/finance? Genius is way to strong of a descriptor for anyone in business/finance. He isn't exactly curing cancer or getting noble prices for mathematics. Those people are geniouses and they have to think in new ways to do what they do. Buffett is just using the knowledge built by others. I'd be willing to use descriptors like disciplined and knowledgeable. But not genius. Yes, because no one in science uses the knowledge built by others...

Joe Light's article is up on WSJ. http://www.wsj.com/articles/fannie-freddie-weak-earnings-raise-possibility-of-future-bailouts-1424463119

Not sure. I don't know if Hume is the lead or not. Would be nice though.