Investmentacct

I found Google reader to be more useful for reading this message board on Iphone/Ipod.

Related to standard of Living , you are right it may be personal. Because of cost of communications came down a lot; it is far easy to communicate across the world. Just in year 2000 when I arrived in USA , it used to cost my home country (9000 miles apart) 2 minutes per dollar. And the same time, Yahoo messenger / MSN messenger had one half inch size window video available with poor quality. Ten year goes forward in 2010, and now I could project and talk to my home and family members video on 32 inch lcd with spotless clarity on daily basis using skype on near zero costs. This service which in 90s probably any big public company CEOs had access to. I heard through my cousins here in USA, who came in early 80s and used to write snail mails to reach back home country in 15-20 days.

This is a bit off-topic ,as we all know what WEB has said overtime, but I liked the folksy humor and wisdom when he said this : "Some men read Playboy. I read financial reports." http://www.cnbc.com/id/22026138/Warren_Buffett_Going_Global_Becky_s_Video_Diary

Thank You Zorro for Article link. Excellent one. Concur with Klarman, as I see few ppl daily who lost heavily speculating in outskirt housing markets in Los Angeles, now again started talking about finding cheap mortgages too hard to resist. Govt. indeed has created speculating markets.

based on sec it is market value or listed price http://www.sec.gov/answers/form13f.htm

This video is not related to value investing. Although, I thought it might interests to some people who are interested in new tech. It is worth to keep eye on this MIT LAB product. :

Thank You MartinWhitman for posting the article. Please click below if you do not know how to read German like me; to read article in English (Translated via Google Translate) http://tinyurl.com/ycaheac

Prevalou: 3) speed of delivery: maybe the investments made by railroads in the 2000s improved speed of delivery for trains. Has someone information about this? WEB and Munger has mentioned about intermodal traffic increase in recent decade. This article on wiki seems to confirm that: "In the USA, starting in the 1960s the use of containers increased steadily. Rail intermodal traffic tripled between 1980 and 2002, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR), from 3.1 million trailers and containers to 9.3 million. Large investments were made in intermodal freight projects." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_freight_transport

Al, >> Long term Price to Book Ratio for the S&P 500 (Ned Davis Research is 2.4). The chart I located only goes to October 17 2008 which is almost exactly where we are now. So another 30% upside to AVERAGE! Not that it matters but, 10/17/2008 happens to be the same date when Buy american op-ed piece by Buffett was published in NYT. Might be a co-incidence. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html Thanks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html It's 2nd since last year's invaluable buy american OpED http://tinyurl.com/6f4xfd

I think prop 13 is widely known, but, thought to add few things about how property taxes are quoted in California: Below paragraph is from November 2003 article Buffett wrote to Wall Street journal defending the advice he gave to Arnold about repealing Prop 13 in 2003 . Link to the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106781932410265400,00.html : "What I said in respect to property taxes was very specific. I gave him an example of three houses, two in Laguna Beach and one in Omaha. The first Laguna Beach house is a property that I bought in the early 1970s. It has a current market value of about $4 million and, because of the limitations embodied in Proposition 13, carried taxes of only $2,264 in 2003 vs. $2,241 in 2002. The second house, located just in back of the first, is one that I purchased in the mid-1990s. It has a market value of about $2 million and, simply because I bought it later than the first, carried taxes of $12,002 in 2003 vs. $11,877 in 2002. I pointed out to Joe that these figures mean that the tax rate on the second house -- same neighborhood, same owner, same ability to pay -- is roughly 10 times the rate on the first house. I then referenced my house (bought in 1959) in Omaha, which I believe to be worth about $500,000 (though it's assessed at $690,000). Taxes on it were $14,401 in 2003 and $12,481 in 2002." --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) --> This document by UCSD prof. explaining through different scenarios on the impacts of Prop 13. http://weber.ucsd.edu/~miwhite/wasi-white-final.pdf --> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-vasconcellos10-2009jul10,0,646349.story

You might want to check about this. The Cass Freight Index. Seems to be widely followed and It declined 20+% in past year as ABC reporter mentioned. http://www.cassinfo.com/frtindex.html 2008 May Shipments 1.162 2009 May Shipments 0.913

Ericopoly, welcome back to the board.

Could it be Freeman Dyson? But I might be wrong since he is not an economist. Please check reply to Question #4 at below link about Wesco 2009 meeting notes from Gurufocus: http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=57199

Adding few to the list: Poor Charlie's Almanack : The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger Security Analysis by Graham & Dodd Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher On a side note: Charlie Munger praised and recommended title "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell at Wesco Meeting yesterday.

We thought after 1999 experience, Cramer would not make these kind of comments again. But here we go again. Good fun. http://www.cnbc.com/id/29246565/site/14081545?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.tuMO1nQN9I&refer=home

SF Value, You are right. http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/01/news/fortune500/buffett_talks/

Did not see anywhere else yet besides the below link: http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123436924628873451.html?mod=googlenews_barrons

Japanese Demographics trend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Population_chart.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan