Liberty

http://oraclefromomaha.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/standardized-faulty-thinking-bad-assumptions/ Good piece on a basic mistake that Gross made when he called the 'death of equities', comparing GDP growth to stock market returns (comparing a flow variable with a stock one).

But what if you can't trust the financial statements, or that contracts will be enforced? That's another way in which corruption/weak institutions can screw you.

Thanks for posting the letter. "Given our concern about financial markets and the excellent returns we achieved on our long term investments, we reluctantly decided to sell our long term holdings of Wells Fargo (a gain of 125%), Johnson & Johnson (a gain of 47%) and U.S. Bancorp (a gain of 135%)." Wow. Didn't they say a couple years ago that these were core long-term holdings? Maybe I'm misremembering, I'll have to dig that up after I'm done. Still, I was surprised that they sold it all, especially Wells, a Buffett favorite. Not necessarily bad if they redeploy the capital in even better things, but it's still surprising to me.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/blackberry-ceo-briefs-white-house-to-cultivate-vip-obama.html

I haven't found the video of the whole segment either. You indeed have to fight their website to get to the content you want, which is probably a bad strategy for a content company...

Here you go: http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2014/03/03/2014-03-03%20Ask%20WarrenBuffett%20complete%20transcript.pdf

Annual letter from Sequoia Fund: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/89043/000114420414013665/v367083_ncsr.htm (thanks Wellmont!)

First thing that comes to mind is that Berkshire isn't just its equity portfolio. It has to hold lots of bonds for its insurance companies, and over time it became more and more an operating business. You could also look at changes in valuation by the market during that period (ie. did multiple to book go down).

Thanks Pedro!

Thanks. Second question is about BlackBerry, for those interested (nothing terribly new is said, though).

Sometimes I think Bloomberg does it on purpose. Often I click on an articles on their site just to figure out what it's about by reading the intro because the title baffled me. A new kind of clickbait, maybe..

Does that mean the book doesn't work? ;)

I haven't run into that too much, but it's annoying when it happens. I guess it always takes a while for all web designers to figure out new formats (there's an adoption period). The good ones have already done so, but the less good ones will need a bit more time -- either for better mobile sites that optimize things differently for tablets and phones, or by serving mobile only to phones and not to bigger tablets.

Definitely cool to have the option! On my iPad, I prefer the regular site, though -- for those who do too, there's a button at the bottom of the page that allows you to see it on a mobile device.

Found this on Netflix and it's pretty decent. Basically Hank Paulson sitting in a chair and being interviewed, mostly about his time as Treasury Secretary during the crisis, for an hour and a half. Not the best thing ever, but I know some people here would enjoy hearing straight from a primary source like this.

For those interested in this topic: http://www.res.org.uk/view/art1Oct13Features.html

Not that it matters that much, but here's Brooklyn Investor on the 500 pages per day or week: Part of a longer post about the interview: http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.ca/2014/03/buffett-on-cnbc-with-3ts.html

http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.ca/2014/03/berkshire-hathaway-annual-report-2013.html

Yeah, a recent Economist issue also had something about this. Seems to make complete sense over the mid-term; the best way to reduce Russia's influence is to create a more liquid and more responsive global market for oil and especially natural gas. (the responsive part is about how it takes so much more drilling with shale, so you can more easily modulate the number of wells you're drilling to respond to supply shocks).

Thanks jm25! :) I will dig into it when I have a chance, but I think it's worth creating a thread about it. It'll make it easier for find any information that is added to it over time than if it's scattered everywhere.

http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2014/03/03/2014-03-03%20Ask%20WarrenBuffett%20complete%20transcript.pdf

Found this transcript: http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2014/03/03/2014-03-03%20Ask%20WarrenBuffett%20complete%20transcript.pdf Still looking for the full videos.

I usually look on the Buffett Watch page to see when they appear: http://www.cnbc.com/id/19206666 Looks like part of it is up. Not sure if there's a better way to find the videos or if they're already up somewhere else, though.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look. Can you share the elevator pitch on what you like about it? How's management? I see that like Paladin they don't like debt.

That guy is not exactly subtle, but his record speaks for itself.