Liberty

1) That's not a scientific argument. The climate doesn't care about our politics, and what we're doing has an impact regardless of whether it's politically convenient or inconvenient for some. 2) There are many ways to attack this problems, some I probably dislike just as much as you do. It's just lazy thinking and strawman-building to act like everybody who agrees with the science on earth's climate must agree on everything that anyone has ever put forward about it. I mean, Buffett's a democrat, right? Is he exactly the same as all other democrats? Are all republicans like Munger? Labels dangerously distort reality. Personally, I'd be happy if all taxes on incomes, payrolls and consumption went away and were replaced by various taxes on toxins and pollutants that ratcheted up as our production of those went down. There are problems with this, but there are problems with the current system too. A carbon tax could be entirely revenue-neutral with exactly the same amount cut in taxes elsewhere as is raised there. Right now fossil fuels are getting a hidden subsidy (on top of the non-hidden ones) because they don't have to pay for the damage that they do, but we'll all have to pay for it over time. If they did pay, prices would be higher and the switch to and development of cleaner sources of energy would be much faster than it is now. Believe me, I wish burning all this fossil fuel didn't have negative impacts. Things would be much simpler. But we don't get to pick our reality.

What you need to understand is that it just keeps going. We're pumping more carbon in the atmosphere, and most of it doesn't go away for decades if not centuries. It accumulates. And the rate at which we're adding is also accelerating. It's not about "oh well, who knows, maybe hotter is better?", it's about creating an out-of-control feedback loop. Even if we get to temps that are better than what we have now, we won't stay there, we'll keep warming unless we make a big change. There's so much inertia in the system that by the time it's obvious to all that we're in deep trouble, it'll be way too late to change course. And almost all species on earth have evolved within a certain range and can't just run the A/C or wear different clothes like us (and for those who think "they'll just adapt", realize that most climate changes happen over millennia if not millions of years, we're doing it in the range of 100s of years)... Climate is hard for the same reason investing is hard; it requires long-term thinking, and humans aren't wired that way. I'm all for market mechanisms where there's a market, but there isn't with our planet's climate (you get concentrated benefits today, and diffuse harm way down the line). It's like hoping market forces are enough to make sure we avoid nuclear war. What if it happened during the cold war. Would you sue those who caused it to make it right? Would you just let the magic market make sure bombs are in safe hands? Well, there's even less price mechanism for having a planet that stays within temperature ranges that are hospitable to current life. At least with war, you get immediate feedback that tells you it's bad and people can understand that.. Most of the opponents of climate science seem to work from their conclusion backwards: I don't want socialism, I don't want my liberties to be curtailed, so I believe that there's no warming, or if there is, it'll all be all right anyway. Let me google search for someone with a PHD who thinks the same way. Well, I don't want socialism either (I've read Hayek, Friedman, Rothbard, Hazlitt, Rockwell, Mises, etc), and I like being free thank you very much. But I'm rational enough to realize that a screwed up planet leads to a worse future than a more stable and hospitable planet, and that to make a dent on that problem requires large scale changes that won't happen on their own because there isn't a market mechanism here. There's way more than enough coal and oil in the ground to screw the future many times over. We can't wait to run out of it, we must make cleaner technologies more cost competitive so there isn't the need to burn it all (and ideally we'd develop ways to suck carbon out of the air). That's why I'm for removing fossil fuel subsidies and putting a price on carbon that ratchets up over time (to internalize the real costs that are currently not priced in burning the stuff -- you can even make it revenue-neutral and cut income and corporate taxes by the same amount), which should encourage a fairly rapid switch to things like solar, uranium, thorium, wind, hydro, EGS, as well as big investments in energy efficiency (we waste so much), the electrification of transportation, reforestation and other carbon sinks, etc.

Sorry, that wasn't clear in your post. But Hubbard's views on psychiatry are about as supported as Crichton's views on climate. Someone who knew just enough about a topic to be dangerous... Sure: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Richard_Lindzen_arg.htm He's apparently one of the guys paid by big oil too: "Ross Gelbspan reported in 1995 that Lindzen "charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."" (you can follow reference links for each thing, and they then link to more references if you want to dig deeper) That guy certainly has more credentials than most, but that's not what matters, what matters is the validity of his arguments. I don't see much that is convincing, and apparently the experts don't either. Nobody disagrees that the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles, or that models aren't perfect. That's weak. What matters is what's different about this cycle (much faster without obvious natural causes like supervolcanoe eruption or whatever, with a fast rising of carbon PPM in the atmosphere because we put lots of gigatonnes of it there since the industrial revolution), etc. It just boggles my mind that anyone would think that we could put billions and billions of tons of a gas that is known to trap infrared heat in the atmosphere, and that nothing would happen. It's like if a company's earnings rise year after year after year... Maybe the daily fluctuations and random factors would cause a lot of noise, but all else being equal the long-term overall trend would be up and up.

Another way to say that he had no qualifications or experience in climate science whatsoever. The only reason anybody ever listened to him on this is because he became famous writing fiction -- it's the shoe button complex that Munger warned about. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/ I'm sorry, I know I said I'd stay out of it, but rolling out Michael Crichton was more than I could handle. I don't know what it is about climate science that makes everybody think they can improvise themselves an expert. People wouldn't do that with marine biology or aerospatial engineering or particle physics. Yet any schmuck who thinks about the weather thinks they can know more than experts who have spent decades studying the data. It's like citing Ron Hubbard as a neuroscience authority against someone who refers MITECS...

http://www.news.com.au/world/tin-cans-filled-with-10-million-in-gold-coins-found-buried-in-california/story-fndir2ev-1226837801851 Better to be lucky than good, I suppose ???

Congrats, nice pick.

It happens. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/24/us/25sludge2_600.JPG Coal ash spill..

You're leaving part of the story out. The problem wasn't that it was funding research. The problem was that it was bogus research, with the only purpose of creating doubt and uncertainty in the minds of people, which is basically what the tobacco industry tried to do when science first came out about the harm of cigarettes. I think scientists' problem is not that there are those who don't agree with the consensus. It's that a lot of groups (incl. media) will give as much weight if not more weight to that 1% of dissenters as to the 99% others, and then pretend "well, it's undecided, we just don't know." There's always some people who disagree about everything, including flat earthers and moon landing hoaxers and plate tectonic skeptics and such, but it doesn't make the science any less settled until one of these dissenters comes out with strong enough evidence to show that they actually are right. Until they do that, the strongest evidence wins. The reason why there are over 90% of people who agree is not because they have more friends and have winning smiles, it's because in the eyes of the other experts, their evidence is much stronger. Anyway, I'm done with this thread, I don't feel much is being accomplished anyway.

Agalio, China today has technology infinitely more advanced than when the US passed the first coal laws. http://www.takepart.com/photos/amazing-photos-show-1940s-pittsburgh-blanketed-air-pollution/the-collection Technology allows things to get cleaner, but because the costs of all this is harm are externalized and diffused, while the benefits are concentrated and polluters don't pay the price, it often takes regulation to make things happen. Just like it's started to now happen in China and happened everywhere else that got significantly cleaner. So tech is necessary, but not sufficient for a lot of progress on that front. Same with leaded gasoline. It might not have been possible to ban it from the start, but it might still be in today if it was entirely up to gasoline producers to choose, and we'd have kids with lower IQs and more aggressive behaviors... As for dumping waste, you really think that if the only thing stopping people were lawsuits that waterways and the international oceans would be as clean? How many people have you sued in your life? How many middle-class folks could afford to sue when their small lake or river got destroyed, and wouldn't companies often decide it's cheaper to pay lawyers for a few years than do the right thing? Anyway, let's drop it here, you are obviously an ideologue, the very thing you claim to be against.

You know this how? Science is not what you think it is. If someone could come up with really solid research based on sound methodology that disproved any of the current consensus, they'd probably win a nobel prize. Some of the big businesses making money on fossil fuels would definitely fund that research. But so far, all they finance doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because the facts aren't in their favor.

Do you prefer to breathe air in the post Clean Air Act US or the air in Beijing right now? Do you prefer to live somewhere where lead has been banned in gasoline, or somewhere where it hasn't? Dumping waste in rivers and the ocean, you are for or against it? How about letting fisheries self-manage, people can catch everything they want out of the ocean, from the smallest shrimp to the biggest whale, and we'll see what happens? Some environmentalists are cult-like and anti-science, but others aren't, just like in all large groups there are rational people and irrational ones. What's new? But those who oppose the current crop of rational environmentalists (a lot of them the very scientists who know most about things like our planet's climate) will one day look like those who opposed the ban on lead in gasoline or anti-smog measures..

deepValue, you're saying the equivalent of "astrophysics and cosmology isn't science! Can you prove wrong or run a control group on a star or a galaxy! I think not!" Fact is, there's a group of gasses that we know trap infrared radiation, we've seen their effects in experiments and on other planets (venus, mars). The earth's atmosphere is incredibly thin on the scale of our planet and we've been burning billions of tons of carbon that were buried in the planet's crust for decades. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this massive chemical experiment will have an impact. Well, we've been documenting that impact in dozens of ways for a long time. The whole argument of "how much of that science is funded by government?" is ridiculous; who's going to do that research if not NASA and NOAA and universities? Scientists funded by Exxon? Volunteer PHDs who will self-finance satellites and core drilling in the arctic? Are you also not relying on any of the other government-funded science? Because that's a lot that I bet you rely on every day.

Global warming can actually lead to more snow because there's more evaporation over oceans (snow = precipitation, not cold. As long as you're below freezing, more precipitation = more snow even if things are warmer than usual). Let's also not forget that global warming is GLOBAL, so looking at regional weather doesn't tell you much (ie. colder than usual over north-america this winter, but record heat in Alaska, russia, etc). Here's more global data: http://climatecrocks.com/2014/01/29/new-video-if-theres-global-warming-why-is-it-so-cold/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/12 http://qz.com/106814/if-youre-under-the-age-of-28-youve-never-experienced-a-month-of-below-average-global-temperature/

I don't think this was posted here (sorry if it had): http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60318162

Thank you, that was great!

Thanks for posting, WhoIsWarren. It does indeed raise many of the questions that have been raised here in the VRX thread, though I don't think it really answers them or provide a smoking gun. About rising interest rates and the impact on acquisitions; I'd be curious to look at other businesses that have been successful at building value via acquisitions, and what they did when interest rates were higher (teledyne? capital cities?). I'm not sure exactly sure how their tactics changed (just lower leverage, higher hurdle rate, more equity raised?), but it seems like it didn't affect their overall strategy too much. I think smart management should be able to adapt. The question is more, are you sure management is as smart as you think? When they come out with stats like "70% of acquisitions destroy value", it reminds me of when people talk about overall market valuations. It's interesting, but if you're not buying an index, it might not tell you too much about the specific businesses you're looking at. Likewise, that 70% figure for the whole market doesn't matter if you invest in a specific business that can create value via acquisitions 75% of the time or whatever.

Honest question: In the specific case of Ametek, are you sure you aren't looking at operational leverage boosting the GMs? Or maybe them making acquisitions in higher margin areas? I'm not super familiar with Ametek, but I've looked at similar types of conglomerates that had rising margins and that's what was happening.

I saw him mention it on Twitter recently. Definitely on my list too!

Speaking of Dalio, I rewatched his 'How the Economic Machine Works' video yesterday. He makes it seem so easy to understand. For those who haven't seen it: http://www.economicprinciples.org/

Did I miss something? Where did he go? Did he get a job at Apple and he can't tell anyone?

It probably helped Walton that they built the company from the ground up with a culture of low-costs, with basically no legacy problems, at a time when most of the competition was still high-cost and high-margins. Sears is in a more difficult position. They are starting from a high-cost business with lots of legacy issues (including the company's culture), and their competition has embraced low-costs and efficiency decades ago. Not saying they can't do it, but the starting point seems quite different. I'm not very familiar with the history of retailing, especially outside North-America. Did any of these other successful retailers start with a big legacy business and turn it around, or were they all built from the ground up?

Read that one a few years ago and liked it quite a bit (I recently read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, another great biography). Quite a bit better than Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography (probably because it was rushed, and because Isaacson doesn't really get technology and design). I have his Einstein biography on my shelf, but haven't read that one yet.

Thank you!

I quite like that idea. I find it very rational and appealing. In the real world, though, it would probably be shut down because of the optics. You'd have the local news and Jay Leno doing a bit about the CSU unit dusting around where the garden gnome was stolen. Maybe some very charismatic official could sell it well enough to the public ahead of implementation to preempt that, and then it could be possible to do with taxpayers' full back backing because they understand that this could save more money than it costs (studies showing that would certainly help sell the point). Anyway, that was a good daydream. Thanks Omlsted! :)

Thanks FiveSigma. I had seen similar things about the future roadmap. Another piece of the puzzle is dropping entirely the analog signal (something that Charter is working on), freeing up tons of bandwidth. It's actually impressive to see how much bandwidth analog signal is using -- there's a Charter presentation that has a graph.