Liberty

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm About science and how to think honestly. Definitely applicable to investing.

I gave up on that book. Maybe I heard good things about Bilion Dollar Lessons and mixed it up with this one...?

I'm just 25 pages in, but I can't say I'm very impressed so far. It does feel padded, and the writing isn't always top notch... I'll keep going and see if it improves.

[amazonsearch]Billion Dollar Mistake[/amazonsearch] Just started this. Have always loved learning from other people's mistakes...

Thanks. Good to know Warren's in good hands 8)

I just finished it and loved it, but I always love Buffett interviews (especially when that CNBC Joe guy isn't always screaming stupidities).

Yeah, I kinda saw that and posted it here quickly, and then realized it probably wasn't much of a big deal after all.. But we can't delete our own threads anymore, so I couldn't remove it. but to make up for it, here's a video of a 40+ min interview with Buffett: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/43-min-interview-with-buffett-at-economic-club-of-washington-d-c-(video)/

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/94157601-buffett-speaks-on-career-u-s-economy.html

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/179020/buffetts-secret-stock-from-q1-filing-revealed

http://greatinvestors.tv/video/why-berkshire-hathaway-remains-an-attractive-investment-by-g.html Good overview.

Absolutely, I'm not saying it can't happen. Just that timing can be very hard to predict even when it looks like things shouldn't be sustainable for the shorts.

Don't hold your breath, though. These things can take time, especially if the shorts are good at dropping the price on days with good news (so that all the people who use the market as a guide go "oh, I guess the news wasn't that good after all, look at how the market is reacting"). See EBIX. :P

Very interesting, thanks.

This book increased my respect for Ackman dramatically too! Welcome to the board!

I wasn't around back in the old FFH days, thanks for pointing that out. Can't say I find that post of his convincing, but he can short good companies all he wants for all I care, it'll just allow me to buy good stuff more cheaply and benefit later when the fundamentals eventually win out. :P

In the recent past, pretty much just more FTP and a little nibble on something else.

A potential problem with reading just 10Ks is that if there's important info that isn't in them, how are you supposed to know? By that I mean, if you don't know you don't know, you can get stuck in a loop. That's why it can useful to look elsewhere. It's not always required or useful, but having a quick look can't hurt, and if you find useful stuff, you can dig deeper. To that some will say, "if you can't understand it just from the 10K, you probably shouldn't invest", which isn't a bad way to do things. But on the other hand, businesses that require a bit more work to understand (but are still understandable) can be a great hunting ground for those willing to put in the extra effort, because they can have an informational edge over investors who are too lazy to dig.

Your point is not specific to these, but rather a general one (ie. you always have to ask yourself if there's something better you could be doing instead of what you are doing now). I think it's very useful to have these around if you are looking for something that you aren't finding in your other sources, but the opportunity cost calculation must be made before reading any source at all. The question rather is: are those more useful than what you've been reading lately?

I'll see if I can find a pic, but I'm 6'1" and never had a problem with the stability of the desk. Feels solid to me.

Trying to turn Buffet's position into some pseudo-conspiracy feels desperate and disingenuous to me. Can't gold bugs accept that he simply disagrees with them and doesn't feel strongly in favor of the gold standard - probably because it has its own set of problems - and leave it at that?

That's one way to read it, but I interpret it more as two halves (I don't think he was absolutely clear when he said it, but it's hard to be 100% unambiguous and punctuate everything perfectly when speaking on camera): -"gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939" If you expect real trouble soon, it can be useful (though he would probably also say that a lot of goldbugs today who say that this is what they are doing are actually investing/speculating rather than just putting aside some portable currency, which is obvious when you look at the quantity of gold some of them buy and at the vague and far-off nature of the supposed threats they want to protect against) -"civilized people don't buy gold - they invest in productive businesses." If what you are looking for is an investment, it is more "civilized" to invest in productive assets than to speculate in gold. That's how I understand it. I can't call him up to ask for clarifications.. but knowing how smart and sensible Munger is, between two interpretations, I always give him the benefit of the doubt for the interpretation that makes more sense :)

If you put it back in the context of Munger and what he meant, I don't think it was a "bonehead" comment. I'm sure Munger would agree that some gold can be useful to bribe a border guard or whatever, especially in unstable parts of the world.. I think he was referring to investors like Paulson who will buy billions of the stuff and sit on it hoping to sell it back to someone else at a higher price later (more or less the definition of speculation). Munger said: "I don’t see how you become rational hoarding gold. Even if it works, you’re a jerk." I believe he was implying that allocating capital to good businesses "helps the civilization", as he would say, and that working hard to understand what makes a good business, how to value it, and how the productive economy works is a valuable skill. But that hoarding tons of gold and sitting on it waiting for someone else to pay more is not "helping the civilization" and kind of a waste of talent and resources. But that's just my mental model of how Munger thinks based on his speeches and interviews...

That was a deflationary meltdown. In an inflationary meltdown, it would be the other way. I agree with you, but, just wanted to add this. Out of curiosity, what was the last big inflationary 'meltdown' and did gold do well when it hit?

I think he would if you were to hold both for the long-term, but he's not interested in either. For the short-term, cash is better because it's more liquid and you can buy companies/productive assets with it, and you don't have to pay to store it and it won't fall rapidly when everybody's hit with margin calls.

The most important things in life are free. Sounds like a Mastercard ad :)