Liberty

Moore, if that's what it it, then Einhorn misunderstood Buffett, because Buffett doesn't like cash anymore than he likes gold. He likes productive assets, and that was his point (and Munger's point as well about "jerks"). But is Einhorn a gold bug? I think maybe he was making a different point (you can dislike cash and gold, as Buffett does, it doesn't have to be one or the other). Or maybe he is... I don't know. Either way, painting Buffett as a fan of the US dollar or any other currency is a misrepresentation.

Thanks for posting. I'm looking forward to Taleb's next book.

That pretty much describes how I look at things too. What I want is independence and freedom, not shiny stuff. Most of what I like to do doesn't cost much anyway.

That's really the root of it: The market seems to have zero memory. I don't know how much of this is encouraged by the financial media - they don't care, they just want to fill airtime - and how much is just fundamental human bias, but it's really impressive and sometimes kind of depressing. But as Ben Graham would say, the thing to do is to either ignore it or take advantage of it, not be guided by it.

May 25: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/consumer-sentiment-in-u-s-climbs-to-highest-since-2007.html May 29: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-29/consumer-confidence-in-u-s-fell-in-may-to-four-month-low.html ??? (I know it's not the same survey, but it was funny to see both headlines in a row, and it does show how hard it is to try to predict macro based on these kinds of things)

That's the one I almost bought. But my 50$ used desk does the same job since I never sit while working at that desk anymore anyway :) (when I sit, I go to the sofa and pull out the Macbook or iPad)

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=377 Elon Musk speaking at Stanford in 2003. A lot of it about the nascent SpaceX, some about his other businesses. You can click "play all" at the bottom, since they split it in short clips.

I've been thinking about a standing desk. Can you say more about the experience? I got a used ikea fredrick desk for $50 and set it up to standing height. It took me about 2-3 weeks to adapt - at first my feet hurt a lot - but after that adaptation period, I feel absolutely fine. My legs gained tons of muscle, I walk around every time I need to think, and I feel better physically. Initially, I wanted to get a motorized desk that can be adjusted for both sitting and standing, but I went with the cheap ikea desk as an experiment before spending over a grand on a motorized desk. I'm glad I did, because I'm not going back to sitting, so the expensive desk would have been a waste...

i have a Humanscale Freedom chair that I paid up for and it's great, but since then I switched to a standing deak configuration, so it doesn't get as much use... I highly recommend standing desks! We haven't evolved to sit so much...

I don't pay up for much except the electronics that I use all day long. I have a Mac Mini connected to my living room TV and stereo, a Macbook laptop, a Mac Pro workstation (connected to a 27 inch, IPS LCD screen at 2560x1440), and an iPad 3. Very happy with all of them.

[amazonsearch]Devil Take The Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation[/amazonsearch] History of financial bubbles and speclation. Haven't read it yet, but I have it on hold at the library.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/meet-the-canadian-billionaire-whos-giving-it-all-away/article2444154/

WRB would make for a good insurance foundation, but I don't really know how to answer that question. Obviously FFH and MKL are closer to mini BRKs than pretty much everything else..

He's a superb writer, which I think is a sign of extreme clarity of thought.

Good overview: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577426042171703270.html That guy really doesn't quit:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/facebook-ipo-fallout-deepens-investor-distrust-of-stocks.html Pendulum is swinging pretty far away from "greed" and towards "fear" lately. The FB IPO certainly isn't helping, as it had great media visibility and probably affected sentiment disproportionally with its actual economic weight.

The thing is, soon SpaceX will do launches for significantly less money than anyone else, and they'll prove the safety of their design over time (it was impressive they could shut down the rocket without damage half a second befre launch last week... A lot of other designs would either have been damaged or would have needed to be self destructed --- solid fuel rockets can't be stopped once lit).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/spacex-becomes-first-company-to-dock-ship-at-space-station-1-.html 8)

Not sure if it's available for free to non-subscribers, but if not, worth buying a copy of this issue. Kind of the anti-Chanos. Here are all the articles from the feature: http://www.economist.com/node/21555762 http://www.economist.com/node/21555767 http://www.economist.com/node/21555761 http://www.economist.com/node/21555772 http://www.economist.com/node/21555766 http://www.economist.com/node/21555763 http://www.economist.com/node/21555769 http://www.economist.com/node/21555770 http://www.economist.com/node/21555765

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/ft-markets-out-of-stock/

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/177946/the-death-of-equities-again

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/177812/nassim-taleb-and-david-cameron-building-a-black-swanrobust-society Note: a few years old, but first time i saw it.

Well, you guys who like DELL just got a nice opportunity. Down over 16% right now.

This is always something I feel kind of bad about. Sometimes people post an idea and I'm really happy to see a new idea, and I check it out, but it doesn't quite get through my first line of filters so I never research it quite deeply enough to have something to say about it. So on one hand I wish I could post and start a conversation and make it clear that I really appreciate people posting ideas and encourage more, but on the other, I can't really motivate myself to look deeply into things that I don't feel are what I'm looking for. I wish I had a way out of this dilemma. Maybe I just need to start reading more about stuff that doesn't appeal to me just to get more exposure to a variety of things and build up more experience researching companies... That sounds very good in the abstract, but in practice, I find it tough...

I'm just taking guesses here as I don't know much about currencies, but isn't any starting point kind of arbitrary? I'd say that on average currencies with very high multiples to most other currencies probably had high inflation, but I don't see why it would have to be so. A currency could be created at a value of 1 million to 1 dollar yet be inflated less rapidly than the dollar from that point on. In other words: It's possible you are correct, but not for reasons that can be discovered just by looking at the conversion rate. Just my guess, though.