Liberty

A bit expensive, but I'd say that Burry got a pretty good ROI on that one ;)

Thanks Kraven. I was just about to ask for opinions about "Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street ".

I'm definitely among the ranks of the techno-optimists. We get used to it all so quickly, but if we were transported back just a few decades ago - or if we took someone from that time and brought them to the present - we'd see pretty quickly just how wonderful progress has been. Anything that can be done according to the laws of physics will eventually be done, but we do have to be careful about catastrophic risks (nuclear war, supervolcanos, asteroids, super-plagues, etc). We really don't spend enough resources to prevent these, considering just how big their impact would be. There's a great book about this compiled by an Oxford University polymath (Nick Bostrom): http://www.global-catastrophic-risks.com/ http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199606501/

I really don't know what to think about China anymore. So much is rotten with their system, but at the same time, they are starting from such a low base and still have so many low-hanging fruits to harvest... I don't pretend to know how it will play out and on what timeframe.

Thanks eclecticvalue! That took 2 seconds to download and no hassle about creating an account.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/walter-schloss-superinvestor-who-earned-buffett-s-praise-dies-at-95.html

What a horrible hosting website. Can anyone host it anywhere else? (depositfiles.com or dropbox or whatever)?

Very sad news. He was a legend.

http://www.oaktreecapital.com/MemoTree/Assessing%20Performance%20Records%20-%20A%20Case%20Study%2002_15_12.pdf

http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/facebook-is-losing-e-commerce

Or they have, but their goldfish attention span made them forget it soon thereafter... ;)

The only way I've found to get an idea of management is to consume (read, listen, watch) absolutely everything you can find about them and the company and let it all aggregate and cross-pollinate in your head until you form an impression. More an art than a science, IMO, though if you had to make a checklist, there are certain things that would get more value than others (large insider holding bought with personal money, actions consistent with long-term vision, etc).

Saw that earlier. The pundits seem unwilling to believe that it's actually possible to succeed by doing simple things like focusing on your customer..

Down 7% to 388 this morning.

That's too bad. I remember you were one of the most vocal supporters of WDC back when I first gave it a look. Ultimately it wasn't a company for me, but I kind of expected you to be rolling in cash by now.

+1! Cheers! I'm starting to come to this conclusion as well. Me too. I don't think it was entirely luck... but a lot of it was because of his analyst (I forget his name) who came up with the idea of the trade and pushed hard for it. After that, it was probably hard to actually execute and stick with it until it actually started working, so he deserves credit for that, but not much more.

:-\

No surprise there, and there's not really any reason why their moat would be stronger in emerging markets over the long term. They really need to change what they are doing or they'll keep getting the same results. Doesn't mean there's no money to be made with the stock, though -- that I don't know..

Well done Allan! Very happy you are doing well!

He works for Columbia University Press? i had no idea.

Ben, did you just cut & paste this page? http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15368-3/the-most-important-thing

I loved that speech when I saw it on the show. It's definitely very Buffett-esque... Or even Munger-esque.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Inspiring! Thanks for sharing with us, Parsad.

Everybody here has the ability to look at who wrote a post and decide not to read it if they don't want to, or not to reply to it. Doing this requires very little discipline compared to the willpower required to invest money, so I think the people here should be able to manage it.