Liberty

;D

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14258888

Out of curiosity, how can you predict that it is the bottom or near it just by looking at a graph of past trades? If that actually worked, wouldn't technical analysts be the best-performing investors?

Thanks for posting. This is a good reminder: "Home equity loans enabling owners to drain off any equity in their homes. Fifty years ago these were called second mortgages, and people who had them were considered by their neighbors to be in financial trouble." Crazy how renaming something can totally change how people see it.

For some reason there's been a radio silence about WDC in the past few months. We used to hear more about them in the past.. Myth, do you still have your position? Here's their Q4: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wd-announces-q4-revenue-of-24-billion-and-net-income-of-158-million-or-067-per-share-125973023.html

Good numbers. Stock down -0.79 right now though.

And it's not like the kind of default that is on the table right now would reduce debt obligations. The US would still pay its debts in most likely scenarios, but only after creating a crisis of confidence among its debtors. How is that good, I'm not sure...

Argentina or Greece defaulting isn't quite the same as the US defaulting, though, is it? When you're at the bottom and a relatively small economy, you can't go much lower, but when you're AAA and the biggest economy in the world, you have much more to lose and there's going to be a lot more uncertainty about how market will take it.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think it probably depends a lot of how much you care about resolution/sound quality, and how much you've invested in a home theater setup. I know people who are the exact opposite and pretty much stream everything, and can't wait for the selection there to get better so they can drop DVDs altogether.

I'm 100% invested right now, and plowing new cash in as it comes in because there are at least 3 businesses that I like that are cheap (two of them being really cheap). I have no idea where macro will go, what matters to me is that whatever I'm buying is cheap and has good downside protection. Right now I feel more scared of letting some fat pitches pass and missing good opportunities than of seeing my portfolio go down for a while (I'm not planning to sell anytime soon, and most of the corps I invest in have little debt and have shown that they allocates capital very well in downturns, so they should come out strong on the other side).

Thanks for posting, I just watched it and it's a pretty good overview.

Out of curiosity, why is something like 6-7 bucks per month that big of a deal? Isn't the value provided by Netflix much more than that? I've heard many people threaten to cancel because of it, but I'm having trouble understanding why. I'm not a netflix subscriber, but if I was, the difference between 10 and 16$ for unlimited movies and TV series doesn't seem like that big a deal. I'm sure Reeds bundled stream for free with the other subscriptions to help it catch on (a kind of risk free trial -- or as drugs dealers say, the first hit is free but once you're hooked...) and because there were no doubt higher margins in streaming than in shipping DVDs, but I never though that it would stay "free" forever, especially as more people use it and they start paying more for content. The recent price increase is big as a %, but the total amounts are still pretty small compared to the value provided (rent all those movies and TV series separately and see how much it costs).

I think Warren's point is that it doesn't make sense to threaten not to pay your bills and default every time there's an internal debate about the proper level of spending. Can you imagine if every country did things like that, potentially defaulting every time politicians are split?

I think the most important insight is what this tells us about the commercial culture in China. That someone with enough resources to do this thought this was a good idea... Wow.

Walter Isaacson (a great biographer! but he doesn't get to say much here because Summers is a talking-machine) interviews Larry Summers: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/19/brainstorm-tech-video-larry-summers-transcript/

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59335.html

MSFT apparently dropping out of Hulu bidding: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-19/microsoft-is-said-to-drop-out-of-auction-for-hulu-online-streaming-service.html

I'm now in 7 public businesses, with my top 2 representing over 60% of my portfolio.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201107181157dowjonesdjonline000171&title=president-obama-meets-with-more-than-a-dozen-business-leaders

There's a market for both. I'm the exact opposite; I find Office painful to use, bloated, expensive, etc, while Google Docs just does what I need and all my stuff is available from any computer or device instantly, easy to share and collaborate with others, etc. I always have a browser open, so I can access any document in about a second, which is better than launching a new software app that probably takes half a gig of RAM just to write a letter.. From a business perspective, one thing to consider is that almost all Google Docs users will be former MS Office customers, while most Office 365 customers will be former MS Office customers. Office software is quite mature, and I have little doubt that in a few years Google Apps will be where MS is now when it comes to functionality, while MS stuff will still pretty much be where it is now because new features for Office stuff are few and far in between. I've explained in another thread what I think about the disappearance of the lock in features that created such a network effect for MS.. Anyway, it'll be interesting to watch this develop.

Why the sad face? Did you short it? I bought GOOG 3 weeks ago. Up 24% since then. That's too short a time period for me to pat myself on the back and have an opinion either way on the correctness of my analysis, but I'm happy with Mr. Market;s mood right now and glad I didn't dither for a few days more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-15/corporate-america-to-miss-munger-as-mencken-commentary-by-alice-schroeder.html

Looks like MSFT is working on its own social thingy,and they accidentally published part of it to the web (for real, check out: http://www.socl.com/ ). http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/14/microsoft-social-project-tulalip/ We'll see if anything ever comes out of it or if it's another Microsoft Research thing that never ships.

This is great news. Fairfax needs to keep going into sectors of the economy where they have an edge and can identify inefficient prices. India seems like such a place.

I initiated a position in GOOG at $482. They were selling for the first time at the price in late 2006...