Liberty

If that's not a forum-banning offense, I don't know what is.

Too early to tell with precision, but I wonder what the impact of China’s high air pollution levels and high smoking levels (esp. men) have on complication probability for a pulmonary disease, and whether places without those negative cofactors can do significantly better.

Piece by Bill Gates: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2003762 Meanwhile, Pence has already started the clamp down: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/485147-rep-garamendi-nih-director-fauci-cancelled-on-five-sunday-talk-shows-after

This is what a competent response looks like: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/trump-chief-of-staff-mulvaney-suggests-people-ignore-coronavirus-news-to-calm-markets.html

This is Michael Lewis’ Fifth Risk:

The CEO of a company isn't in the R&D lab or on the factory floor or doing sales call or doing building maintenance (most of the time) either, but do you think it doesn't matter who the one making the decisions, picking the team and allocating resources is?

So he can't make decisions based on what people below him tell him? And that's good? Or he can make decisions...? So you think he's the right person to make those decisions? Seems like either way, he's the wrong person for the job.

Yeah, the question is more, will they be allowed to do their jobs, or will they be vetoed for political reasons. It's not a good sign when they tell scientists that they can't say anything without being cleared by the White House and when Trump publicly contradicts the CDC and WHO...

Yeah, he's clearly the fall guy. Trump said things were fine, so if things turn out not too bad, he can say he was right. If they get bad, he can blame Pence. It's 100% consistent with his M.O. Anything goes well, it's him, anything goes bad, it's someone else around him that he now "barely knows" and that "begged him for the job"...

It's not personal, I'm anti-stupidity and anti-corruption generally. Can you stop bringing the thread off-topic now please?

Yes, their hate is starting to show. ;) Can't point out that the coronavirus czar is incompetent in the coronavirus thread because it's inconvenient to your politics? You're the one looking at this through a political lens. We're looking at it through a scientific one.

Yeah, guy who said around 2000 that smoking doesn't kill, and let an AIDS situation get out of hand in his state, likely because of his anti-science views... Just the guy to put in charge.

I guess ZINC's management read this article and applied it. So the conclusion is there should be more companies like ZINC... Maybe these guys should read Kahneman and Tversky. There's a lot more at play than incentive strutures. Not really.

"WASHINGTON — The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by government health officials and scientists, directing them to clear all statements and public appearance with the office of Vice President Mike Pence .."

Probably already posted, but if not: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html

https://hbr.org/amp/2020/03/your-company-is-too-risk-averse Interesting piece.

The cases that make it to the hospital or are diagnosed clinically are the worst ones. So 2% of those isn't 2% of ALL cases. A lot of people get a mild form, stay home with a fever, and recover. Not all those will get diagnosed and counted.

Thread: https://virologydownunder.com/so-you-think-youve-about-to-be-in-a-pandemic/

Definitely. And next year Q1 and Q2's earnings will look amazing in comparison... Market right now seems to be expecting these warnings, so we'll see what their magnitude is and how the market reacts.

How deep? They seem to have many positions and not be *that* concentrated. Sounds like it could've hurt performance, but take the whole fund down? I'd need a bit more evidence or numbers to believe that against my priors that they have at least 15-25 positions at a time.

They partially scale in and out as relative valuations change among their portfolio picks, it's not trading in and out fully like most do it. Maybe they have mostly non-taxable LPs? Not being like Buffett doesn't have to be a bad thing. There's not just one way to invest well, especially since Buffett had a lot more churn when his AUM was still small (and I don't mean just cigar butts.. he sold stuff like Disney and Capital Cities (bought back in when they bought ABC, iirc), I think).

Buffett did technical analysis when he started and made plenty of mistakes, including buying Berkshire. Mauboussin hasn't made stock recommendations in all the time that I've known him, and looking back at a bad call from 20 years ago with obvious hindsight bias has little value to me. I judge him on his output, and that output is brilliant. If you throw out the baby with the bathwater, it's your loss.

You've never made mistakes? Good for you. All the smartest hedge funds were in Valeant. ValueAct, Ackman, Glen Greenberg, Sequoia, and a bunch of others. I'm sure they're all terrible stock pickers. Mauboussin is one of the best the field has to offer and has thought more people more useful things than almost anyone this side of Buffett and Munger.

Mauboussin at Capital Camp 2019 (46 minutes, released Jan 31 2020):