Liberty

It's great. It's not just a business biography, but also a personal biography, so as long as you're fine with that and aren't just expecting an updated version of the Lowenstein book, I think you'll like it.

Well, that was fun. I ended up meeting about 15 people who either are on Twitter or on this forum that I had never met before. The AGM was very instructive, IMO. Great chance to hear all of the division heads answer questions for a couple hours, get a feel for the depth of the bench and how they're thinking about things and what they're focused on. I was a bit early to see if I could meet people before the AGM, so I ended up sitting in the front row in the center. The whole trip ended up costing me: C$100 train C$100 AirBNB C$11 Chipotle Mexican Grill (had never tried it before. I liked it) C$13 for a scotch at the pub (Highland Park 12, for those curious -- I ended up spilling most of it on myself because I'm used to Glencairn Glasses, so when I brought it up distractedly the angle was all wrong... the barman had pity on me and gave me a refill) So C$226 isn't bad. Most people probably spend more on a hotel room, and my AirBNB was 2 blocks from the AGM (and right next to the CN Tower downtown). Quite a view: Here's the view from the conference room at McCarthy Tetrault (CSU's law firm) where the AGM took place:

By my count 9 or 10 people showed up, which is more than I expected. Thanks for coming! I had a great time. (we had people who flew in all the way from Scandinavia, Europe, and two New York hedge fund gentlemen who joined us later in the evening). Who knows, maybe I'll try to come to toronto again next year and try to make this into a yearly thing... :D

Just got to my airbnb room. Leaving soon for the C'est What. Hopefully someone shows up :D

Today I'll be in Toronto (for CSU AGM...). Planning to have drinks with fintwit and CoBF people who want to join me at the C'est What pub (exact time tbd, prob around ~7-8PM until maybe 11-12). I'll try to post on my Twitter and here when I have the exact time (I'm walking from the train station to my AirBNB, then getting something to eat, and then I'll go to the pub). Details: If you want to drop by and say "hi", feel free. It's totally ad hoc. It's just so rare that I go to toronto that I figured I'd try to meet some online people. I'll also be at the CSU AGM the next day. I'll be the only guy not wearing a suit (I don't own a suit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Cheers!

Mathematically, this isn't correct. You need to make more from your investments than you would working AND putting your money into index funds. This isn't quite correct either, because you don't necessarily need all the money you make while working to live. Hopefully you make a big surplus, which is what allowed you to save up and invest in the first place.

Thank you netnet!

Home Capital not having a good time: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/hcg-to-home-capital-group/msg296793/#msg296793

Ha! It's all worthless to anyone but me. But I like it. I tag everything by ticker so I can do a search and find everything I have on a certain company, I highlight key passages so that it's easy to skim and see what each part is about, etc. I like the ability to go back and see what I was really thinking at the time to study past mistakes or missed opportunities, etc. It's digital. Basically just an encrypted Pages document that syncs to all my devices via iCloud, reverse chronological, with today's stuff on top tagged with the date, each part separated by dashes. Very simple.

Yes! That's why earlier in this thread I mentioned that I don't think "retirement" is quite the right word, because it conjures up images of playing golf and sitting around relaxing all day. I'm pretty sure that I "work" as hard or more than most people who have jobs. I have this investment journal that I've been keeping for a few years, and just YTD I have 105k words in it (not all mine, some excerpts from things I read - notes on conference calls, 10Ks, interviews, etc), and last year I ended the year with 254k words in my journal. So I basically have a novel's worth of highlights each year just for investing, and I read a lot more things than what I decide it worth keeping. But there's still a huge difference doing something that you've chosen because you want to and doing something that you like, but that is for someone else and that they have ultimate control over. If I decided investing wasn't what I wanted to do, I could put everything in index funds or with a manager I trust and then do something else with my time.

Because it's working so well right now? ;) To me it's just a manifestation of the engineering and investing mindsets: Decide what you want to optimize for (personal happiness? figure out what causes personal happiness for you and then what would increase those things), then allocate your resources in the way that maximises it (how do you want to allocate your time and capital to achieve your goals). I think the world could use more people who try to be rational about these things, rather than just do whatever everybody else is doing and then expect better result than the average (which doesn't seem that great to me).

Agreed. I don't think retirement is probably the best word for this because of all the baggage that comes with it, but I don't really have a better one. Financial independence, maybe? It's not like most FI/"retired" people just lay around on the beach all day doing nothing... Highly motivated and active people stay highly motivated and active when they are independent, and less motivated people like your neighbours were probably not that great back when they had a job... What I do all day is still "work" in many ways, but it's really different in many others. Before, I used to work all day and then never feel like I had enough time for my own stuff. I worked maybe 40 hours a week, and then spent maybe 20 hours a week on investing, and then tried to read history books and see my friends somewhere in there, on top of spending enough time with my wife... and then we had a kid so even more investing and reading and friends stuff got axed. Only so many hours in the day. I never liked reading in school, because I "had to do it" and someone else picked the books. But now I read all the time whatever I want.To me this whole thing feels similar. Lots of things would be really fun to do as a project, but if it was a job, it'd be a lot less fun. Maybe it's the way I'm wired, I know I'm not typical.

Ah, hard to tell sometimes with text. Cheers! Update: All this got me ruminating on the topic, so here's one way to think about it for those who are interested: If certain conditions are met, like being healthy, then what we are, essentially, is our time. It's our most finite resource, and anything we want to do or learn or be necessitates the time for it. When we work we sell our time (and energy) to others. We're kind of selling our lives to them. It doesn't need to be terrible if you have a good job (I had what I considered to be a great job with lots of freedom), but that's still what it is. If most of what you do with your money is buy lots of stuff (fancy cars, fancy gadgets, fancy house, fancy furniture, expensive hobbies, etc), what you are in essence doing is trading your time (life-time, literally) for stuff. Just make sure that the trade is really worth it, and that there isn't another way to allocate your time that you'd prefer. By saving a lot and investing, what I essentially wanted to do was buy back my own time, purchase my freedom. I could've driven a fancier car and lived in a bigger house or whatever, but I don't think it would've made much of a dent on my happiness level (the acquisition of stuff usually makes you happier when you anticipate it, then you get it and there's a mini spike, and the you revert to your mean - that's why I often space out my fun purchases rather than do them all at once). In fact, it never felt at all like making sacrifices because I had a much better goal than a fancy car. Every dollar that goes in the kitty felt much better than a dollar spent on whatever crap that people spend tens of thousands of dollars on every year (I wish I knew). There are good books on what actually makes people happy vs what people think will make them happy. 'Stumbling on Happiness' by Dan Gilbert is one that I remember reading years ago, if the topic interests you. On the other hand, having my time to myself does have a big impact. I can spend more time with my kid, with my wife, I can read more books, listen to more music, spend my time working on my own projects (I like investing these days) rather than an employer's priorities. When I feel like taking a walk or going out I can, etc. So that was a trade worth making for me. Others will have different priorities, but they should carefully consider the options and tradeoffs rather than just follow in the path that everybody travels on of "spend nearly everything you make chasing some 'standard of living', saving 5-10%, work until you are old and gray, and then have a big vacation". Financial independence can even be a good way to work even harder than before - start a business, even - because when you are doing the things that interest you most, that's what tends to happen but it's way more fulfilling. Or even the very same job because a lot more fun - and less stressful - when you don't need it. Just my 2 cents. YMMV.

Did I misread or did you misread? Dying with 2x your principal isn't safe? Man, you must not drive or use stairs or invest in equities if that's your safety requirement... I never said anything about that. My wife likes her job and the structure of the office job life, so she works. But she's not worried about money, she can take months or years off at any time if she wants, or she can change jobs while taking her time and without stress. To her that's the level of freedom that makes her most happy. Personally, I'm more independent-minded, I like to be 100% in control of my time and my projects and I don't need as much social interactions, so I'm happy sitting here in my home office or in the backyard doing my stuff on my schedule. To each their own, that's my point. Having options. If I liked it more than the alternatives, I could go get a job tomorrow. Many people would like to retire or work less or change job, but they can't or won't because they imagine that they need $5m to be safe and they're spending everything they're earning because they think buying crap is what will make them happy, causing all kinds of stress because they have all those bills to pay and all those things to worry about on the great treadmill to retirement at 65 while keeping up with the Jones or whatever... Have you watched the video I linked above? Clearly this isn't about "not working", it's about freedom. I didn't pick the name Liberty for no reason. It's one of the things I value most.

Just saw this tweet go by, thought it was apropos: (No, haven't verified the numbers yet, feel free to do so.)

Hindsight is 20/20. It could've gone the other way, so don't beat yourself up on a win because it could've been even better. Someone else is always getting richer faster than you are, as Munger would say...

Good talk by Juliaf Galef about applied rationality. Useful stuff for all investors, obviously: (11 minutes long, but you can listen to it at 1.5x on youtube (settings gear)) If you like this, there's also a good podcast she was on here: http://theknowledgeproject.libsyn.com/julia-galef-on-becoming-more-rational-changing-minds-and-filtering-information

This reminds me of this interesting post that I read recently about the impact of indexes/passive investing on how markets price equity risk premiums and the impact on the perceived riskiness of these assets: http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2017/04/diversification-adaptation-and-stock-market-valuation/ It's long, but worth the read, like everything on that site.

So 95%+ of the US will never retire, right? btw, you subtly imply that I'm advocating retiring on not enough money. I don't. I just say that there's such a thing as bad tradeoffs possible between time and money, and in the real world, a lot of people find out that they don't spend nearly as much as they expected in retirement because there's a difference between making up numbers on paper and listening to what the financial industry tells you you need and actually living life, and so it's useful to learn from people's real experiences (f.ex. people in their 30s and 40s forget that housing and kids don't cost the same a few decades later). If you think the point of money is buying stuff, and that more stuff is better, then you'll never have enough. But if you think the point of money is buying freedom/independence, then you can realize that this is pretty cheap and that there's such a thing as "enough". By all means save up 3m or 5m or 10m before you retire just to be extra safe while you take big risks daily investing in individual equities, it's your life. But it is about being bed ridden: If you wait until you are old and sick to retire, you might regret all these 9 to 5 decades that'll end up just ensuring that you die very rich with lots of toys...

I'm not telling people to do anything. I'm telling them to take into account BOTH sides, because there are risks on both. One side is very visible and people like you constantly tell them about it, but the other side is mostly invisible and almost nobody ever talks about it. So take into account both sides when you calibrate your life plans, but do your own thinking.

So every retiree in the US is a multi-millionaire? I hadn't realized that.

http://www.680news.com/2017/04/24/buyers-remorse-millennial-homeowners-house-poor-want-sell/ "Buyer's remorse: Most millennial homeowners are house poor and want to sell"

It's interesting how people who are willing to handle a lot of risk by investing in individual stocks that they hand-pick are so risk-averse in other aspects of their lives. ie. It's fine putting your net worth in a dozen companies' stocks, but dog forbid you might have to cut back a bit on your three luxury vacations per year when you're old and wrinkly. So in the meantime you'll work a couple decades longer - years' you'll never get back - to make sure to avoid even the possibility of even having to cut back later on, sacrificing the present for some unknown future. Expenses are not fixed. You can have as much fun taking a vacation close to home as on the other side of the planet. A normal car will get you around just as well as a luxury vehicle. Happiness doesn't come from spending money past a pretty low level, which might be counter-intuitive because so many have a vested interest in selling that idea, but it's the truth; happiness comes from having meaningful things to do, good relationships with friends, kids, and romantic partners, health, challenges, art, helping others, control over your time, low stress environments, learning new things, etc. This video explains it well: That's how I view things, anyway. Each had to find out for themselves, but I feel too many just follow the path well travelled without ever questioning if it's actually a good one.

The financial industry has a big incentive in convincing people that they need a lot more than they actually do. Just more fees for them.

I'm not saying that it's not risky or is risky. I'm saying: Look at the risk on the other side. Sins of commission always get more attention than sins of omission, but they can be just as meaningful to someone's life. Sometimes more.