dwy000

She did exactly what she set out to do tonight - not lose badly. Trump is imploding and needs a miracle win in the debates to help change trajectory. By simply holding her own and trading jabs it doesn't really help either party. Hilary doesn't need to do anything but count the days down and not screw up significantly.

I think you also have to consider the liability side of the funding shortfall. The return on assets by itself is not generally the issue, it is the returns assumption relative to the discount rate on the liabilities. Generally companies assume about a 2.5% spread between the return on plan assets and the discount rate for the liabilities - so as long as they continue to beat the discount rate by more than that differential the gap will close without any add'l contributions (and of course the opposite is true). Where it may come into play more directly for your investment analysis is that once the gap reaches certain levels, the company must pay cash into the plan (on a long term basis, not all upfront). In 2009, following the financial crisis there were so many ridiculously underfunded pension plans that the accounting standards board and the PBGC changed the funding requirements and assumptions to greatly extend the amount of time companies had to fund the gaps. 50% equities doesn't seem that aggressive if the plan has a 20+ year life. From the company's perspective it's almost a free option - if markets crash the PBGC steps in and duct tapes things together until a plan is in place; if markets soar my funding gap is gone as well as my need to cash fund the plan. I'm probably wrong on this but I can't think of any times the PBGC has forced an otherwise profitable company into bankruptcy. That would be political suicide. What would be more concerning that 50% equity allocation is if most of those equities are the company's stock itself.

Ummmmm. Okaaaaay.

Wow, you now have to go back 15 years to get a cumulative return that beats the S&P 500. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Even if the investments now pan out I don't know if it's enough to make up for the size and tenor of the declines.

I still can't figure out if this is supposed to be a joke. Highly entertaining though. In a tin-hat, kill me last kind of way.

I agree with many points you made but not the last one that I bolded. The younger generation is not supporting Trump. Look at the poll breakdowns. Trump polls poorly in the younger demographic. For example, here's the latest CNN poll http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/08/01/2016.post-dem.convention.pdf Under 45: Clinton 63%, Trump 30% Over 45: Clinton 44%, Trump 48% This poll is not an outlier. I've seen similar generational breakdowns in other polls. I think those numbers are just as extreme (if not more) when you look by education. People with post-secondary degrees are even more tilted away from Trump.

no one is extrapolating his words. They are quotes and tweets. There's no twisting or lack of evidence. And you should not have to extrapolate three layers deep to possibly find a way that horrible comments could possibly be taken as not horrible. That is not presidential. And rkbabang - I can see why you support Trump. Off the cuff remark that sidesteps the issue being discussed and is actually completely wrong. followed by no apology for being completely wrong but trying to twist it into something to save face.

Regardless of your view of his policies (whatever they are), his "F-U" to the establishment, his tough talk on trade and immigration - this is simply not a person who should be representing America to the world. I thought the comments on women and Mexicans were bad. Then the making fun of the disabled journalist. Then the racist comments about the judge. Then the invitation to Russia to hack his competition. But I'm sorry, the comments about the Khan family - and the refusal to apologize!?!?!?!?! I've sacrificed a lot because I've been very successful???? Shameful and embarrassing. This is not a person with the temperament and disposition to be the global and public leader of America. That's not what I want my kids growing up emulating, regardless of policy positions.

This is why I am skeptical of the press reporting anything. If you read the article is says it appears that the group did not provide an invitation but later said the group would not respond to the direct question of whether an invitation was given. No direct facts but speculation. Call me from Missouri but I see there is as much possibility of Trump being right versus what the article appears to imply. Packer Why would you tweet about turning down a meeting with people you don't want support from? Unless you were trying to save face for not actually being invited? He doesn't tweet about every meeting he turns down does he?

That's because he wasn't running for President. Everything he did before was just entertainment and you could laugh off the ego trip. Now he wants to represent America and it's not funny anymore.

Packer I'm really surprised at this. For one of the more rational and researched investors on the Board I can't believe you are getting good pulled in this direction. Trump has no substance behind these statements. if you think he spent more than 5 minutes thinking about trade deals before the campaign I'd guess that was overestimating. He will say whatever populist thing will keep him in the headlines regardless of the substance behind it. I'm still convinced he doesn't really want to be President he just loves the spotlight and can't turn back now. is it just me

If you have OneNote, you can print the file to OneNote, then you can highlight pages or sections and drag the corner of the "picture" to make it larger before printing.

Cause obviously "accomplished business people" cannot be wrong. We just need to clone their opinions. Oh wait. Some of you liberals need to get it though your head that when someones ego is bruised facts dont matter..its a shame but quite often facts dont matter especially in "human" systems....who was it Ben Frankilin who said "If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect." Its shocking how uneducated some of you liberals are when i comes to people skills. The reason I call the left out is because for the last 8 years its been "cool" to be liberal. You guys need a lesson in humility, Neil Tyson can deliver: https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/thinking-in-public Luke 6:27-36 - Love for Enemies 27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. Did you really just reference Neil Tyson and the bible in the same post?

Instead of spending all that money on a wedding why not just find a woman you hate and give her half your stuff?

I'm not a tax expert but I think you may be mixing up a number of tax issues: a) the tax for Liberty from spinning out LTRPA; b) the tax situation on the gains inside LTRPA; and c) from being a shareholder of LTRPA. The 2 years generally references the spinout of LTRPA from Liberty. If a spinout is acquired within that period there is a risk that the tax authorities can look back and put the capital gains tax liability from sale back on the spinner (Liberty). I've heard it is not a hard and fast rule within that 2 years but generally that 2 years is the time period after which this risk is deemed to have been removed for Liberty. Inside LTRPA, the company holds the shares of TRIP with a very low tax basis. If it sells those shares it will be subject to tax on the gains. If it swaps those shares for another asset of equal value then there is no realized gain, the company will just hold that new asset but still have the same tax basis on the new asset. If the company is acquired as a whole, the acquirer will take those assets at the low original tax basis and will not be able to depreciate them. As a shareholder of LTRPA, your tax basis should have been set at the time of the spinout (I think you can get these off the Liberty website). After the spinout, your tax basis should be same as for any other stock - ie. your cost of purchase. Again, not a tax expert but have gone through a number of these between Liberty stocks and the Graham spinoff of CableOne. Thank you very much! Regarding the case when Liberty Trip is acquired by TRIP, TRIP will hold the low cost basis of the shares inside Liberty Trip. Then if trip sells these shares, it has to pay the capital gain, but what if it cancels the shares just like in a buyback program? Another question. Why not directly spin off the trip shares to shareholders? Why go through this entire cycle to spin off Liberty trip, wait for two years, negotiate acquisition, and eventually the shareholder would receive trip shares? Good question. Just speaking from logic not expertise here... For the 2nd question - it is taxable to distribute the shares directly. That's why Yahoo couldn't distribute their Baidu shares directly. You need to package it up with an operating business to do the spinout on a non taxable basis. On the 1st question, I'm not really sure but it seems counterintuitive to pay gains on your own shares. Otherwise you could take capital losses on issuing shares and buying them back at a higher price. You're beyond my knowledge on that one!

I'm not a tax expert but I think you may be mixing up a number of tax issues: a) the tax for Liberty from spinning out LTRPA; b) the tax situation on the gains inside LTRPA; and c) from being a shareholder of LTRPA. The 2 years generally references the spinout of LTRPA from Liberty. If a spinout is acquired within that period there is a risk that the tax authorities can look back and put the capital gains tax liability from sale back on the spinner (Liberty). I've heard it is not a hard and fast rule within that 2 years but generally that 2 years is the time period after which this risk is deemed to have been removed for Liberty. Inside LTRPA, the company holds the shares of TRIP with a very low tax basis. If it sells those shares it will be subject to tax on the gains. If it swaps those shares for another asset of equal value then there is no realized gain, the company will just hold that new asset but still have the same tax basis on the new asset. If the company is acquired as a whole, the acquirer will take those assets at the low original tax basis and will not be able to depreciate them. As a shareholder of LTRPA, your tax basis should have been set at the time of the spinout (I think you can get these off the Liberty website). After the spinout, your tax basis should be same as for any other stock - ie. your cost of purchase. Again, not a tax expert but have gone through a number of these between Liberty stocks and the Graham spinoff of CableOne.

There are two points I would like to add. The first is that expenses are relative: So if someone nets 10k/month $100 is a mere 1% which is neglible. However, the second point is really a matter of simplifying your life. If you could use Netflix, Hulu or some other platform and that covers 95% of what you would be watching than having cable really is more of an annoyance. In terms of sports you could typically stream those for free online. See, I would have said the opposite. Having Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and Sling and HBO would probably cover 95% of my viewing but it's more complicated not less. Now I have 5 bills plus the broadband bill and it is a major pain to switch channels back and forth. It's worth the extra few bucks to have one provider, one bill and be able to surf channels - not to mention the other 250 channels that get thrown in too.

Okay I am obviously the outlier here but I pay full bore for cable every month and love every bit of it. For $100/month I get about 300 channels, all the movie channels, about 30 music channels etc, etc. etc. Plus access to new release movies generally faster and cheaper than they are available on Amazon or Netflix. All for $3/day - that's a cup of coffee. That's a pretty good bargain in my book - and frankly the amount we'd save by getting 3 or 4 OTT services is nothing compared to the value we get by having the entire selection live 100% of the time. Sure I generally only watch a small fraction of the channels 90% of the time but I love having the access to the others for those few times I want it. The one thing I would really miss is all the shows I would never even know to look for if I was just using Netflix or YouTube. The number of times I flip past something, stop and get riveted for an hour is amazing. Anyways, that's my two cents. It will be interesting to see how OTT users change behavior if the cable companies start charging for data like the cell phone companies. Malone for one thinks it is inevitable.

Patmo - looks like your math is right on the shares but I don't think you can just divide today's market cap across the number of shares. The share count is right but the division of the market cap between Liberty Media and Liberty Broadband will depend upon the deemed value of the assets under each entity. There's a pretty good discussion under the Liberty Media topic which shows the current discount vs asset value (you can apply the discount to either Charter within LB or Sirius within LM).

"The government determines what is sensible. " I suspect Obama's version of a sensible amount of redistribution is very different than say, Ron Paul's. Ultimately the people elect the government and there is a wide variation in what people think is "fair". I personally like Howard Mark's take on the definition of "fair": http://www.oaktreecapital.com/memo.aspx

There will always be rich and poor, successful and unsuccessful, have's and have-not's. Artificially handing cash from one to the other will not resolve that and it certainly doesn't incentive anyone to try and move from one to the other.

Look at the bright side Bruce, at least you don't have to worry about closing the fund because it's gotten too big anymore.

Totally right, IMO. More importantly, you then don't have "too big to fail". IMO It will definitely resolve the "too big to fail" issue but it won't stop large salaries or reduce risk taking. With all that new overhead to cover there will be a temptation to push the envelope a little bit harder to make money to cover it. There will always be risk takers and the ones who generate big revenues will get paid big bucks. The Volker rule will likely just move the risk taking from regulated institutions to hedge funds where the transparancy and regulations are less. That's not a bad thing as it moves that risk away from innocent depositers.

Excellent quote: "There are only three ways a company can grow. First, earn more business from your current customers. Second, attract customers from your competitors. Or third, buy another company. If you can’t do the first, what makes you think you can earn more business from your competitors’ customers or from customers you buy through acquisition" http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/01/25/wells-fargo-the-bank-that-works/

What's even more impressive is that they did it with 25% in cash (although in a down market that actually helps).