dwy000

she's hilarious. Which is really weird given all she does is lip sync word for word.

Child. I have to be really ignorant to disagree with you? Just jealous? Oh yeah, fame and money just attract these accusations... Gates, Buffett, famous and far richer. So many women coming forward against them too, no? Why would he need to when he is in such a loving, committed, close knit marriage? Donald and Melania are inseparable and monogamous for life.

I'd suggest reviewing 70 year data on resident population growth, immigration growth, unemployment rates, real GDP per capita, infant mortality rates, and average life expectancy. Maybe overlay that with qualitative factors such as access to education, access to healthcare, voter's rights, and representation by demographic group in government. You're ignoring literal mountains of evidence in favor of sentimentalism. I'd want to change the subject too, if I were arguing your position :D lc...you're dragging me back in. What does 70 year data have to do with anything? China was allowed free trade by Clinton in 2000. And through most of that time we've had artificially low interest rates and huge deficits to maintain our broken system. If I were wrong, we wouldn't have the current leadership we do now either. ;) I would further suggest some historical review of China. Chinese international economic trends began far before the year 2000. Mao's policy in the 50s-60s spurred a lot of industrialization in China at the expense of individual workers. International impact was thin during this era and you can use it to establish a baseline case for the status of the US without China as a superpower. Post-Mao in the 70s China began a market-based economic model which leveraged and exploited this foundation from Mao. Rapid, de-centralized industrialization at cost (with human and environmental externalities - the price they paid). This was a rapidly expanding era that has essentially continued to-date. If you think a pre-China world is somehow better for the US, you can take a look at the 50s-60s statistics which I have suggested as they apply to the USA, and compare them to the 70s-2020 era. In almost every case, US has progressed incredibly during the time period coinciding with China's rise to power. It is one of the poster-child examples of how the theory of comparative advantage benefits both participants. A lot of this is due to China taking over low-skill work previously done within the US. But, I understand that politically, this fact does not sit well in red states of mind. Coincidentally, when speaking of red states (of mind), you can compare/contrast the USA during this pre- and post-China era and the USA during the pre- and post-Civil war era. During the Civil war, Confederate agriculture simply could not (or actually, would not) adapt to changing times and the rise of industrial manufacturing. This gave the Union a strong economic advantage. I have no problem with competitive or comparative advantages. I have a problem with the government putting the wealthy over the middle and lower classes. Do you really think market valuations would be where they are if the government had interest rates at normal levels? Do you think home prices on the coasts would be where they are compared to the rest of the country? Why should the government create debt and lower interest rates to prop up stocks but not to prop up manufacturing? If you are going to just let markets happen, then it should be all markets - not just what the higher ups like. The idea that you are not absolutely voting for Trump is a joke. You started out with that comment simply to imply that you're coming from some objective position. And then every post since then has been wrapped in a MAGA t-shirt. At least be upfront that you're a rally-going, shoot-someone-on-5th-avenue, nothing he does it wrong Trump supporter. It's a least more honest. But then again honesty and Trump....understood.

Richard. My quote of transcript "It wouldn’t be through injection. " was from original briefing on April 23. Its not a correction. The statement you are using to say he suggested injecting is "It wouldn’t be through injection". Transcript from April 23 when he supposedly suggested injecting bleach. Check for yourself. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-31/ This was clearly an inline correction by someone who blurted out an idiotic statement, realized it sounded idiotic, and then did an autocorrect. The fact that we are even having this conversation (and its only this week's conversation in a stream of similar conversations) shows how unfit this President is for any type of leadership. It's the President for crissakes!! It's the one person we shouldn't have to worry about telling their citizens to poison themselves and then backtracking. I used to tell my kids they could grow up to be President because it was so respected and esteemed. Now it's become a joke and reflects on America.

There are other factors: population density and volume of international travel being two that come to mind. Realistically my guess is a combination of all these factors. I don't think you can trust the "active" number. The tracking of recoveries is sketchy at best. If someone tests positive but they have a very mild case at home they're unlikely to go back into the system as recovered.

Considering they cancelled all elective procedures and appointments (or doing them by phone or video) and everything else, and people are probably doing EVERYTHING humanly possible to avoid going to the hospital right now, that makes sense. And this is why I'm long the health insurers during the biggest health pandemic. Just as the auto insurers are making a fortune (and giving credits) due to the slowdown in driving, the health insurers are likely making a fortune due to the severe drop in non-covid healthcare usage. Emergency room admissions (including covid) have fallen in half and doctor visits (non covid related) have also plummeted. KKR is cutting doctor salaries at Envision Healthcare due to lack of business.

The first quote has no reference whatsoever to a travel ban. How is the 2nd quote in any way reversing the first quote. The first quote continues to stand in it's own quite nicely.

You're kidding right - did you watch the democratic presidential debates? - Joe Biden AND Bernie Sanders said those bans to China and Europe were xenophobic, if not racist - and they WOULD not have imposed them. Go back and listen. https://www.redstate.com/jeffc/2020/03/14/biden-insists-on-opposing-coronavirus-travel-ban-despite-the-advice-of-experts/ https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/19/neither-biden-nor-sanders-would-have-saved-american-lives-with-travel-bans-like-trump-did/ https://nationalfile.com/flashback-biden-opposed-trumps-chinese-coronavirus-travel-ban-as-xenophobia/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/01/criticisms-of-trumps-coronavirus-response-are-sickening-devine/ 2 points on this: 1. None of the articles you included have Biden or Sanders criticizing the travel ban. The very, very politicized articles twist words to imply that is the case. They called Trump xenophobic but didn't say anything about the travel ban being wrong or inappropriate. 2. Just the publications you have used to try and prove the point....well kinda proves all the points being made here. You are so caught up in Trump-fever and reinforcing views that you have lost all capability to think logically for yourself. At least the people here can admit fault in democrats and hold independent views of their own. Not the case on your end.

I dont recall anyone questioning the Chinese travel ban. Anyone. And even if they did in some editorial it doesn't matter because it went into effect immediately. It wasn't delayed, it wasn't questioned, it was imposed -boom. How is that the fault of the opposition when Trump did exactly what he wanted to do??? The issue with the travel ban and the quarantining policies are not that he did it, it's that he didn't do enough and fast enough. By the time he acted the cat (or the virus) was out of the bag and the impact was magnified beyond immediate management. The incompetence was non-action (starting right from denial and claiming it was fake) and nothing the opposition did can be blamed for that. The buck stops at the top. You take the credit for the good and you take the blame for the bad. Period.

What if I care about all people but I choose to favor lives that won't come back above jobs that eventually will? I'm sure you are a complete humanitarian and a generous person. I'm not questioning that. I don't understand the scorn reserved for the President at a time of crisis. Some things are not going to go correctly, yet this is being used as the time to bring him down. Continue to have at it. It will likely work where impeachment didn't. How is the opposition party absolved of ANY responsibility here with a 3 year clusterfuck where the #1 issue was get rid of Trump and NOT GOVERN? Totally wasting everyone's time for nothing and ignoring issues critical to the country. How is the opposition party absolved of using this crisis to stuff a critical bill full of crap that has nothing to do with solving a crisis? Where were the governors that rooted on "open borders" and no immigration security and crapping on our streets? Do any of these politicians share any blame? Nope - not when you can blame it all on the President you hate. Continue to focus all your scorn on the President. You'll get you wish with wartime President Biden and associates Schiff, Pelosi and Nadler. Can't wait to see how they deal with this once they open the borders. How can the opposition be blamed when they aren't in power? It's the governing people's responsibility to govern. If Cuomo screws up in New York, he should be blamed. Regardless of your politics you have to support Truman's adage "The Buck Stops Here". That's the job of the president regardless of party.

The successful counties all have a number of things in common: robust, aggressive testing process in place. Information is communicated via their cell phone (personal freedom is secondary). Their populations are also educated and supportive of containment measures. Most everyone wears masks when they are out. Until we are able to do all these things we will need to keep everyone in lock down (very blunt instrument). Much should change in the next 8 weeks. Smart people should be able to figure this out. The sooner the better. I am least optimistic on the timing front; politicians and elected officials are often not the best and the brightest (and i say that will all due respect). Viking - why 8 weeks? Not saying that's wrong but why 8 instead of 4. Or 12. Or 3? And what happens at the end of that? Theres an article in NYT today from an Israeli who compares the lockdown to the lockdown from bombers in Jerusalem a couple of years ago. As he said, after a couple of days everyone got bored and stir crazy and started going out again. Thst was bombings and days, not unseen virus and months. There is simply no way Americans will comply for months at a time with no defined end date or measure of success while the economy melts down to irreparable. Aren't a high proportion of Americans 2 paychecks from the street? You cant just give them $1000 and say stay home for 6 months.

While I rarely agree with Bill Ackman he made a good point yesterday. You cant shut things down without giving an end date. We can argue whether 15 days is too short (probably) but you cant just lock people in their houses indefinitely and expect rational behavior or compliance. Anyone who has been stuck in a house with a couple of kids for more than a day will tell you that months is not an option. The part they need to define is what is the criteria for reopening things up. Do you wait for new cases to be zero? Do you wait until there is none globally (China still has new cases although most coming from overseas now). What is success? Hong Kong shit down, then reopened and the cases started rising again so they shut down again. I'm not clear from any of the medical professionals what success is here. And until you can frame that you cant define the economic impact to measure it against.

Just finished this one recently. For a story about (admittedly) math geeks it was interesting, an easy read and went quickly. Most interestingly, despite spending a great deal of time on how they trade and what they do, I really didn't come away with any better understanding of exactly what the secret sauce is for Renaissance. And I guess that's why they continue to be so successful. Honestly, there are dozens if not hundreds of firms trying to replicate their technical trading success. And with the ubiquity of data and the prevalence of mass computing I'm shocked nobody has cracked the code and the firm just continues to crank out ridiculous results. I think I came away with more desire to understand them than I had before reading it.

Great comment on dual class shares. If you pick the right people it can be a huge benefit as a shareholder (Diller, Malone, Google-guys, etc.). If you pick the wrong ones (Biglari, etc) it can be devastating. All comes down to character.

I'll answer this. Most of the politics discussions on CoB&F are grounded in ideology rather than reason and science, and therefore not very interesting. Take global warming. It's been settled for science for decades, but many on CoB&F pretend that it's a disputed issue. So, I treat the politics section in the same way that I'd treat anti-vax or flat-earther forums. If one's time has any value whatsoever, there's not many reasons to spend time talking to anti-vaxers or flat-earthers. On other forums I do talk about politics, but there I'm mostly trying to push left-wingers to the right. That's more interesting because the left (excluding communists) mostly believes that their positions should be grounded in evidence, reason, and science which means that those positions can be challenged on that basis. There are very few "undecideds" on any political discussion. Anyone joining a discussion on the Politics board probably has already taken a side. It is futile trying to get people to change their views based upon logic, facts or argument. It just makes them defensive and more strident in their views. There's a reason cults recruit people thru friendship, support and suggestion.

Toronto --> NYC --> London, UK --> NYC --> Sydney, Aus --> San Fran --> Portland, OR

A couple of other thoughts here (from someone who worked in leveraged debt finance for the better part of 15 years). - banks aren't really the lenders anymore. Most loans are now underwritten by banks and syndicated out to a very broad group of institutional investors and funds. Banks ususally are left holding the revolving facility because the borrowers want to know the money is there to draw down if things so south (and even that is changing); - given the extreme reach for yield by lenders, most large leveraged loans these days are "covenant lite". That means they have no covenants at all or the covenants are set so far below projections they are almost worthless. Take a look at some of the writings by Howard Marks and Oaktree on this topic (Oaktree is a huge leveraged lender). It is irrational and stupid but lenders will do just about any crazy thing to get a couple of extra basis points. - 5x makes some great points. One thing to add is to be very careful of secured loans vs. senior bonds. Technically, both are pari passu (equal in ranking) as senior obligations of the lender (along with payables, contracts, etc. etc). The difference is that the loans have security interest in some/most/all of the assets. If the value of those assets are less than the secured debt, the remainder is arm in arm with the bonds. Bonds are only subordinated to bank debt if they are expressly "subordinated debt". - as its been pointed out, covenants are rarely used to force a company into bankruptcy. In fact, loan lenders will typically give temporary waivers to keep the company out of technical default to avoid any cross default with the bonds. The real intention of covenants is to allow the secured lenders to force the company to raise additional equity, provide additional security or in some other way make sure the bank debt is "money good". If it's bad enough they can also provide the time needed to get the house in order to file for bankruptcy (bankruptcy is almost always filed voluntarily by the company and not forced upon them by the lenders) - most bank loans these days (at least big ones) are fairly liquid and when the company gets into trouble the debt will trade down and generally into the hands of distressed buyers (many primary buyers cannot buy debt under 90 cents on the dollar because it's deemed "distressed"). These buyers can sometimes, but rarely, be "loan-to-own" buyers who want to own the company (see Liberty's offer for IHeartRadio) but usually it's just distressed investors looking to buy high yielding assets they deem have sufficient security coverage (they play the price of the debt not the ownership of the company). - what is rarely discussed but hugely important these days is the credit derivative market. This is hedge funds and others buying and selling credit derivatives on a company that are usually referenced against the bank debt. In some circumstances the credit default volume can be 10x the size of the underlying loan. There have been bank loans trading at 50 right before bankruptcy that have traded up well above 100 upon filing for bankruptcy because the credit default market needed to buy the reference asset to deliver. that may be more detail than you were looking for. But wanted to give some background and perspetive. Hope it helps.

Not to turn this into a pension discussion but there are other issues contributing to underfunding that are not "greed" related. Start with the fact that the average retirement has extended consider considerably since most of those plans were created and the actuarial requirements have led to increased funding need. Then add the perverse requirements that if you overfund you cant get the money back but if you inderfund you're still on the hook. Why would anyone overpay into that kind of reality. It's the primary reason we have switched nationwide from defined benefit to defined contribution. It will take a long time to work thru.

Any way you spin it, it's really an impressive story. To start out with nothing and end up with billions is admirable (almost) any way you got there. For me it piqued a number of questions and I suspect the writer was painting with a very broad brush to make the story more reader friendly. For example, if he bought Apple at it's IPO he must have held it through the near bankruptcy years, which would have contradicted his rule to sell when down 25%. My favorite part (assuming its not exaggerated) is that even with literally billions to invest, he invests through Fidelity and Schwab. Do you think he qualifies as a Gold customer and gets free trading software?

This was a decent book but not what I've come to expect from Michael Lewis. I found I had to force myself to pick it up and keep plugging through and normally with a Michael Lewis book I have to force myself to put it down.

How funny. A 20 year old book and I just finished it this week too after picking it up a while ago in a used bookstore. The lessons are just as timely today as at any point in the company's history. I especially liked his rant about people complaining that they were killing off the small town mom and pop stores. He (rightly) claimed that they offered a better experience, better merchandising, better hours, friendlier staff and lower prices - and that's what killed off other stores. No point feeling nostalgic for operators who don't serve their customers as well.

Hmmm. Coincidence that the book is being launched in October???

Loved the book too. What I can't understand is how, as a country or a leader, you can object to the Act. Unless you are corrupt or supporting those who are corrupt, what could you possibly object to? Why would you rail against something punishing the corrupt? The very fact that they find it so restrictive and oppressive suggests guilt.

I was at a startup conference last week and the head of a new healthcare insurer was commenting on the announcement. Take the source for what you will....but he raised a couple of good points. He first questioned whether this would actually turn into anything meaningful. Apparently the average Amazon employee stays there less than 2 years. As the market shifts from fee-for-service to value-based-care that makes it a very difficult population to structure and price for long term coverage given you have 50% turnover in the underlying every year. Also tough to apply pre-emptive health services that many insurers are focusing on. The other point was that this is hugely beneficial for Amazon but he thought probably negative for everyone else. The vast majority of Amazon's employees are under 40 years old. This is the most desirable target group for insurers because they use very little healthcare and end us subsidizing the chronic care and older patients that account for over 80% of healthcare costs. By pulling it's "cheap to insure" population out of the broader insurance environment and self insuring, Amazon is both saving cost for itself and increasing cost for the rest of the insured population. I have to assume JPM and Berkshire employee bases have much broader age ranges and less turnover but it was an interesting observation.

Horrible book. There is nothing Warren Buffet about it - they suck people in with the title. They aren't even tracking real returns, everyone is tracking play-money accounts. Save your money.