Charlie

The name is Tesco, not Posco.

Sometimes the short ideas are perfectly obvious. The 26-minute, 51% wipeout that deepened Trump family's crypto woes https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/cryptocurrency/26-minute-51-wipeout-deepened-trump-familys-crypto-woes

@Dalal.Holdings John Hjorth and me are super anti-fragile. If Trump fucks up, we have still our home in Europe and Berkshire will be on a buying spree and if Europe fucks up, we will still survive with our Berkshire holdings that will be on a buying spree in Europe. Buffett: "A sign of a good/great business man is that he owns a good/great business." All these macro statements have nothing to do with successful investing. Successful investing is finding a great business, buying it cheap and sit on your ass.

I don't know what the 'geographical' equivalent of 'mansplaining' is! When we made our house larger, because of our twin babies the architect looked at my wife and me and told us: "In our village we have a saying that says: "Never build a house for a lawyer (me) or a teacher (my wife).

John Hjorth and me with our outsized Berkshire positions can only smile about some comments.

GDP per capita is the important figure. As I said before there is a shortage of skilled workers and that is partly solved by immigrants. There is a negative Headwind/Lollapalooza Effect in Germany going on: Increased competition in the auto industry, a shortage of skilled workers, tariffs from the U.S.A., less demand from China through higher competition and probably higher energy prices. On the other side wealth seems to be much better distributed than in the U.S., Europe is a big market, we try to reduce bureaucracy, we have a democracy, we make good products, we have no corrupt, criminal president and low inflation. Profitability has always been higher with U.S companies. That´s one the reasons why Buffett mostly invest in US companies. That´s the reason why I mostly invest in US companies. Micro trumps Macro.

@John Hjorth

You guys are all fooling yourself! I have been self-employed in Germany in different businesses all my life. Nothing was easier than that. If you have a great business idea you just start.... What is really a problem here is a shortage of skilled workers and immigration helps to solve the problem to some extent!!! Demographic problem: Germany and Italy both face demographic problems, primarily characterized by aging populations and low birth rates, but they differ in specific challenges. Germany's issue is a long-term declining population that relies heavily on immigration to offset high death rates, while Italy's problem is more acute, with an aging population and a population decline exacerbated by a critical brain drain and very low fertility rates. Germany Aging population: The baby boomer generation is moving into retirement, accelerating the aging of society. Low birth rate: Since 1972, more people have died each year than have been born. Population decline: Without immigration, the population would shrink significantly. Reliance on immigration: High levels of immigration have been necessary to maintain the population, but aging society is still a problem. Policy response: Germany is focusing on immigration, improving work-life balance to support higher birth rates, and adapting institutions to its aging and declining population. Italy Aging population: Italy has the oldest population in Europe, with the highest median age. Very low birth rate: The birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe, with fertility rates around 1.2 children per woman. Population decline: The population has been shrinking due to low births and emigration. Brain drain: There is a significant "brain drain," with skilled workers emigrating to other countries, worsening the situation. Policy response: The government is attempting to address the crisis through initiatives to train, attract, and keep skilled workers, though the problem is considered very deep-seated. The consequences: 1. The demographic problem hurts GDP growth. So in theory we need much more immigration of highly skilled workers, not less.... 2. If you really want to buy a nice cheap house in Europe look in Italy.

A Democracy has some similarities to Oxygen, Health, Freedom or Cash. When it is always available, nobody values it much and takes it for granted. But if it gets scarce or somebody takes it away from you, it is the only thing that really matters!!! Benjamin Franklin: "The scarcer things are, the more they are valued."

@gfp Thanks for sharing! "When he discussed his legacy, he said he was comfortable with his accomplishments and optimistic about Berkshire’s future. “Once it’s built, you don’t need to be Warren and Charlie,” he told a friend. “What we have is a framework for looking at investments.” Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I forgot one important point: My impression is that for whatever reasons the inflation in Europe seems to be much lower than in the U.S. Trump made inflation great again.

@Dalal.Holdings There are always problems. People adapt to these problems and life will go on. Over time the living standards will be increasing worldwide. Some faster, some slower. If you really want to grow fast, start with a lower base.

These are totally oversimplified platitudes like "all americans are Trump fans" or something like that. Have you ever been in Europe? The opinions of people are as diverse as in the US. The problem with this totally simplified platitudes is that you are not convincing anybody here, but you are hammering these ideas deeper in your head and repeat them endlessly in this thread. Of course there are problems in Europe, but we have a good functioning democracy, no ICE, no gun problem and no fentanyl problem. You can live very good in Europe, perhaps better than in the U.S.

I liked/like all the hard working mexican worker in the See´s Candy factory. They are working for us as Berkshire shareholders! God bless the hard working immigrants!!!

Mohnish Pabrai has a bad reputation here, but I often find he says interesting things: "One thing Warren Buffett says is that you get a punch card, which you can punch 20 times in your lifetime. Each time you buy a stock, one punch is gone. What Warren is saying is that if there were a rule that said that you cannot buy more than 20 stocks in your whole life, you would be thoughtful about what you bought. Those decisions might be good because you only have 19 left and then 18 left, and so on. In venture investing, a small sliver of companies that venture capitalists invest in do well. If we look at the stock market, 4% of listed companies generate 90% of the return. Most companies that we may think about investing in are likely not to do well for us. It is a 96% odds, and that is why the index is so important. When you buy the index, you buy that 4%. If you go pick stocks, you have about a one in 25 chance of getting one of those 4%." "Warren Buffett has said that over his 50 years of running Berkshire Hathaway, he has made hundreds of investments, and only 12 have moved the needle for Berkshire Hathaway. It is the same 3 or 4% rule, where if we say that Warren made 300 investments (he probably made more than 300), only 12 have resulted in what we see as Berkshire Hathaway today. The important thing was not the buy decision on those 12; it was never selling them." "The S&P has plenty of periods where it does nothing. It is somewhat overheated right now. But if you have a long enough time horizon and you are dollar-cost averaging in, it is perfectly okay. What you could also do as an alternative is buy Berkshire Hathaway. That is a stock, BRK.B. You could tell these people to just put it into Berkshire Hathaway. It is like an index. Again, it is a “set it and forget it” approach. You do not need to think about the investing side. You focus on the yellow, and keep putting this little money away on the side, and it is going to compound. Let us go over this example. At 18, you put away $5,000, with a 10% return on the money. Fast forward to when you are 68, 50 years later. Let us say every seven years, your money doubles. Using the Rule of 72, if you divide 70 by 10, that is seven, 50 years is seven doubles. Seven times seven is 49. Two to the power of seven is 128. We can throw away the 28 to keep it simple. You are going to have a hundred times what you started with. So the 5,000 at 18 is going to be 500,000 at 68. At 19, if you put in another 5,000, that is another 500,000. At 20, you might have 10,000 you can put in. You can start seeing that over a lifetime, you are going to have too much money. http://www.chaiwithpabrai.com/uploads/5/5/1/3/55139655/20250917_mohnish_pabrais_session_at_the_diary_of_a_ceo_on_july_13_2025_v3.pdf Cheers!

Yeah, anyone have thoughts on what this accomplishes? Buffett is and has always been a no-risk guy or as Benjamin Franklin said: "Distrust and caution are the parents of security."

I bought 2 shares today. I hope this will increase my focus.

member

@John Hjorth You just click and copy it.

Why? Prejudice exists in all shapes and forms. I've experienced it my whole life. And just for the record, it didn't start with Trump even though that is a convenient excuse. This is true, but Trump brought bad behavior as one of the worst role models there is to a higher level. There are a lot of (Trump behavior) imitation trolls out there.

"Well you guys continue to take Trump literally. Trump’s a salesman." Are you seriously suggesting that all salespeople are liars? Your experience is far different than mine or you have been dealing with the wrong people. PS. Trump is not a salesman. Donald Trump is the President of the United States. One would expect better. “If you rise in life, you have to behave in a certain way. You can go to a strip club if you’re a beer-swilling sand shoveler, but if you’re the Bishop of Boston, you shouldn’t go.” Charlie Munger

Bought some more Berkshire b shares. Thank god the european stock exchanges open before the U.S. stock exchanges.

Berkshire Operating Profits Rose 33% in Third Quarter. There Were No Stock Buybacks. https://www.barrons.com/articles/berkshire-hathaway-earnings-stock-price-warren-buffett-9c6c7949?mod=stockoverview P/B 1,4757 Cheers!

Bought some Berkshire b shares. The statistical weak stock months September and October are over, Berkshire will likely post great results tomorrow and the stock has underperformed the S&P 500 greatly since May. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-10-30-2025/card/berkshire-s-buffett-premium-might-have-already-retired-EpcJtzFazicyWfx8FUTh?siteid=yhoof2

No, they probably don't. But once you are made the head of the HHS, a significant amount of credibility is undeservedly earned. Not too mention the sheer amount of power he has now to fuck things up and get more people killed...which he is moving forward with! Cheers! Dr. Voodoo (Kennedy) reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Munger about most people in the stock picking industry: "If you stop to think about it, civilized man has always had soothsayers and shamans and faith healers and God knows what all. The stock picking industry is four or five percent super rational disciplined people. The rest of them are sort of like faith healers or shamans. That´s the way it is, I´m afraid. It´s nice that they keep an image of being constructive, sensible people when they´re really would-be faith healers. It keeps the self-respect up." Cheers!