Mephistopheles

If airlines I bet he takes out Southwest Super clean balance sheet, great culture, happy employees, happy customers, and he was friends with Herb Kellehar the founder

He has enough cash to buy back stock at a certain % of daily trading volume (whatever the max without moving the price) AND buy other things.

I'm sorry, you work in healthcare? As in caring of people who are ill, with the goal of them getting better? There are goals and there are realities. The reality is if your old and/or immuno compromised your more likely to die if you get the corona virus. Without a cure what exactly would you like a healthcare worker to do in that situation? I know that the internet does not convey tone well, so please believe me when I say that I mean this in the most sincere, non-offense way - I think you should find another line of work outside of the healthcare industry. If your default response whenever someone is ill with an unknown illness or an illness in which there is no cure is to suggest that there's nothing to do, then perhaps trying to help those in need of help is your calling. Lol I agree with the sentiment that the old and immunocompromised are the worst affected by this virus, and that many of them will die from this, and that's reality. There is no treatment, is that hard to understand? orthopa, I'm sure you're doing great work in the healthcare industry :) P.s., I am a doctor

Bought a basket of airlines, mostly Southwest but also Delta, Spirit, Jet Blue and Alaska. Interesting that airlines went down and everything else exploded up. If shit hits the fan with this virus is the market expecting only airlines to be affected??

I can't believe the prefs didn't move up significantly today. He straight said that he won't wipe out shareholders, and that will dilute common and go public. Can't get any more plain English than that! Even blamed the liquidation preference increasing for building capital on lawyers. What am I missing?

I'm just referring to the cash hoard and lack of acquisitions. Downturn would create more opportunities.

I thought he elaborated in the letter that he has instructed his estate’s trustees to keep it “all in Berkshire shares” to the moment of disbursements. Even with the small possibility that this may not work out as well as he’s hoping it will. Well the Gates foundation has to sell the donated shares within a year or two after receiving. The instruction for his estate is for his personal shares that he owns, not the ones that are already donated. He has instructed the estate to hold on to all the shares and donate them per the schedule over the 10-15 years after he dies and to not sell the shares.

All we need is a recession, bear market or so. He can probably spend $50 billion in one move and it will alleviate a lot of the concerns with the cash. We've had like 10 years without a recession and 11 in a bull market, it's quite unprecedented. Combine that with free easy money which the LBO guys use for acquisitions and you can see why there hasn't been any M&A at BRK in a few years. Additionally I think Buffett is more of a market timer than he says. Do what he does not what he says. Holding all this cash makes him look stupid now but when we see a prolonged bear market, recession and/or some financial crisis he will pull out the bazooka. Look out for a KHC or other highly indebted, suffering company takeover in this moment. He's just waiting for the ideal timing. On a side note if Bloomberg becomes President I bet the company goes to Berkshire.

90% of me agrees, don't expect anything pre-election (at a minimum). the capital build amounts chosen in the letter agreements (relative to earnings paths) + repeated delays by calabria tell this story well. 10% holds out hope that the team is stronger than they appear and do the honorable thing: some deal this summer whereby the warrants are monetized up front in conjunction with a 4th amendment. the only support I have for this is the 'coming months' quote from calabria in the sep30 letter agreement. The headline during election months when they monetize the warrants and take in $100 billion in gains would look pretty sweet for Trump.

Still no timeline or details on what to do with shareholders. Sigh I really hope someone like Bloomberg, who wants to nationalize, wins the nomination just to force their hand. I don't think mnuchin is stupid enough to wait until next Presidential term to take irrevocable action

I've owned this for over 5 years. Initially I would try to grasp the legal stuff but as the number of cases kept growing it all now goes over my head. I'm banking on the administration's public comments. My question from 10,000 foot level is. These guys have to know that there is a very real chance Trump is out of office a year from now, right? So whatever they want to do, they need to get it done or set it in motion within 12 months, right? Unless they've given up and plan to kick the can to the next administration, but what's the purpose in that? From public comments they have indicated they want to make a change in the status quo so why kick the can down? What am I missing here?

Since the public shaming hasn't worked, try talking to your landlord who may be obliged to help under the smoke free act. If that doesn't work, try filing a complaint with the city. If you really want to be shrewed about it, try calling the cops, isn't pot smoking still illegal in NYC?

I suggest speaking with the neighbor directly in a friendly way. Pot smokers tend to be chill, laid back, and he'd probably agree to doing it outdoors or earlier or some compromise. If that doesn't work I go to the landlord and mention the smoke free act. If landlord doesn't help I'd bring it to the NYC Housing and Preservation Dept, the agency responsible for protecting tenant rights, to file a complaint. NYC tends to be very tenant friendly. Unless you own the place, not too familiar with owners rights but if nothing pans out and it is really interfering with your life than litigation is probably that necessary and last resort.

Also curious about this. Technically they're all pari passu but as others mentioned we need 2/3 of each class to agree on a deal to convert to common. What is your thinking behind this and which classes do you own? I tend to own the cheapest ones as a % of par which happens to be a few of the Freddie prefs but maybe I should trade in for some FNMAT.

Agreed that this the junior conversion scenario is normally how things are determined. But I am thinking of worst case scenario. ie wiping out existing shareholders, junior holders and giving 100% of the company to new holders. Maybe I'm too cynical but are they capable of doing that and if so what would stop them?

It's obvious these are going to raise capital and be released from conservatorship. It appears that it also needs to be ready to go by early 2021 in case Trump loses. They can either 1) be fair to shareholders and also maximize the value of the warrants or 2) give the companies away to John Paulson, Buffett and co. In the second scenario the new owners will get all the legal liabilities from legacy shareholders plus all the negative press. Also this sort of corruption can only hurt Trump, I imagine, in an election year. It would be equivalent to post Soviet Russia when the Oligarchs got ownership of the major corporations. Plus in this case Trump would want to hide the deal from the press and this means he wouldn't get to brag about all the money he made for Taxpayers via the warrants. So it may be easier just to play it fair and then Trump gets the bragging rights for the warrants. Thoughts?

I kind of see the angle there are taking but this guy has been wrong all along from start to finish on Fannie. I think the receivership option discussion was a show for the idiots at the hearing. When listening to the context of the discussion it was in response to questions that question whether some people (hedge funds) were to stand to make a windfall in privatization. Mnuchin even walks back from receivership as an option towards the end. I'm curious why any attention is still on the 10/22 mandatory hearing when the 10/23 interview Calabria chose to be on resulted in: 1) 19:45 minutes: CALABRIA CLARIFIES THAT HIS COMMENT TO WIPING OUT SHAREHOLDERS IS ONLY WHEN A COMPANY BECOMES INSOLVENT. THIS IS THE LAW. 2) 24:30 minutes: CALABRIA SAID FANNIE WAS INSOLVENT IN 2008-2012. FANNIE IS HUGELY PROFITABLE NOW. 3) 27 minutes: THE LAW SAYS THERE ARE ONLY TWO CHOICES...FIX AND REALEASE OR RECEIVERSHIP. SINCE RECEIVERSHIP CANNOT HAPPEN DUE TO POINTS 1 & 2, THE ONLY OPTION IS FIX AND RELEASE. refer to I just looked at each timestamp in your video you posted - and your notes don't really align to what he actually says. Not sure what I'm missing here / the point of this? But he does say that in the video. They asked him about wiping out shareholders, and he said that's what should have happened in 2008. He said the companies were insolvent back then thus the government was wrong to make a deal that preserved 20% stake for public holders. Had the shareholders been wiped out there wouldn't be extensive litigation is what he says. Now they're not insolvent, they have capital and building more, and are profitable. No reason to wipe out shareholders

I think he pretty much gave up on posting here. A shame, I liked his posts as well. CoBF's Walter Schloss. He was hilarious, I miss him too

FWIW, it appears that Buffett is friendly with Tim Cook too. Remember, they had a conversation re: use of all that cash at AAPL, and Buffett advised Cook to repurchase shares? And then all of a sudden Buffett has a $50 billion position in the stock...

Todd Combs is on the board of JPM just like Gates is on the board of Microsoft. Buffett is friends with Dimon, who are we to say how good of friends they are? Buffett, Bezos and Dimon I'm sure are friendly given the healthcare initiative. Combs is on the JPM board and BRK owns JPM. Neither Buffett, Combs or Weschler are on the MSFT board. I think illegal insider trading is more likely with JPM stock than with MSFT stock. We're splitting hairs if we're comparing the quality of the friendships in determining whether they should invest or not.

I agree Gregmal regarding MSFT. I've always thought that the reason he never bought MSFT was because he didn't think it had a durable competitive advantage, but in order to not offend his friend Bill he gives this excuse. I don't believe that the shrewdest investor of all time would pass up on an opportunity for such a stupid reason.

Mnuchin and Calabria have got to know the big risk of Trump losing the election and what that means for their plan, unless they're idiots. Why go through all this and not have a plan for that? This tells me everything will be in place to go for an ipo prior to inauguration day

Not surprised. It appears Buffett's bias in favor of women reveals itself yet again. Would a male have had the same opportunity and career trajectory right out business school?

$31?? That's piss poor

That would be assuming a symbolic fixed rate for the Srs. set at 0.1% and a minimal commitment fee for the 240+ bill not drawn. this assumes that the senior preferred are deemed paid in full. There can be no capital raise without that. fnma has a line of credit of $114B from treasury. So in the hearing today, Mnuchin said that the tax payer needs to be compensated going forward and that he doesn't want to wipe out the liquidation preference when ending the sweep. He even suggested increasing it in exchange for stopping the dividend. What are your thoughts?