LC

Thank you for posting, Liberty - a good read. Some highlights, although really the entire article is worth the read:

I don't think he'd ever sell the knicks. They're a toy & status symbol (same with the garden). Cablevision is simply a business. In fact I'd say there's a greater chance the Garden sells, if somehow another huge venue gets build in manhattan. That is a higher probability event (IMHO) vs. adding another NBA team.

Welcome back! I look forward to reading stories of your adventure. ;D

Hear hear!

Pre-civilized humanity was pretty interesting in terms of life expectancy. It was essentially a tri-modal distribution: lots of deaths around birth/infancy, around 25-30 (usually dying of tooth infections), and the remainder actually living into their late years (50s, 60s, 70s).

That is true re Stress scenarios do not make assumptions on govt stimulus, good point.

One thing to note is some coronavirus projections are worse then the SA scenario, particularly concerning unemployment.

Some interesting news: Women Now Hold More Jobs Than Men In The U.S. Workforce https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/01/13/women-now-hold-more-jobs-than-men/#7220fd2c8f8a

Amen!

Right. And I think you can get there looking at the cash + earnings/valuations of the wholly owned subs + the equity portfolio.

Kindness does not pay the bills. Neither does being an asshole - the point is to distinguish between personality and value.

In that case, a CPA is probably not ideal at least in my opinion. Accounting rules can be learned independently as you mention.

Do you want to pursue a career in audit/accounting?

Short term I would expect a dividend cut to hurt call options. Long term I would expect a negligible effect

Agree, Sanjeev. Forecast results are difficult. PPNR for example is largely qualitatively estimated. While FRB had access to current data to perform their analysis, caution is needed when interpretation the results. The point is, while they are exhibiting cautious optimism, they could very well be wrong. The static dividend and tying payouts to earnings is prudent behavior. While the debt is concerning I think it was partially politically driven. Otherwise I have been continuously impressed by FRB for the past few years. Another important note is that these estimates are preliminary from FRB. Banks are performing their own analysis on Q1/Q2 data as we speak - these will be more accurate than FRB's sensitivity testing.

SSD

Yes, obviously. And if Brk-A trades at $1/share you should also purchase it. In reality it trades at a 6% yield which is why I said, "if your hurdle rate is 25% then you should be looking elsewhere."

Right- and this is one of the big benefits of pricing power. Cigarettes are a prime example of this but there are certainly others. In fact this is where Thrifty is actually somewhat on point - not many companies have tons of opportunities to re-invest lots of capital for growth. The utilities, the railroad, even the insurance ops provide built-in reinvestment opportunities. And (at least for the first two) the return is relatively stable. Actually it provides WB with an option: If he can't find super attractive uses for $$, he can always dump some into the heavy businesses. What is the value of a perpetuity-like reinvestment option? To the other point, I don't think Berkshire is investing below its cost of capital i.e. engaging in value destruction. If your personal hurdle rate is 25% for example then BRK is probably not where you want to put your money. ;D

Trying to imagine what I would think looking back on this decision in 25 years.

You can play with the #s however you like, the point is that companies which can grow earnings without reinvesting capital (and therefore can distribute it to owners) are much more valuable.

Put it this way. CashCo dividends out $50 this year and $50 next year, then immediately goes BK. InvestCo retains $50 this year and dividends out $100 next year, then also goes BK. What is each worth.

Bought a little BRK and cloudflare

I agree it looks enticing but it has done so for months now. WB missed an opportunity back in Mar/Apr. I have added at points under 180 over the last 1-2 months, but for those reasons I am hesitant to commit a lot of capital. Although I do own some LEAPs, but BRK is about a 10-12% position.

https://apnews.com/144ec47b53e8637a8b7c232e64a44e01?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter The World Health Organization on Sunday reported the largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases by its count, at more than 183,000 new cases in the latest 24 hours. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-deaths-covid-19

What I'm reading here seems to engage in some superficial understanding of how statistics is used to draw conclusions. In principal, to draw effective conclusions you need a theoretical and statistical link between cause and effect. But the absence of one does not necessarily preclude a causal relationship, for various reasons including lack of scientific (theoretical) understanding of the underlying mechanisms and/or poor measurement/collection of data. For example: To the first point: lack of observed correlation does not necessarily rule out a causal relationship. It could indicate we have an incomplete understanding of how the virus operates, or how our bodies are responding to the virus. Or it could be that our measurement system is flawed. To the second point: From what we do know, the virus is a respiratory virus which is primarily transmitted via water droplets from person to person. So it stands to reason (and prior experience concerning respiratory viruses) that limiting contact and thereby limiting exposure to water droplets from an infected person, would limit transmission and thereby infection & mortality. Statistics and empiricism in general is an attempt to approximate the underlying scientific mechanisms at work in the absence of scientific understanding. In fact, when previously validated scientific laws are empirically violated, it is more prudent to first question the measurement methodology rather than the underlying science.