Spekulatius

Satellite broadband has likely line of sight issues and won’t work indoors. You will still need some sort of antenna. I do think it is an alternative for rural and they will likely try to grab some A-CAM funding. That may mean competition for the $NUVR or $LICT possibly.

It's the almost-G7 countries. I didn't make the list. I think it shows a pretty stark difference in success in containing the epidemic, don't you? I think I saw that the US had more daily deaths right now than Germany had daily cases (Germany is smaller, but still has 80 million people). You may not be able to vacation in France, but if I had a choice between vacationing in France or in Florida right now, I know where I'd go. Certainly there have been different approaches and different outcomes so far from one country to another. Europe had an aggressive outbreak and then countries like Italy, France and Spain locked down for 9 or 10 weeks to get things under control. Looking at the daily numbers, I question whether France and Spain won't be back in that exact situation by mid-September. Italy's numbers are bit better, but they are trending up too. So, will it be another 10 week lock-down from mid-September to mid-November across a large swath of Europe? It does call into question the sustainability of some of the management strategies if it ultimately ends up being a situation where they lock down for 10 weeks, open up for 16 weeks and then lock down for another prolonged period. If I had to guess, I'd say that we'll see a less agressive set of measures and a greater tolerance for the spread of the virus in Europe (time will tell). FWIW, my concern about vacationing in France is not about the risk of actually contracting covid. The larger concern is the risk of travel restrictions being imposed by other countries (the UK has already put in place measures against travellers from Spain), and the risk that the French could once again impose restrictions on travelling within the country (during their lock-down, the French imposed the use of a sort of self-signed ausweis for their citizens when they needed to leave their home for any reason). In short, there is a small-ish risk that it could become very difficult to find a flight home. In contrast, I would have no such concerns about getting home from Florida, but the risk of catching covid is likely considerably higher. SJ I definitely wouldn’t travel to Europe right now. I do agree there is a risk of getting stranded or in a lockdown situation. Most of the lockdowns in Europe now are local. Germany has a protocol where this goes county by county based on local infection rates based on a 7 day average, for example. I also think that if you fly in from the US, you need to quarantine for 2 weeks anyways. It is actually similar in the US in some states (VT, Maine) where you need to quarantine based on the local infection rate in your county. Coming from FLA would certainly have to. Whether they enforce it is a different question. With my wife being a nurse, ignoring these regulations is not an option.

Well, if you truly want to go passive, you can also go throw crowdsourcing platforms or become LP in a RE partnership through other means. Example are crowdstreet, Realestatemogul. Often, you need be accredited investor, but you can invest in smaller chunks from 20-100k in most cases. Compared to public REITs, you are only invested in one property (Apartment complex’s) , the leverage is higher (debt/equity 2:1) and there mostly is a planned exit after 5 years. No affiliation with anyone, but crowdstreet seems to have a decent flow on Apartment housing deals. https://www.crowdstreet.com/ I am sure others have more experience with these sort of investments. I am just in the learning phase...

There arn’t many things about Long Island I truly miss, but one of them are various Greek food joints. You also could get excellent German food in the Long Island “time capsule”.

Do you think that’s due to regulatory differences or greater value that Americans place on entertainment/connectivity? It’s a combination of legacy (TV started out and is for the most part free), regulation and the presence of national phone carriers (also owning or competing with cable and often keeping prices low). TV in Germany was state sponsored and free via OTA 3 channels only) until 1984 when two private channels got a license too for add supported programming. Later, in the 90’s satellite TV got started, but it was all ad supported only so nobody really had to lay anything except the smallish TV tax the Public channel (which is easy to avoid laying) For a mobile, cable and internet’s Deutsche Telekom was always the incumbent and generally had scale and often existing infrastructure in place and kept prices low. I think in the US, prices might have been lower when ATT had not been broken up around 1984 in ATT long distance and the Baby bells ironically, but we can’t know for sure.

RKT is an interesting case. It’s a mortgage originator with a growing market share. IPO stumbled out of the gate @$18/ share. They seem to have negative equity due to a ~3.8B dividend recap prior to the IPO. The structure seems optimized for the founders tax and to keep total control. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1805284/000104746920004448/a2242208z424b4.htm No position. Closest public peer is PFSI.

I am not sure if it’s just Fries to blame. I realized a while ago that the cable business environment In the US is unique in that it gives opportunity for good returns. The cable business almost anywhere else has far worse economics and that’s why LBTYA and LILAK and TIGO don’t work.

Many countries have flare ups in Europe. France, Spain, Germany and the UK have all flare ups, as has Israel. Israel got problems once they opened schools I think.

Didn’t Elon say that Tesla’s stock price was too high at ~$700? Here is your solution. ;D

Bump for Brenntag BNTGY. I bought some during the selloff. While their revenue were down in the 10% range, their earnings were about flat. very resilient business and trading close to all time highs, but still not out outrageously expensive (PE~15-16). It’s better managed than Univar, imo.

https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/economy/story/Hurricane_Isaias_may_claim_at_least_one_CEO_scalp-TR20200810nL1N2FC0HXX1/ “Hurricane Isaias may claim at least one chief executive’s scalp. Connecticut legislators want the head of James Judge, the CEO of $30 billion New England utility Eversource Energy, on a pike as blackouts linger in the Nutmeg State. “ Stock is down 2% today. I am not emotional about this stock. I just think investors are not realizing how bad the situation is for this company. ED, PEG and NGG (all of them are East coast utes) are all down today in the same 2% ballpark. Likely cause is rising treasury yields, imo. May the power be with you soon.

Sold my BRKB shares. My most Index like position and close enough to fair value to me.

Cutting corners on the science is dangerous both because it can lead to people getting exposed and dying when they think they're protected and aren't, and because if there are safety or efficacy issues, it can cause long-lasting backlash against vaccines in general, leading to more deaths and suffering over decades. You already have crackpots making stuff up about vaccines, if you give them something real because you don't do things right, it'll be bad. From what I've seen, Russia is talking about a phase 1 vaccine that has been tested on hundreds of people... That's pretty bad science. Is the concern with the Russian vaccine: 1. Safety? 2. effectiveness? Safety: If the virus kills 0.6% people and the vaccine has dangerous side effects 0.6% of the time, you haven't really gained much at the population level. Effectiveness: OTOH, if its not truly effective, you will start being spikes in cases as people get infected. Its a loss of resources and credibility, but for a poor country it might be worth the shot that it does actually work well. Agreed it's not unto the usual standards, but in the current scenario everything is now a risk-reward decision in real time with limited information. Safety would probably worry me the most here. So Putin's injected his daughter to allay those fears. Not the right way to look at it. You don't gamble with whole populations by injecting them with unproven medicines. This kind of callous thinking is what got the US and Russia in their messes in the first place. Not supporting Putin's decision here, which s probably more driven by the propaganda value and his domestic political needs. I do hope the planning for the next pandemic considers questions like the following. I certainly haven't seen them discussed anywhere. If this virus had an IFR of 50% (Ebola like) with huge infectiousness, and you offered me a vaccine which had a 1% side-effect of death. I would be sorely tempted to take that "side-effect" risk as the lesser of two evils. The current IFR is much lower, making that vaccine much less tempting. I would want way more safety and effectiveness, but not sure how much more. Surely not at the usual standards where things take 10 years. So how much less can one settle for as an individual or as a country? Looking at risk vs benefit is fair. It does matter if the IFR rate is 50% vs 0.6%. My concern with having politics messing with the process is the risk and benefits arnt’t really known of the numbers presented are fudged. Then people might make wrong decisions based on faulty/compromised data.

It’s pretty sure that in terms of fatalities per 1M , the US ( currently at 502/ 1M) will exceed Italy (currently at 582/1M) in a about month. Who would have thought this in March? Also, while we are at it, Italy’s population density is 532 people/ mi^2.

There is being wrong about something and then there is thinking that Elon Musk is trying to assassinate you. It's like saying: "Sure he's a flat earther, but that doesn't mean he isn't right about everything else." TSLA attracts more nutty people than any other stock I am aware off on both the long and the short side. We value guys just can’t compete. The closest we got was the BH ( Biglari) board, but it can’t hold a candle to Tesla.

You can read the prior posts about T cell immunity that already exist in 40-60% of population, so 20% infection of COVID should get us to herd immunity. But let's just say this: If GA reopens schools and no one seems to be wearing masks in the schools, and if the new daily cases continues to drop into the end of August, is that proof that daily cases of 4-5k per 10M population for a month is sufficient to get us to herd immunity? NY, NJ, FL, TX, GA all have reached this ratio. CA and WA are still way off. Another data point supporting this view is that Iran recently said they probably have 24M people infected. They have 100M people in total. If 24M people are infected, it only takes 1-2 weeks before reaching all 100M people, but it seems to have stopped there. How do you conclude that it takes only 1-2 weeks to get from 24m to 100M people without knowing the Ro? Also, how does Iran come up with the 24M number for the total cumulative infected? I guess I am skeptical of anything from Iran.

The quarter wasn’t good at all. I read the transcript and can’t really follow Simon’s disclosure. He is not giving out straightforward numbers. They were also drilled on the receivables issue that caught my attention and the answer was evasive, Imo Excerpt:

Watch the tenant receivables in the cash flow statement -623M (or ~60% of the Q2 “revenues”). This number was positive by 48M last year. Those revenues And FFO’s are all hot air.

They may ust get it to themselves first, like Herman Cain did for the cause. These golf club members skew older, unlike the protesters.

This thread reminds me more and more of SHLD ~ 2015.

So, first this is a bet on scrubbers/ IMO 2020 that didn’t work out (YE2019) , then it was a bet on using tankers as floating storage to bet on crude contango (April 2020) that didn’t work out, now it’s a bet on a tanker shortage supercycle (unknown future)? Just as a heuristic, I can’t say that thesis creep has worked for me very often. You also have to bet that management doesn’t do anything stupid in the meantime, even if we get a supercycle some time down the road. That’s not something one can take for granted in the tanker space.

Agreed. I thought that the club closure may burn $2-4mm a quarter. I figured that they may still have to pay employees despite furloughs and the club operations doesn't seem like a business that can be turned off. I was very surprised by the results. Seems like the self storage business barely had a blip. 1% revenue decrease. I was a bit annoyed that these guys aren't as good operators as the big operators like Public Storage, Extra Space etc. But this past quarter has surprised me at how well they have handled the whole situation. I bet they did something along the lines of PPP loans to reduce cash burn. The club business has low margins and I think it mainly serves as a rent slave for the real estate operations. The self storage ops seems to be dong just fine. That said, they increased the distribution for the first quarter to $25 (from $23 last year) and then reduced it back to $23 for the second quarter. It’s not the end of the world, but COVID-19 does have some impact. FWIW, I operate under the assumption that Karen Hathaways retirement will have little impact and the family will continue to operate this.

I agree, ATT has a Midas touch when it comes to buying other business. I think HBO will become a casualty as well.

It seems to me that Berkshire just recycled capital in low risk bets. They sold airlines and WFC and bought higher quality BAC and their own shares.

The PCP purchase was a dud before COVID-19 so I am not surprised by the write down. I would like to see a post mortem from Warren or Munger would be interesting.