Parsad

U.S. judge says FHFA cases against banks can proceed. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-judge-says-fhfa-cases-220343898.html

Easy credit strikes again! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/49983471

It will get better after each generation comes out. Remember the Hyundai Stellar or Pony...now look at Hyundai today! Cheers!

While, time will tell if this is a good investment, do you honestly, really think you've done as much research as Yacktman or Watsa (who sits on the board)? :o What research did Yacktman do to figure out people want keyboards on their phones? Looking at the buying patterns of smartphones in the last 5 years? I think investors have to differentiate between a growing dominant brand that is fairly valued, and a stagnant (even dying brand) but trading at less than liquidation value of assets. Yacktman isn't betting that RIM is going to displace the iPhone. He's just betting there is enough life left in the product and brand, where the valuation justifies the possible risk/reward. Cheers!

The question not asked is if these loans were like any other loan that the monolines insured, would there be any discussion by MBIA or any afterthought in the insurance premiums they charged? Countrywide is guilty, but so is MBIA for not doing their due diligence. They aren't suing because there was fraud, but because they failed to protect their shareholders and accepted inordinate amounts of risk for the premiums charged. There was enough information available by 2007 that you knew many of these securities were shit. Cheers!

Since a single mother of two surviving on $25K a month in income, would find it far more difficult to come up with $5K in taxes, than a single person making $100K and having to come up with $20K in taxes if you went solely by a flat tax. Coming up with that $1000 in rent would be pretty damn hard. A recessive tax regime is far from equitable! Cheers! I think you mean 25K a year, not month. Not sure what you mean by "recessive tax." The common term is regressive. Regressive hits lower income more than higher income. It can be via a head tax (same dollar amount per person) or decreasing rate such that the effective percentage is higher for the lower income payor. Flat tax is same rate regardless of income. It is generally not considered regressive or progressive. Progressive is where one pays a higher rate as income increases. A big part of the tax debate revolves around the whole issue of "fairness." Typos...tough to type on my iPhone while standing amongst passengers on the Skytrain (subway). Cheers!

Since a single mother of two surviving on $25K a year in income, would find it far more difficult to come up with $5K in taxes, than a single person making $100K and having to come up with $20K in taxes if you went solely by a flat tax. Coming up with that $1000 in rent would be pretty damn hard. A regressive tax regime is far from equitable! Cheers!

It's got nothing to do with Obama, but the fact that the subject matter is extremely polarizing. Under your line of thought, the argument could be made that Buffett's articles get more bad press because he supports a BLACK president? If the anxiety is greater since Obama came into power and Buffett supported him, then using your theory, the race card would be as likely as what you are suggesting. Of course, neither theory is correct. It's just that paying taxes has always been a polarizing subject, and this president and this congress are deadlocked on their specific agendas on how to proceed. Buffett has blatantly made clear which side he supports, thus he gets more press...both good and bad...on the subject. Cheers!

The funny thing is, the rest of the world sees exactly how centre-right or right Obama is relative to how liberal he is portrayed in the U.S. It's just an indication of how far right the "far right" movement has become. Obama is probably more conservative than our own Canadian "conservative" government. And our "conservative" government sprung from a "Tea Party" like movement twenty years ago called the "Reform Party"...which was full of as many crazies as the "Tea Party!" The liberals in Canada don't know how good they've got it with their "conservative" party. Cheers!

You're right Myth...that guy is a trouble-maker! ;D Cheers!

No, it's only a certain subsection of the industry. The ones that cow-tow to their hedge fund cronies, or want to eventually be proven right on something they wrote about 7 years ago, since most journalists are shitty businesspeople and investors...think Fabrice Taylor running Frank magazine into the ground in 9 months! He should have probably tried running a hot-dog cart first! ;D Cheers!

Reagan wanted lower taxes and lower spending, other than defense. Congress refused. Reagan went to the American people to get them to push their Congressperson. Congress still refused to cut spending but did strike a deal with Reagan to lower taxes. The economy grew as did the deficit. Are you saying you want Democrats to take ownership of the deficit or the growth? You can't have it both ways. Cheers! You're the one who wants it both ways...I'm not attributing any administration's success or failure to congress or the senate, but to their own administration. You want Clinton's success attributed to a republican-house, but not the other way around. Don't try and fit the facts to your own argument. The facts are the facts when viewed using a specific window or criteria...democratic presidents and their administrations have been more fiscally responsible than republicans. Whether they were good negotiators and compromised, cow-towed to the opposite party's control, or showed backbone to have their agenda passed...the numbers are the numbers. Cheers!

Best Buy traffic was up big in the last week. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-buy-big-traffic-winner-200900084.html

Judge backtracks on claims she brought forward against BAC two years ago...could be big! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-26/bofa-wins-on-standing-of-countrywide-securities-investors.html?cmpid=yhoo

Republican "president". Singular, not plural. Eisenhower did it in 1956,1957, and 1960. He raised the tax rate to 92%. You are correct that there is one Republican President - Eisenhower. All three of his balanced budgets were under Democratic controlled Congress. There are two Democrat Presidents (Truman and Clinton). Truman had three budget surplus years (two of which were under Republican Congressional control the third was Democrat) and Clinton had two (both under a Republican Congress). By President it is 5-3 Democrats. By Congressional control it is 4-4. I would also note Republicans have balanced the budget when in control of Congress 4 out of 12 years since WW2. When Democrats are in control it has been 4 out of 46 years. I am not trying to be harsh, but to say that "liberals actually have more balanced budgets" is to either purposely mislead or to be ignorant of the truth. Are Republicans going to give credit then to Democrats for the Reagan era, as much of his presidency was under a democratically-controlled House? Of course not. You attribute it to Reagan...the great communicator! You can't have it both ways. Cheers!

I didn't read the article, so I may be off base, but the writer may have referred to the '93 budget under a Democrat majority. That would just show that the writer is a poor writer too. To reference legislation from six years prior to balancing the budget is irrelevant. Regardless Presidents don't balance budgets. It is primarily Congress that does. President's send Congress a budget proposal that they can either work from or ignore. Ultimately it is Congress that writes the budget. Thus the writer's whole analysis is based on a flawed premise. I think you are deconstructing the article too finely. The President and his administration create and submit the proposal to Congress...where it may be adjusted, passed or voted down. It also has to go through the Senate. But are you also going to give credit to the secretary and staff who had to type it up, the courier who delivered it, as well as the economists who came up with the numbers? Every time a budget is passed, a deficit or surplus reported on, it is almost always universally attributed to the President and his/her administration. To say anything else is just deflection. Cheers!

I met him in real life after the first Value Investing Congress, and he was sweating profusely then too as I grilled him about his articles on Fairfax. I believe he may have some sort of hormonal issue...thus the abnormal perspiration, as well as the stupid things that come out of his mouth! ;D Cheers!

I thought Carney did an amazing job, and I was sad to hear that he was leaving. Cheers!

...Also, linking to an article that is not credible does not support your argument. The writer attributes the 2009 deficit to Bush. Bush cannot be responsible for Obama's stimulus. It also makes Bush fully responsible for TARP (yet liberals want to give Obama the credit for saving the economy and the auto bailout)... So out of all of those charts and evidence, these are the only two issues you came up with? Are you saying the rest of the charts and comments were correct? Fiscal restraint is lost on both parties. The reason for the rise of the Tea Party was that the Republicans lost their way. They would argue that Bush spent like a Democrat. When the liberal solution to a $1 trillion deficit is an $80 billion tax increase, it is hard to take them seriously as the party of fiscal restraint. The Tea Party wasn't the problem. It was the fringe that they attracted, who somehow devolved it into a sideshow carny act...with men telling women how they should treat their bodies...always a winning idea! Ron Paul felt like an outsider in the new Tea Party. I think you have a better chance of the government doing the right thing now, with the fringe licking their wounds and on the outside, then if they were left to tear up the country from the inside. Thank God...yes, I'm eliciting gratitude to an entity I don't believe in...simply because something or someone allowed the U.S. to step away from the possiblity that the freaks and nutjobs would be running the country! Cheers!

I like the last bit: "Are there other investments out there? Yes. Better than what's in the fund today? No." Do you think settling with MBIA may have negative consequences for BofA beyond the billion or two in extra money they will have to hand over to MBIA? I wonder if BofA will have to revise up their loss estimates for a lot of other outstanding litigation and add to reserves significantly. That was a good line indeed. I personally don't think it will have much if any negative consequences for BAC. I am long both BAC and MBI and think it's one of the rare cases where it's a win win for both. It's not often that you find such a David and Goliath situation where a loss by one party is such a gain for the other, but doesn't really cause damage to itself and in fact may help by delivering some "clarity" (to the extent that ever actually exists). I'm not really the right person to be asking this question though in terms of the specifics of BAC's loss reserves. I don't focus on the precise numbers. While a billion here or there is real money, in terms of the "story" it really doesn't matter to me. BAC is, in my view, in a relatively unique situation in that they just need to put these matters behind them. Whether this matter or some other matter costs them a little more doesn't seem to matter. The key to me is that the wagons have circled around the problems. It's not like it was even a year or 2 ago when the problems seemed endless. In general, they have their arms wrapped arond it and it's just a matter of executing. That's a big change. They seem to be on the path to clearing up their issues and moving to the next phase of things. Yes, I agree I think it would be win-win. For BAC it is a drop in the bucket and gets litigation behind them...more clarity for markets. For MBIA it is survival...nuff said! Cheers!

You do realize Berkshire is made up mostly of operating businesses now at this stage? That many of those businesses require enormous amounts of capital, which ultimately do employ tens of thousands, and probably hundreds of thousands over the next 10-15 years. How is expansion in MAE or the largest order of private jets in history at Netjets, not as effective as anyone else at creating jobs and wealth for this country? Berkshire is one of the largest public company employers in the world...that has a net wealth effect that trickles down ten fold. Cheers! And one of the biggest reasons for that is taxes! If citizens are clamouring to pay down the national debt, that isn't going to happen by itself. The funny thing is that conservatives always cry for reduced taxes to generate GDP through investment, yet liberals actually have more balanced budgets and higher GDP during their tenure historically. Fiscal restraint is actually lost on the grand old party when you look at the numbers. http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2012/05/democrats-v-republicans-debt-and.html I don't see Apple firing anyone because taxes may go up! That's old school rhetoric we always hear...they were the ones pushing for lower taxes for the last fifteen years, and they are the ones fighting any tax increases going forward. Yet the actual per capita wealth of those who will be most likely to carry a larger tax burden if Obama has his way, were the ones who actually made out the best over the last 15 years as well. Well, it's time to pay the piper! Cheers!

Mr. Market's disposition! ;D Cheers!

You do realize Berkshire is made up mostly of operating businesses now at this stage? That many of those businesses require enormous amounts of capital, which ultimately do employ tens of thousands, and probably hundreds of thousands over the next 10-15 years. How is expansion in MAE or the largest order of private jets in history at Netjets, not as effective as anyone else at creating jobs and wealth for this country? Berkshire is one of the largest public company employers in the world...that has a net wealth effect that trickles down ten fold. Cheers!

@SamAntar NYTimes: New Breed of SAC Capital Hire Is at Center of Insider Trading Case http://nyti.ms/Sk5fYi @SamAntar Memo to Mathew Martoma: Don't get fooled by your high paid lawyers. They will defend you to your last dollar. Give up Steve Cohen. @SamAntar Memo to Mathew Martoma: Your lawyers are selling you hope. They won't spend time in prison for your lack of cooperation with the Feds. @SamAntar Memo to Mathew Martoma: No amount of money is worth ten plus years in federal prison. Ask any inmate. Wow, Sam is the rat that everyone always knew he was. He's turning on the hedgies himself...trying to distance himself now! Cheers!

So? Can we conclude that once BAC finish to clean the house they will come back to a ROA closed to WFC has it used to be? Yes, I think you can conclude that it will get significantly closer. Cheers!