Parsad

Vallejo has already files bankruptcy, but they say there are roughly 10-12 municipalities in California alone that are on the brink, as well as another ten or so that are fighting for their lives. And that's just California! What about Florida, Michigan and Georgia? Cheers!

Rabbit, have you tried the miniburgers at Cheesecake Factory? I've tried both the chicken and beef ones at the Cheesecake Factory at Fashion Island in Newport, and they were very good...same as what you'll find at almost all Cheesecake Factorys. I've tried some at other various restaurants around LA, including the ones at the Beverly Wilshire...those were the best ones I've had outside some Kobe beef miniburgers in Toronto. Cheers!

I think the possibility of municipal bankruptcies is enormous in the U.S. today, and the possibility of state bankruptcies is very real, although I think the government would step in at the state level. Jack Cafferty from CNN discusses the possibility of California going under...I thought this would make an interesting debate. Even the best case scenario is that there will be massive layoffs and huge reductions in services across the state. If you thought DMV lines were long before, you ain't seen nothing yet. And California isn't unique here, others will follow. Cheers! http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/20/what-would-it-mean-if-california-went-bankrupt/ http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/20/news/economy/california_budget_crisis/index.htm?cnn=yes

The Burger King Shots are God-awful! I tried them and they taste like mini hockey pucks...yes, I've tasted hockey pucks before! ;D I've haven't tried the Steakburger Shooters yet, but our director Andrew Cooke has and said they are good. They definitely can't be worse than the Burger King Shots. I've tried plenty of miniburgers around Vancouver, the West Coast all the way to San Diego, and in Toronto over the last couple of years. Nothing tasted remotely like the Burger King mini burgers...just bloody awful! Cheers!

Fairfax short interest is now down to 264K shares or about 1.55% of float. That number is about comparable to WMT's short interest of 1.48%. How times have changed from a few years ago. Cheers! http://www.shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=ffh

Parsad All solutions are correct. I'm guessing you meant to say, "the simplest of solutions is often the best one." Yours Jack River Yes, that's correct Jack. Thanks. Cheers!

What a terrific little article! Wish I was there. Cheers!

Michael Lewis reviews "The Snowball" and discusses Buffett. Starts off very rough and critical, but actually finishes with a surprisingly unpredictable admission by Lewis. Cheers! http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=12ef5554-1023-4be9-ad93-681003b280ef

The simplest of solutions is often the correct one. Why don't politicians grasp this? Cheers!

Yahoo has a special offer with Airmiles in Canada, where if you install their search/toolbar you can rack up airmiles every month. So I installed it and I've been using it for a couple of months. I have to say, and this is very much a non-techie sort of assessment, but Yahoo's search engines alogorithms are far inferior to Google's. So many times I've searched for a website and Yahoo cannot hit it, yet Google catches it probably 99.99% of the time in the top two hits. I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft is willing to spend billions to try and buy Yahoo. Unless they can improve on the search engine, it would always be inferior to Google. It's very much like Pepsi trying to buy Cadbury Schweppes to take on Coke. Just not going to happen! I understand that Yahoo has a market in-place and considerable brand recognition, but it seems to be an expensive proposition to compete with Google. They would be better off going into other areas like Twitter, Facebook, etc and building moats there...akin to Pepsi buying Frito Lay, rather than compete head-on with Coke. Cheers!

Coke Chairman and CEO Neville Isdell was on CNBC with some very interesting comments. I think he's got a very good understanding of Coca-cola's business, moats and operations, compared to some of his recent predecessors. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/30823836

Article from the LA Times on the Wesco Meeting. Cheers! http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin17-2009may17,0,713897.column

Every year we have our shareholders dinner at Joe Badali's, and many of you thank me for holding it. Our wonderful representatives who come from Fairfax and speak to all of you, the terrific hats everyone got last year...they all happened because of one person...no, not Prem. Her name was Jo Ann Butler and she's the one who deserves all your thanks. Anything you liked about our dinners, she probably came up with the idea other than the location! Jo Ann is the first person who receives correspondence addressed to Prem. She read my first letter to Prem sometime back in 2001. Along with Francis, they set up my day at Fairfax's office back in 2005, which eventually led to Alnesh and I starting Corner Market Capital and the MPIC Funds. During the heyday of the short attacks, she would read the board religiously and forward messages to Prem whenever shareholder's seemed to be getting erroneous news from hedge funds, analysts and the media. Jo Ann always looked after Fairfax's shareholders! The first person I would see every year when I went to Toronto was Jo Ann. Every day after the AGM, she always went back to the office to work, but would arrange for me to come by and bring whoever was with me. She would let us tour Fairfax's office, including their library room...each year without fail! Afterwards, she would usually give me tickets to the Raptors game. Last year, because I took Calonego and Peter Lindmark to the office, she gave me four tickets to the Blue Jays game. I've seen Reggie Miller's final game of his career, a Blue Jay's game that went into the 13th inning, and one year Doug Gilmour sat right next to me. For those of you that aren't hockey fans, Doug Gilmour is a God in Buffalo and Toronto, and he was Jo Ann's favorite player. I usually talked to Jo Ann every few days either by email or phone. She was a die-hard Leaf's fan who absolutely loved the game. We always talked about hockey. Before she worked at Fairfax, she used to work for the father of our director, Andrew Cooke. I remember a couple of years ago when Andrew, Alnesh, myself and my friend Ajay Desai went to Fairfax's office to meet Francis, we stayed in the smaller boardroom for about three or four hours, made our own coffee in the kitchen, and sat chatting to Francis. Jo Ann would pop in, sit down with us, and then rush back to her desk...business never stops at Fairfax! She was a damn tough Newfie, who had a very soft heart. I'm sad today, because she didn't win her last battle. She passed away on the 12th, and going to Toronto just won't be the same again for me. I hope she knows how much she helped me. How much I appreciated everything she did. It helped to change my life in ways where I'm just bewildered each morning. I get to work with my cousin Monday to Friday...the cousin I grew up with like a brother. We have our own company and we are managing two investment funds. I get to do what I dreamed about, but at one point had no idea that it was my dream. She helped me find it, and each day I feel so fortunate to be doing what I absolutely love. I'll miss her dearly!

I think what is most surprising to me is to see partial sales of KFT & JNJ after he said in this years AR that those are two positions he would contemplate holding for the long term. He said the same thing about WFC - makes me wonder if he has done partial sales on that position too now that the value of the position is over $500mm. When you can buy a business like WFC at 4-5 times earnings or hold KFT & JNJ at 12-14 times earnings, the right thing to do is lower the market risk to the portfolio by buying the cheaper investment. That doesn't mean you wouldn't hold any of them forever, but you are weighing price against intrinsic value. I'm sure they've taken a little bit of profit from WFC. The only reason Buffett doesn't sell much is because he has to instill this culture of keeping businesses forever. Otherwise, people would never sell their life's work to him. He also has to create a type of business that will run completely smoothly without him being at the helm, thus you want a system that is easy to replicate for the new management. Cheers!

Easily by far their biggest increase was in Wells Fargo. They increased their holdings six fold from year-end. A $285M investment is now worth well over $500M. Cheers!

Yup, that worked! Cheers!

No, I was asked several times to join by submitting an idea. I declined each time. Cheers!

I was invited several times to join, but humbly declined. Other than this board and occasionally the Motley Fool BRK Board, I don't go anywhere else...otherwise too much group think. Even here, I encourage everyone to think for themselves and don't let member's content influence your decision making. Cheers!

Perennial bull Abbey Joseph Cohen has come out from wherever she was hiding, and now calls for the S&P500 to hit 1050 by year-end. Wow, what a call now that the market is near 900 after climbing from 670! How the hell does she manage to even get a spot on television? Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/30701403

I think what he is saying is that debt-fuelled growth is usually not sustainable. A large percentage of GDP over the last decade was precipitated from the liberal use of debt and leverage. Eventually, you can only tap into your equity for so long until much of it has depleted and the whole economy falls apart. The statistic is the same one that Prem stated...80% of the economy was supported by consumer debt, and now growth is trying to be stimulated by the remaining 20%. Cheers!

Good stuff! One disgruntled customer tells their story to a hundred people, so it is only the right thing to do for any business. Cheers!

I am well aware that a product doesn't need to be good to do well, and a certainly doesn't need to be appealing to me to be a good investment. Still, I am disappointed for the second time by their food. As much as I'd like to become a believer and regular patron (did I mention I really like these little hats they give to kids?), I just don't see myself bring the family there much at all. I like Sardar and I want him to succeed; I want Sanjeev and others to make oodles of money on SNS. I just think SNS still has a ways to go before the taste is where it needs to be. Already have Uhuru...thanks! ;D I totally agree with you though about the work ahead. To get to the desired 1500+ franchises over the next decade or two, Sardar has a ton of work in front of him. Over time, the food quality like the rest of the execution within the business will get better. The culture is being developed at head office, and from their it trickles down to the owner/operators and then the franchisees. Sardar is ultra-competitive. The boy just doesn't know how to quit. He is going to get the quality, execution and reputation on par with the best in the industry, if not exceed them. All we have to do is take a look at a broken-down franchise like Western Sizzlin and see what he is converting that to over time...and he's far more turned on by the prospects of a franchise like Steak'n Shake. But I certainly like the sound of oodles of money! Cheers!

Thanks very much Marlin! I forgot that Mohnish used to have so much hair! ;D Cheers!

No it's perfectly true! I prefer A&W hamburgers to McDonalds, yet because McDonalds is so ubiquitous and cheap, I often go into there. It's also partly because of the nostalgia associated with my father taking me to McDonalds as a little boy. I get cravings for the occasional Big Mac or Filet-of-Fish because of those sentiments. That's what Steak'n Shake has over Ebert and a lot of other people, and that's why Sardar started the kid's programs. Cheers!

The statements can be transformed into a broader form: It's ok to buy at a high price, because you can always sell to a price even higher (you intend to sell to a greater fool). It's ok to sell at a low price, because you can always buy to a price even lower (you intend to buy from a greater fool). This is actually incorrect. The assumption is that the odds are identical and that the inherent risks are the same. Historically, sentence one (high price) is the norm...inherent risk is higher while odds of success are lower. Sentence two (low price) is the outlier...inherent risk is significantly lower than the median while odds of success increase. Buffett used to make some very interesting comments when he was younger about the markets. It is not like most pari-mutuel forms of betting...you don't have to play every hand and the odds aren't calculated before you bet. You CAN CHOOSE to play only when the odds are enormously in your favor. I didn't completely think about that earlier in my investing life. The last year has made it perfectly clear to me how to invest for the worst case scenario and to protect investor capital...and it works like a charm! Cheers!