Parsad

...But does that mean I have to give up his hotels?! I joke, I joke...because it still hurts! But he does have very nice hotels. Cheers!

I am in no way shape or form a Trump supporter but I believe the attitude expressed above is the most salient reason that gave rise to Trump and Trump-ism. The sort of attitude prevalent among American I guess I'll call them "elites" for lack of a better word whose sort of attitude is "let the smart people figure it out for the masses and we'll tell you what we've decided." The institutions of the elites in the United States - the government, academia, the media that seemingly only represents this elite worldview - seem to continuously expand their reach with the aim to dictate how people are supposed to think, their attitudes, how their resources should be spent, how much of their paycheck people are allowed to keep, etc. You can see it in people in the media's attitude about Trump, "How dare you even think about voting for him?" [i didn't vote for him, but that elitist attitude is grating.] So it is not surprising that a backlash to elitism took hold. In the 1980s, the music scene was dominated by Bon Jovi, Poison - hair bands - men with hairsprayed heads and skin tights pants. So in the early 1990s, grunge took hold. Quite literally the opposite. Rather than skintight leather tights, Kurt Cobain rocked shirts with holes in them. The elitist attitude that has taken hold in so many American institutions gave rise to Trump, just the way that hair bands gave rise to grunge. Incidentally, the original post was meant tongue in cheek...thus the "jackass"reference. But it was also meant to question why American's have chosen to self-flagellate themselves for the next four years. Cheers!

I am in no way shape or form a Trump supporter but I believe the attitude expressed above is the most salient reason that gave rise to Trump and Trump-ism. The sort of attitude prevalent among American I guess I'll call them "elites" for lack of a better word whose sort of attitude is "let the smart people figure it out for the masses and we'll tell you what we've decided." The institutions of the elites in the United States - the government, academia, the media that seemingly only represents this elite worldview - seem to continuously expand their reach with the aim to dictate how people are supposed to think, their attitudes, how their resources should be spent, how much of their paycheck people are allowed to keep, etc. You can see it in people in the media's attitude about Trump, "How dare you even think about voting for him?" [i didn't vote for him, but that elitist attitude is grating.] So it is not surprising that a backlash to elitism took hold. In the 1980s, the music scene was dominated by Bon Jovi, Poison - hair bands - men with hairsprayed heads and skin tights pants. So in the early 1990s, grunge took hold. Quite literally the opposite. Rather than skintight leather tights, Kurt Cobain rocked shirts with holes in them. The elitist attitude that has taken hold in so many American institutions gave rise to Trump, just the way that hair bands gave rise to grunge. So this was simply to spite the elite? Well done. Cheers!

...down there. Really! You're taking this all the way?! Wake up stupid...wake up! Finally America has become one big reality show! Even PT Barnum as President would make some sense! Cheers!

My apologies to Mohnish, as I did not see his previous email announcing his annual Lunch auction! It closed today for $14,100. His conference call auctions are still on: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Conference-Call-with-Mohnish-Pabrai/122182842311 All proceeds go to his charitable non-profit Dakshana. Cheers!

I think Buffett actually compounded at a faster rate when he was doing cigar-butts. Part (not all) of his conversion to quality was driven by the fact that he couldn't do cigar butts when he got to a certain size. I am sure that his "guarantee" that he could do 50% CAGR with smaller sums of money isn't based on compounding quality. Cigar butts is a perfectly sound way of investing, even if it hasn't worked recently (and few value managers have done well recently). If quality was the only way to go, we'd all do it, and quality would get overvalued. When Buffet closed down his partnerships, he gave a nod to his new strategy that would seek out long-term quality holdings. He said himself that he expected returns to be lower without a commensurate reduction in risk. Yup. You buy quality and the cash flow runway is much longer, although the annualized return might be lower than constantly buying cigar butts for a few years worth of puffs. Also hard to get people who have spent their lives building a business, to sell it to someone who will sell it to someone else or break it apart...thus Buffett buying businesses forever resonates with owners of the types of businesses he wants to buy...they want their legacy to live forever. Cheers!

+1! Ethics would tell you that it's wrong, but I'm not sure corporate law does. Imagine if Buffett did not dissolve the Buffett Partnerships, but held 15% of Berkshire's shares through them...and he directly owned only 15-20% of the Buffett Partnership...the rest of the capital was outside money. And then much of the excess cash flow from Berkshire was re-routed into the Buffett Partnerships to buy more Berkshire shares over the next few years until the Berkshire Partnerships owned over 51% of Berkshire. All the while, Buffett is getting incentive fees on this and gaining control of Berkshire. Awindenberger is correct...ingenious and creative! Buffett himself would tell you that it's probably unethical. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” ― Warren Buffett I would love to hear Charlie Munger's opinion! Cheers!

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Sardar owns Biglari Capital and essentially the Lion Funds...not Biglari Holdings. The percentage ownership you've listed is actually the percentage invested in the Lion Funds by Biglari Holdings...not ownership, but invested. Thus those shares cannot be excluded from how incentive fees are calculated...Biglari gets incentive fees on the total amount of the Lion Funds...BH shareholders get nothing. Also, it is a peculiar structure solely to get control: For example, our partnership owns 37% of PDH, but that isn't PDH's capital in our partnership...the capital structure is segregated. Whereas Lion Fund owns 51% of BH, but alot of that is BH's own capital. So you have this incestuous relationship in the structure and compensation...a perverse fu*k you to good corporate governance! Cheers!

The pleasure of working with permanent capital - from very patient, long term investors. You meet in at the office, every day, stating to your secretary: "No calls to me today about WFC, please - thanks!". In the middle of the day you take a nap on the couch in office, thinking about things in general. Then you get up in the middle of your rest, calling Mr. Munger: "Any ideas?" Answer: "No". Then you go to, or call T&T with the same question. Same answer. Then you you go back to the couch, trying to get some rest, but to no avail, because the couch is standing in a high bow, because of the cash pile below it. Problems [to the contrary of conditions] are issues, to which you are able make a difference. I'm [still] waiting. +1! That's about right for what happens at Berkshire. Cheers!

I think I have a man crush on you (nothing homo erotic; more of a Siddhartha kind of thing!) No worries! I feel the same way about Prem. ;D Cheers!

I said I disagreed that it was a public lynching on the very first line of the post. I compared it as mud-flinging. Cheers!

+1! Klarman will be next week...the board just needs some time. Then we'll have a bonfire of copies of Dhandho, Mosaic and Margin of Safety. Cheers!

I have to disagree with Indirect on the whole "public lynching" thing! Mohnish has put himself out there, so if people want to play whack-a-mole...go ahead...I get it! You're only as good as your last game anyways...we all know this. So let me put the noose around a few people as well, since I can also post on here. Yeah, yeah, I know...most of you guys are straight up geniuses who have made considerable wealth for yourselves with no help from anyone. The true vestiges of Ben Graham, sitting around a round table like the knights of King Arthur! Continue your mud flinging under anonymity. Half of you like going to the Pabrai Fund meetings for the free food and potential clients you may pick up...might not get an invite if he knew your real names. Last week it was Francis Chou who was being lynched. This week Pabrai. Maybe me, next week! - How many of you give back to other investors in the way Francis or Mohnish do? - When Francis stays till midnight at our dinner answering your questions, how many of you do that? - When Mohnish invites you to his dinner instead of a potential client, how many of you do that? These guys aren't Gods...which I think I've said numerous times on this message board, but people. Good people at that! And I know that doesn't mean much when weighing performance over certain periods, but it does mean something...or it at least should. Do they make mistakes? F**k yeah! But I think you guys generally float with the wind when it comes to assessing their abilities as investment managers. If they blow out the lights for a couple of years...they can do no wrong. If they under-perform in one of the longest bull markets in 50 years, then they are incompetent. There's no middle ground for you! Alot of you bought FFH, BAC, FMG, FNM, FIAT, GM, etc when Mohnish bought them and talked about them. No complaints then! Then you went and bought DFC or ZINC...suddenly he's an idiot. And yes, he's a marketing machine...one of the best in the investment industry...but he was killing it as an investment manager as he built those assets under management. He had $500M under management in April of 2007...after compounding at +28.7% annualized for 7 years with no down year. How was he deceptive? How was he an average investor? Alot of managers have gotten the shit kicked out of them over the last 8 years. Or have barely outperformed, slightly trailed...you name it. But very few remain compensated solely on an incentive fee alone like Pabrai! So go ahead...take your swings. Time will tell if Pabrai is good or really a poser. In the meantime: - He would have put more kids through the IIT's - Taken time to meet more young investment managers starting out - Continued to spread the gospel of Graham, Buffett & Munger - Write two more books - Lecture at a few more universities - Launch Dhandho's IPO - And continue to let Spandex creep up his ass crack as he rides his bike All the while, you'll still be sitting here talking about what an ass Pabrai is and what a loser of a money manager he is. Talk about asses and losers! Cheers!

Interesting question proposed to Buffett & Munger 20 years ago by a young Bill Ackman on indexing. Cheers! https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-years-ago-bill-ackman-asked-warren-buffett-and-charlie-munger-about-a-risk-the-market-faces-today-130457305.html

Agree 100%. IQ is a consequence of good infrastructure not the other way around, the IQ's of Indians will rise as the infrastructure and policies of India is improved. A good read on this stuff would actually be the 2016 Dakshana Annual Report that Mohnish writes. Each student he gets into an IIT is going to have a compounding effect on their families, siblings, communities and even Dakshana itself. He's providing the infrastructure and resources. It used to be referenced as routinely as washing one's hands that African-Americans were inferior to white Americans because they had a genetically lower IQ. Everything has proven this notion wrong over the last 100 years as the playing field was slowly leveled. Cheers!

<i>But, the best predictor of success in life is IQ. Multiply a 20 point IQ deficit across a billion people and you end up with a lot of needy people. They drain the resources that would otherwise go towards funding infrastructure and investment. Taxes go up and wealth gets redistributed.</i> Again, that's rubbish! Buffett and Munger have high IQ's, but Buffett has said numerous times that he would not be successful if he had been born to parents in Bangladesh and would have probably ended up as a Lion's meal if born in parts of Africa. I would suggest that the differentials you are seeing in IQ's is because of the lack of infrastructure, resources and low per capita income...not the other way around. If you level the playing field in terms of access to resources, you change the outcome...combat corruption and create a free-market system, and the citizens will flourish. What was Singapore's IQ like before Lee Kuan Yew took the country in a new direction? How did China become the global colossal it has become? Were U.S. patriots any more intelligent than their British compatriots...but what have we seen happen over 240 years? Cheers!

Buffett responded to Trump calling him out during the debate: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161010005859/en/Tax-Facts-Donald-Trump Cheers!

Absolute rubbish! And a very damaged way of thinking intellectually. Martin Van Blerk, who runs the Baobab Fund out of Botswana (IQ 70), has found plenty of opportunties for his fund. Michael Lee Chin, who used to run AIC Funds, and instead plowed a billion dollars into his home country of Jamaica (IQ 71), has done very well for himself. Tata, Ambani, Khosla, etc...have made riches in India and other parts of the world, and plowed money back into India. These are just a handful of thousands of examples I could give you! Cheers!

Actually closer to 10.5 cents on a fully-diluted basis, but after all closing costs, debt, payables, legal, etc...net 8.5 cents. Reasons why selling will be in the annual letter or discussed at the special meeting. Cheers!

I think there was a little more to it than that! But either way, serious question, who do you consider the most successful businessmen since you think innovation is such a key part of that title? I feel like every super successful businessman that I've ever looked into inevitably "copied" their idea from somewhere else. Very good point. I feel the others are successful businessmen as well as innovators, while he's only successful in business. I wasn't calling him a failure. Simply overrated (and he's rated very highly in general, so overrated is not as much as an insult as it may appear). I'm not sure how Musk is any more of an innovator than Jobs. The electric car existed long before Musk came along...in fact electric cars have been around since the late 1800's! SpaceX and Solar City aren't new ideas...he's just executing in a different way than others in the past. Bezos did not invent online retailing...there were many online retailers before Amazon. Even Bill Gates stole Windows from Jobs' NEXT operating system to forge Windows dominance in the PC OS market. I have a hard time understanding how someone who created arguably the most profitable company in the world today is not innovative when his products are ubiquitous and user-friendly. Cheers!

Jobs is so overrated. His accomplishment was mainly making a huge marketing machine (while most people believe him to be an innovator, he's not in the slightest). Gates, Musk and Bezos are indeed close. The only reason smartphones and tablets are as ubiquitous as they are is because of Jobs. The design, utility and functionality of the iPhone is what forced other manufacturers to step up their game. When I first used the original iPhone, it was light years ahead of the competition...only now, 9 years later have other manufacturers started producing comparable devices...and the best competitor, the Samsung 7, was recalled for exploding and catching fire! Jobs was not an engineer, but he understood design better than one. Today, his company is the most profitable company in the world, with arguably the strongest balance sheet...how over-rated is he again? Cheers! Because the above is false. Ipod wasn't new and Iphone wasn't either. Similar devices were on the market years before. With some combination of skill and luck Jobs got people to buy it by the millions. I wonder who will take Google glasses, rebrand it and pretend to be an innovator. Did I say that the smartphone didn't exist before jobs, or did I say that he took the smartphone and made it relevant through design, utility and functionality? Think of the products that he created that forged the environment we are now in: - The Apple Computer - The Apple II - The Mac - Macbook - Ipod - Iphone - Ipad - Itunes - Applepay...yes on Cook's watch, but you knew this was coming and was thought of at Apple long ago. Not too mention all of the other Apple products, the insane cash flow at the company or the culture created there. Cheers!

Jobs is so overrated. His accomplishment was mainly making a huge marketing machine (while most people believe him to be an innovator, he's not in the slightest). Gates, Musk and Bezos are indeed close. The only reason smartphones and tablets are as ubiquitous as they are is because of Jobs. The design, utility and functionality of the iPhone is what forced other manufacturers to step up their game. When I first used the original iPhone, it was light years ahead of the competition...only now, 9 years later have other manufacturers started producing comparable devices...and the best competitor, the Samsung 7, was recalled for exploding and catching fire! Jobs was not an engineer, but he understood design better than one. Today, his company is the most profitable company in the world, with arguably the strongest balance sheet...how over-rated is he again? Cheers!

Bezos created something that affects virtually every person in the U.S. in a positive way. No one else on the list has really done anything on that level. E.g., I respect Watsa, but he's just doing his investment thing, and that mostly only impacts shareholders. I would also have put Gates ahead of Bezos if I had the choice, echoing some others. Biglari should not even be on the list! If you include Biglari, then you should be including Mohnish or Allan Meecham...both haven't screwed over their partners either...so they would be well ahead of Biglari. Actually Trump and Biglari should be on the same list...not on this one. Cheers!

I'd say Gates is pretty successful. Build huge company. Build huge wealth. Build huge foundation. Help cure disease all over the world. Improve millions of lives. Not bad. Without a doubt, Bill Gates would be above all of those guys...and not by a little bit. Sam Walton would even rank higher than all of them! And Prem ranks below Donald Trump...c'mon, you've got to be kidding me. Cheers!

Yeah, it's some sort of software glitch. I haven't subscribed to any notifications, yet I get randomn ones from time to time. Software updates over time should correct it. Thanks!