Jurgis

Does it really have a niche and a moat? I track medium-high-end trips, I get emails from at least couple of companies. Lindblad does not seem any different from them at least from the first glance. E.g. see Natural Habitat Adventures that work with WWF: http://www.nathab.com/?utm_source=worldwildlife.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=WWF%20Search IMO high end and very expensive (possibly more expensive than Lindblad, but I did not go through tour details to make head to head comparisons). http://www.adventure-life.com/ - I've done couple trips with them. Cheaper than Nat Hab (and possibly Lindblad). But they are more of a tour agency and sub their trips, so perhaps not fair comparison. In general though I'm quite skeptical that there's real niche and moat. There is some switching cost: once you've gone on a trip with one company, you have some relationship with it, possibly "alumni" discount, possibly expect certain level of service in other tours with them, possibly get their emails and catalogs. OTOH, at least at medium level, there's always local companies (that Adventure Life subs for example), that provide good to great quality and experience. I'm not sure there's any benefit of having single company doing Galapagos and Alaska... You might be better off with local Galapagos operator and local Alaska operator. Anyway, these are general, non-financial thoughts. Disclosure: see above. Also I donate to WWF.

I was thinking about Greenhaven. Thanks KCLarkin.

I'm gonna misuse a quote (since apparently it was intended the opposite way), but I'm concerned that "The only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos." (Jim Hightower. I haven't read the book). I'm the same way unhappy about leftization of the left as I'm unhappy about the rightization of the right. Both lead to policies that are populist and mostly broken. (Yeah, I'm mostly there with dead armadillos.)

Start from http://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_financials/2016/2016-Q3-Interim-Report-Final.pdf and make adjustments if you like... ::) @cwericb: If OP wanted adjustments to Q3 BV, ycharts won't help...

I'm sure I read a writeup on this somewhere recently... maybe one of the hedge fund letters floating around ... gonna try to find ... no success so far. ::)

None. Any business can be destroyed or produce subpar results while run by incompetent management team.

Exactly what I was thinking... Buffett giving up on flying NetJets, gonna buy Ryanair whole and not take carry on. 8)

We should just hope that we don't experience a World War or localized nuclear war or nuke terrorism. I'm fine with "enough stories". 8)

T&T ain't no Buffett. 8)

I think that without inside info (client letters/reports), we can't really know what is going on there. There could be a lot of explanations, but it's all guesswork unless we get more info.

@vinod1 and @Rasputin: you guys have balls. 8) Now I understand how CoBF people have >30% returns per year. ;) Good luck

Nightmare scenario for the secret service. Securing a few block radius of Manhattan. Maybe they can build him a replica in the Whitehouse as part of the infrastructure project. Just demolish that old fashioned white hut and build a proper White Tower there. Well, with golden T on top.

I feel that we are going farther and farther away from the initial topic of why non-expert discussions about deeply scientific topic are not very useful. However to comment on what you wrote: I disagree with this approach. The fact that John Smith never proved Fermat's theorem before does not mean that his current proof is incorrect. The fact that John Smith proved other math theorems does not mean his proof of Fermat's theorem is correct. You cannot use past success as a metric to judge a novel scientific model/theory/claim. It's particularly meaningless in this case where newest models need data and computers that did not exist 100 years ago. I guess you could argue that we should wait 10-20-50 years to see how the predictions of current models work out. I agree that this makes some sense, though clearly if there is an issue that needs to be addressed, waiting may have quite negative consequences. These are good questions. :) The answer to second question depends on the question "How bad is the problem?", which might be partially answerable within climate science domain. Clearly if scientists predicted temperature drops that would cause ice age, it would be "really bad problem". Similarly if they predict temperature rise that is significant enough to cause big issues based on experts in other fields (e.g. ecology, oceanology, agriculture, etc.) then it can be considered "really bad problem". If it is "really bad problem", then experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done about such problem. They should prepare recommendations how to address the problem. If it's difficult to decide whether prediction causes "really bad problem", then situation is more difficult. I would still suggest that experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done and what/how should be monitored to see if problem is getting worse or not. What you might be driving at is that ultimately "people" (non-experts) would have to make decisions within political/economic framework (In politics/economics it's much harder to decide who is an expert...). My hope would still be that governments or politicians would make these decisions based on expert opinions rather than trying to make their minds based on feelings, or non-expert understanding of the field. In reality, things usually happen quite differently from above picture.

Unfortunately, the farther we get into specialized sciences, the more we should listen to the experts. Your examples show that sometimes the general expert opinion is wrong. And sometimes people who are not mainstream experts are right. But in most cases that is not true. And in most cases non-experts can't even decide whether expert arguments are right or wrong - and whether people objecting to experts have a clue or are spouting complete nonsense or are making slight but important errors that make their arguments invalid. Let's take you as an example. Maybe what you said is completely correct and mainstream models have drawbacks you indicated. However, nobody on this forum can know this. They can take your side or take opposite side, but they don't know the science and they cannot know whether you said something meaningful or spouted nonsense or made some errors that you are not aware of. It seems meaningful, but that doesn't mean much. I can write up ten paragraphs in areas where I'm an expert that are completely meaningless or have slight errors in them and nobody here will be able to say whether it is or isn't (apart experts in the same areas). So ... sure ... there might be climate scientists who do not agree with mainstream opinion ... and they might be even right ... but they have to discuss this with experts and convince them rather than going populist and presenting their theories to people who cannot judge their correctness and can only use their feelings and ideology to agree or disagree. Edit: Blame part of the above to the fact that sciences become more and more specialized and more and more complex. There are proofs of math theorems that are understood by a handful people on planet ... and even then possibly incompletely. Yeah, they could be wrong... and if they affected feelings and lives of millions of people (like climate science does) they might be as contested as climate science. But that still wouldn't mean that people who are not experts in the field and who don't understand the proofs can offer legitimate opinions about their validity. Trying to simplify arguments and counterarguments for general public's level of understanding is a slippery slope. Take something like Fermat theorem and its proof. Try to simplify it so public would believe that you really proved it. Take some experts who claim that your proof is broken. Try to simplify their arguments. Can this be resolved at that level of discourse? If the error is within complex models or constructs, it is pretty impossible for public to make informed opinion based on simplified arguments about field they don't know or know on non-expert level. The arguments and counterarguments have to be at the expert level (like it was actually with Fermat theorem's proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiles%27s_proof_of_Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem ).

Ya we should never listen to some unemployed, loud, obnoxious guy living with his parents like this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside Or some crazy lunatic that was put in an insane asylum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis Naw just keep listening to the experts. So you are claiming to be at the level of Oliver Heaviside or Ignaz Semmelweis?

You're likely right in your first sentence. We don't know about your second sentence: it's still not clear who will do what when push comes to Congress. Will Dems work with Trump and some part of Reps? Will all Reps work with Trump? Will Trump be (mostly?) sidelined by Reps? Will he propose and work to push through bills that have a chance to be voted for? Lot's of questions, but not many answers yet. IMO even the transition team composition and Rep/Dem pre-posturing don't answer most. We'll just have to wait and see. (And IMO market euphoria is too early. But I guess it's one of Mr. Market being optimistic moments.)

If anyone's interested "Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built" http://a.co/dr2UNuE on sale for $1.99. Haven't read it yet, reviews are so so.

Yep.

Great example of discussion which should be conducted by experts rather than relying on "I'm smart so I can comment on atmospheric science and you should listen to me because I happen to be on this forum and I have strong opinion.". Maybe someone should also opine about dark matter, string theory and quantum computing while we're at it. ::)

Nope, it's not provided there. You have to go to Profile->Forum Profile Then under "Modify Profile" you'll see last option "Buddies/Ignore List". If you select that, it will give suboption "Edit Ignore List" And that's where you can ignore people.

I thought Buffett answers were weak. I guess part of it is him trying to convince regulators that he's passive. But part is what people call him hypocrite about. He pretty much says that things he said in the past don't apply here ... well just because ... a lot of wiggling ... he's a passive investor and he doesn't want to sell his stake... (and possibly with a tons of cash he doesn't want to have even more cash without having good ideas where to put it). Personally I don't care much whether he changes his positions (and finds rationalizations why current situation is different than the ones he discussed in the past). However, I have to remember not to take his statements at full value, since he might just shift out of them in the future. Edit: I wonder if it wasn't better for him to continue the silence (and just tell the interviewer that he won't touch the topic because he's passive investor). Also "passive" my ass: he calls Stumpf and he has new CEO come and talk to him... yeah, he says he did not tell them what to do, but still "passive"??? Disclosure: I am long BRK and some banks, but not WFC at this moment.

Cause what we need is more stock market and RE bubble.

I know. It makes me want to weep. In the past, you've implied that humanity needs to evolve socially to reach a better place for everyone, and I'm right there with you. Human nature is broken. We need to get beyond the "us" and the "them". +1. I for one would welcome our new Borg overlords. ( only partially :P )

Hrm. I hope he doesn't get whipsawed by getting out of the hedges at high market (not saying top). We'll see (TM - seems to be common refrain for me now)

No need to apologise, I appreciate the advice, but all I can see is the arrow that takes me to the last post. If you open the thread, you should see "Move topic" button at the bottom left of the page (not sure if you have to be on the last page or first page). I see that for a thread I have opened.