Partner24

If the big shots give too much importance on what they will look like because of a given quarter results, it's a little bit like someone who would come at a fine dining restaurant and ask for a cheesburger. ;)

Ahahaah dividend and liquidation value, right? If so, it's just a smoke screen. Do you really think this guy is about giving the shareholders cash? He's on it's way to try to get control of everything he can and that require cash. Where is the board of directors? In it's pocket.

Wow, so much candor. This guy could try to hide himself behind a lot of things or put attention on something else, but he goes straight. Ooohh I'm sorry that this company do not trade directly in the stock market.

At last, Fairfax settle lawsuit for 1.5 billion! Even if 1.5 billion is far better than nothing, I find it a little bit unfortunate since I would have like more coverage to the benefit of public eyes to fully know what these miscreants have done! Cheers! http://www.newsmitra.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/April-fools-jokes.jpg

4 public businesses. 1 private business.

I remember when I was working at a stockbroker firm (in 2005). The analysts used to recommend KFS. Everybody can do mistakes, but I've let that one pass!

A 10 baggers in one week? Just that? Pfff...I can do better than that with penny stocks :P Let's rename the board for "The corner of Las and Vegas" ! ;D Cheers!

This nuclear situation is a shame to mankind. Nothing less than that. I'm sorry if I look drastical, but you need to be that way when something drastical happen. You would have think that mankind would have learned far more than that after the Tchernobyl nuclear disaster. We have learned, but not enough. Brave people have died or suffered very serious diseases because of that and some brave people could still die because of what happen right now. We think that we are long term thinking people when we invest in a business for a decade or two, but it might take more than 200 000 years for some of the Tchernobyl nuclear waste to go away. Have we learned enough? 25 years later, a nuclear plant is on the side of the cliff once again. You might tell me that this is not Tchernobyl. I guess (and hope!) History will prove you right. But we are on the 6th level on a scale of 7. It's a shame.

Oh I like this guy. Go Patrick Go!

Aahaha :D Indeed!

"If you're smart, you don't need it. And if you're dumb, you've got no business using it!" Yes, but he use it himself. Insurance, long term debt, etc. Leverage can be a good thing as long as it is small enough to can handle a catastrophe scenario. Cheers!

Well, to paraphrase someone, it's not that I like panic (frankly, this nuclear reactor problem show once again how this kind of energy can be potentially very damaging), but I like the prices it provide. MSFT, JNJ and WMT are good examples of that. I don't have any single idea how the stock market will goes over the next months/year, but I do like some prices that we're having now. Cheers!

The lawsuit is money well spent as long as it remains reasonable. The truth have to be told to the public and these miscreants need to be punished. I don't have any problem to pay my per share cost of that lawsuit, as long as the legal cost is reasonable.

One top executive at Markel, two years ago or so, called for a hard market. William Berkley did basicaly the same thing. Guess what? We're still in a soft market 2 years later! Take their predictions with a pinch of salt. Nobody knows until it happens. Cheers!

Crip, To be sure, my faults are many, as illustrated to me on a daily basis by the wonderful Mrs. Crip! You too? I guess it's business as usual ;)

New emails from Loeb and others released Wow, they are very elegant (outragously racists and full of hatred).

There is some value trap, growth trap, jockey trap, etc. I've got a new one. Sardar Biglari is a good case study of "Shareholder's letters" trap. Don't be fooled by shareholders letters that are written in the Buffett style. The SB case might be resumed by these basic steps: 1- Promote myself by well written shareholders letters. 2- Make some noise to remove actual management of a public company and take their job. 3- Have some very rich compensation. 4- Adopt some procedures to still be very generously compensated if someone like me want me to taste my own cooking by repeating steps 1 and 2 against me. I guess that one day we'll more or less stop writing about him. Life is short and we have more productive things to do.

I can talk about Crip since I've "known" him and interacted with him since several years on this message board and other message boards as well. He's not only a focused long term fundamental value investor, but also a down to earth person. As far as I know, he has a rare combination of being neither a follow the crowd or being a contrarian person. He mostly stick to hiw own beliefs. In my book, he's the perfect shareholder, since he's long term oriented, focused and very patient, while being able to keep a critical view. He does not post as often as some of us here, but I really appreciate his contributions. We should have more Crip and less "Wall Streeters" in this world. Cheers!

Yes and no. It's a case by case situation. I don't take a look at the overall market to determine what I will do with my individual stocks. Take a look at some big companies like Walmart and the like. Do they sound that much expensive? Not to me! Some P&C insurers neither. If my strategy was to invest in indexes, that would be a different story. Regarding your question, I don't think that people learn that much. My father has played golf since the last 5 decades and businessmen sometimes talk about their investments strategies on the golf field. Two years ago, everybody was talking about government bonds, now they talk about oil. If they would have talked about oil or stocks 2 years ago and government bonds now, I would have answered "yes" to your question. "Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful". 12 words that cost nothing but are worth a lot of money. Cheers!

Back to the basic question, frankly, I've always seen this message board as a group thing. Furthermore, it's the quality of the posts that get rewarded, not your brand new flashy Toyota Echo, the thousands of dollars (or cents) in you bank account, the fact that you come from Santa Banana or not, that you have a stick that can predict rain or not, or whatever very rational way to discriminate people outside of their brain and wisdom. That being said, sure there is posters who will fit more with you than others (we're humans, not computers after all), but this board is something that magnify the individual talents ot it's members by the contributions of others. Cheers!

My favorite poster? Unfortunately, I don't remember his name perfectly, but it was someone in 2005, 2006 or 2007 and was probably a paid basher. He was always ending his posts with "But then, what do I know? I'm just a nose?????". Some remember him here? He's been banished for good ;) Cheers!

I would definitely like to hear more about your experience. A dishwasher pump broke just few years after service. I had water on my floor. Called the customer department. They first said false legal things (it's not under warranty anymore and there is no general warranty that can extend it...this is false at least here in Quebec). Then they said this was not their problem since their warranty was expired. I sent a written legal letter claming to repair the dishwasher. A representative (probably cheap labor from abroad wich had an accent and was sometimes difficult to understand) called me. Instead of sending me a technician for free, she tried everything to let me say something that would be a nuisance to my request. Things like "Sir, you bought a Kenmore dishwasher that costed xxx$. Didn't you expect that it would last? ANSWER: Mam, I bought a Kenmore dishwasher just approximately 3 years ago and I did expect that it was a quality brand it would last longer than approximately 3 years, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Furthermore, your chairman looked like he did care about customer experiences at Sears. She did say false things about the applicable law here in Quebec and tried to convince me to pay for the fix. Frankly, I didn't want to go in court even if I had a good case. I did want to wash as soon as possible so I called a friend and he repaired the dishwasher. He told me that most appliances today are made to last shortly. I went to the Sears website and tried to write a negative review on the dishwasher just like you can see on Amazon or Canadian Tire websites. People should know that this diswwasher is cheap and not build to last. They refused to publish it. When I asked them what in my review was making them refuse to publish it or how could I write it so it would be published, they didn't want to answer. I told my wife that if she see me again in a Sears store, it's because I may have lost my mind. That's the kind of behavior from a retailor that will add to the bottom line in the short term at the expense of the long term profitability.

Sears customer service? Buy a Kenmore dishwasher, call them just a few years later because it broke and your experience with them will provide far more insight on the company then reading Lampert words in it's shareholders letters.

I'm not a macroeconomical predictions guy. But if the only task in live I could do would be to predict macroeconomical things, I would put my tocken on stagflation too. That being said, I would be worried about my prediction. Things are always clearer in the rear view mirror than the windshield.

Thank you Myth for posting the link. we have our annual meeting in a couple of weeks, Jaideep. Actually our Annual Report comes out in about two weeks then our annual meeting is in April; I think it's April 20th, it is somewhere there in our annual meeting. Why don't you come for that ask all your questions there, because those are a little detailed questions for a conference call. I don't it was a detailed question at all. It was a general question. Why buy cheap messy things instead of high quality things when quality things were pretty cheap? That was a very good general question that could have been answered in the conference call. I'm not complaining at what they have done with their investments. They have their own style and they did overall very well with it since the last 25 years. I agree with them that the municipal bonds were quality things bought cheap, just like JNJ and other investments like that, but the question was not related to the bond portfolio. I think Prem should have answered that question directly in the conference call.