Liberty

Study on the effectiveness of different masks, including cloth: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.18.20233353v1

http://transdigmgroupinc.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/transdigm-announces-acquisition-cobham-aero-connectivity-and

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/24/elon-musk-overtakes-bill-gates-to-become-worlds-second-richest.html "Elon Musk has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world’s second richest person. ($128 billion)"

Tips if you need to make surgical masks even more effective:

Actually, I think you can say he is, at this point. Maybe an unconventional path to get there, but as lead rocket designer for SpaceX, and based on any reports I could see from people around him, he can hold his own with rocket engineers no problem. Nobody knows everything, but to pretend he doesn't know what he's doing and isn't a real rocket guy just because he didn't have some piece of paper or some job with some title at Boeing before this seems missing the forest for the trees to me. Self-education is still education, and doing is better proof of competence than diplomas.

Faber and Malone yesterday: (6 minute clip)

Probably already posted earlier in this thread, but a good reminder of this 2018 podcast with Mark Miller:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-facebook-shutdown-exclusive/exclusive-vietnam-threatens-to-shut-down-facebook-over-censorship-requests-source-idUSKBN27Z1MP

Why stop at these two? Whole nation-states with their national champions can't do it either.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/11/m1-macs-review/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7355084/

So you mean to tell me that if there was a virus that is very contagious and it make people want to leave densely populated cities with high rent, I am supposed to be shocked at that kind of rationale behavior by the upper middle to rich class? Wow, I would've never thought of that. 2008/2009 was scary as well. People tried to jack my tenants. Every 7-10 years, you have to experience some pain in real estate. It's just life. This is round 2 for me with 2008/2009 being more scary in general but NYC holding up better. This round is more specific for NYC. Back in 2008/2009, I was pretty bearish about NYC because all the revenue and profit center that drove that boom was so tied to mortgage packaging. That was totally going to go away. I know, right.

Sorry if already posted, haven't been following this thread lately: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/lockdown-u-turn-in-sweden-as-covid-19-cases-soar-and-herd-immunity-hopes-falter

Who knew people prefer larger living quarters when they can't go out much, and smaller ones when they can go out a lot? Life is trade-offs, I guess.

TSS acquisition in Germany: easySoft: "a leading Education Management and Human Resource Development software" "A significant majority of our users in the fields of education management and HR development have been with us for many years" 25 years 80 employees 1440 customers Another one at Volaris in the US: medaptus: "a healthcare technology company that removes administrative burden from hospital and group practice operations to enable higher efficiently throughput." 37 employees 20 years Another one in Germany: FOG Software acquired Xavannah GmbH “a leading eBusiness provider for the digital trade, whose focus is on web-based software applications” “With 14 employees, we have been working for approx. 70 companies in the handicraft industry since 2008.” All h/t @pearnick

Byrne Hobart always writes thoughtful stuff. He has a free newsletter edition about AirBNB: https://diff.substack.com/p/understanding-airbnb

Strange: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/17/2128311/0/en/Constellation-Software-Inc-Provides-Update-in-Connection-with-Proposed-Topicus-com-Spin-Out-and-Previously-Declared-Conditional-Dividend.html Guessing they'll just do it a bit later, but this feels like too little explanation of what is going on and what to expect...

Up 13% after hours... As someone recently reminded me of, it's not because something is supposed to be priced in that it can't be priced in twice...

?

More like freezer for longer periods, fridge for shorter ones, but yeah, much easier logistics on deployment are a big deal. Don't know how much supply they've stockpiled and how fast they can produce them when they get EUA, though.

New writeup on SPGI and MCO (subscription required): https://www.scuttleblurb.com/spgi_mco/

Altius Reports Acquisition of Kami Iron Ore Project by Champion Iron

Thanks, I appreciate that! That last part reminds me of that Bertrand Russell quote I put at the beginning of this one: Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. —Bertrand Russell https://libertyrpf.substack.com/p/48-my-thoughts-on-how-to-find-investments

I've described my feelings about that a bit on the about page: https://libertyrpf.substack.com/about Basically, my #1 priority with this is for me to have fun. If I stop having fun I'll stop doing it. So that relieves a lot of pressure, and probably explains why it's full of stupid dad jokes and random stuff that may not interest anyone but me... But hopefully, there's enough variety that while nobody is interested by everything in every issue, almost every subscriber finds a few things they like in each, and that's enough. I've been writing a lot for a long time -- including here, but elsewhere too -- so I know I'll be writing either way. It does feel more satisfying to do it within that project than in most other places, because it feels like building something and making it up as I go and that's it's all adding up on the same canvas. I like the little inside jokes and references that long-term readers may notice that others won't, etc. Good way to have fun. And since it's all on my domain, anyone who doesn't like it isn't forced to read, so I'm not imposing on anyone. To answer: So far it's been low pressure and fun. If it changes, I may just stop doing it, or make changes. I always reserve the right to take a break and come back to it later or change anything about the format.

Yes, I get his letters. But they aren't public afaik, so I won't share.