Liberty

http://basehitinvesting.com/risk-and-portfolio-management-similarities-between-joel-greenblatt-and-stanley-druckenmiller/ Good post by John Huber. Mentions a couple videos that have been posted here previously.

When the book came out and there was a huge media ruckus, we got the other side of the story. Everyone attacked Lewis, and their arguments basically amounted to nothing. Either they tried to act like Lewis was against all electronic, high-speed trading, and he isn't ("the spreads are smaller now!" yeah, but not because of front-runners and people sniffing your orders). Or they talked about liquidity and such, which is BS for the kind of HFT that Lewis went after (they actually mostly provide fake liquidity that disappears when someone needs it). So sometimes when you don't get the other side, it's because they don't have anything to say that would make them look good. They do it for the money, that's it. The best they can hope for is to confuse the public and muddy the waters and hope that the money tap isn't turned off too soon. There's no hidden positive reason for that specific kind of HFT to exist (or if there is, I haven't found it yet).

I would argue that you should be a politician. Basically all Buffett has done is found a really inefficient and incredibly difficult way to tax people and use the resulting taxes to fund health care, foreign aid etc. The same thing Buffett did is accomplished much more effectively by taxing people and funding things through government. One Deng Xiaoping is equivalent to a thousand Warren Buffett's. I enjoy this forum but sometimes I feel like everyone on here is going 120mph and I'm struggling to go 25mph. I have absolutely no clue what this means. Lol I was about to comment on this too - I'm not sure what the paragraph is getting at or especially how you would go about measuring Den Xiaoping in units of Buffett. I do however share Den's view on cats It's basically claiming that Deng Xiaoping had a bigger impact on the world than Buffett. It's true, but kind of pointless. That's like saying that the people who wrote the old testament had a bigger impact than Deng. So what? What matters is how much good you can do versus your potential. We're not all Buffetts, but most of us can do better than we're doing now and should strive for that. It would also be possible to get into the argument that Buffett is pretty much doing just net good, while many politicians do a mix of good and bad things (many from unintended consequences, over long periods of time), and that if you try to look at it net-net, maybe Deng doesn't come out that well, or maybe he was just cleaning up the mess that other politicians before him created, etc. I don't want to get into it.

That I would like to know. I've had mistakes in my RSP and TFSA in the past, and it sucks. TFSA I get being disappointed about, but if you have to have a loser RRSP is better than non-registered, imo. You've already taken a full deduction against the invested capital against income, which is better than a capital loss that you would get non registered. Or look at it backwards. If you have a big gainer in your RRSP, you pay tax at the regular rate when you withdraw. Not ideal, but nobody complains about gains. However, if you have a big gainer in a non-registered account, you pay at the capital gains tax rate, which is 50% less. That's a mitigating factor for sure, but it's still a bad outcome, especially if you take the long-view, compounding multi-decades inside the RSP. Even if I don't buy & sell too often, the absence of capital gains every time there's a transaction still adds up over the years to probably more than whatever I saved with the deduction vs 50%-capital-gains.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21648624-housing-markets-across-globe-both-underperform-and-overwhelm-property-puzzles?frsc=dg%7Cd http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20150418_FNC602.png

That I would like to know. I've had mistakes in my RSP and TFSA in the past, and it sucks. The only thing that gives me comfort is that I've learned a lot since and now own much higher-quality businesses, so the chances of permanent losses over the long-term should be reduced. But it's still a trade-off; do you put things that are super safe and boring, but might not result in huge gains, to avoid losses. Or do you put potential big winners to have more gains to shield from taxes, but they might be more uncertain and could result in losses..?

I agree. "Politicking" or not I'll take it. They hike it knowing few can or will take advantage of it. I will! ;D Most people would rather have houses they can't afford and financed SUVs to commute in the city in or whatever. Life's about choices.

Rejoice!

Great one, thanks for posting!

http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Qlet2015-01.unlocked-1.pdf

http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/146 I enjoyed this podcast episode and think that many here might like it too. The format is that Horace (who you might know from his work at Asymco.com) is being interviewed about a car purchase that he made (Porsche Cayman). The interview technique is very effective at figuring out exactly why he made the purchase, and not the usual bullshit. I find this technique very valuable to think about things like why are people buying things that aren't just the cheapest one that does what they need. Or to flip it, it says a lot about how certain companies can be differentiated. Anyway, I hope you like it.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/belgium-could-signal-libertys-change-of-heart-1429544989

I'm sure it was great and I'm sad to have missed it. I'll try to make it next year :)

Indeed. My son's middle name is "Feynman" 8)

Some good ones have been mentioned. Here's a few I'll add: American Ceasar: Douglas MacArthur, by William Manchester With the Old Breed, by E.G. Sledge American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris It's not a book, but I recommend the HBO miniseries John Adams (the book on which it's based is probably good too, but I haven't read it yet). The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, by Graham Farmelo

Price post-synergies seems good. Probably main benefit will come from quad play reducing churn on the cable business.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-and-time-warner-cable-to-meet-with-doj-to-negotiate-merger-1429410969 Also: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-19/comcast-time-warner-said-to-discuss-deal-with-doj-wednesday

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arris-charter-acquire-activevideo-through-new-joint-venture-300065355.html

Unless I'm missing something, this is a market commentary, not a shareholder letter, so of course they're going to talk about all kinds of stuff that is not always directly related to the performance of their funds, such as market structure and such. I think they talk a lot about ETFs because they are trying to build their own kind of ETFs with owner managers and other unusual selection criteria.

Isn't that basically the same thing that a number of people have been saying forever, including Buffett?

Thanks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/u-s-antitrust-lawyers-said-to-be-leaning-against-comcast-merger So it looks like CHTR/LBRDA might take another swing at TWC, if this is correct.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-plans-to-launch-in-canada-this-fall-1429280816 Apparently Apple Pay is coming to Canada in the fall.

Al & al, My plan right now is kind of to have a few years worth of expenses in cash, to live off that, and to replenish that buffer periodically when something is at a level that I can sell. If there's a big drop, historically things tend to fall fast but usually within two years things have had time to recover, at least to a level that isn't terrible if I have to sell some. Have you looked at that kind of "cash buffer" approach and if so, why did you reject it in favor of finding dividend payers? Is it because it's less predictable, so it doesn't feel good? That's a worry that I have, that I would be constantly thinking about that buffer, and if I can avoid the extra stress, that would be nice.

Something I wrote somewhere else. Just cut & pasting it here: So I was just thinking about the Apple Watch, and realized how it’ll help make the iPhone stickier in a very specific way: Replacement cycles for the iPhone and the Watch will rarely perfectly overlap. If someone has a Watch and they like it, they need an iPhone, so if their iPhone needs replacement, there’s very little chances that they’ll switch to a different ecosystem. And if they like the Watch and it becomes a part of their life, not only will they need to stick with the iPhone, but there’s very little reason for them to replace the Apple Watch with a smartwatch from another company since it won’t work nearly as well with the iPhone, which brings us back to the beginning of the cycle. Rinse and repeat. Extracting yourself from the ecosystem would be easier if the Watch and phone were always replaced at the same time, but since they probably will rarely be, it adds friction because you have to give up that other thing.