Liberty

New presentation on Liberty Interactive: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-GY7JI/2847738156x7456752x728802/b3b19443-b6eb-418b-97a8-e2f19efb6156/QVC%20Inc.%20-%20J.P.%20Morgan%20Global%20High%20Yield%20&%20Leveraged%20Finance%20Conference%2002.26.14.pdf

http://www.news.com.au/world/tin-cans-filled-with-10-million-in-gold-coins-found-buried-in-california/story-fndir2ev-1226837801851 Better to be lucky than good, I suppose ???

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2043973-platform-specialty-products-outliers-preparing-worlds-next-greatest-industrial-company

Congrats, nice pick.

I've never owned any. I probably should have bought a few sometime after the IPO as a speculative bet since I've followed the company since 2006 and was pretty sure they'd eventually do great things.. Oh well, this one falls in the "interesting to learn about" pile, not the "invest into" pile.

To be clear, I don't think brick & mortar in general is going away. Just that it won't be nearly as profitable as before for those who have to compete on price and sell undifferentiated products. Walmart made sure of that, and now Amazon is just adding extra pressure on top. We ordered all our baby furniture on Amazon.ca and saved hundreds of dollars compared to the stuff we saw at Babies R Us... We didn't even think of going to Sears, I'll admit :-\

Good point. If he wants to make retail work, he certainly could use a Dan Burke to his Tom Murphy, so to speak.

Hi heth, Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that General Dynamics was a good business, just in a cyclical downturn and with some bloat that could be cut out. I see high-cost brick and mortar department stores much more in a secular decline in this world of Amazon and Walmart (there's also opportunity at the higher end, but Sears seems to be stuck in the middle), kind of like how Kay Graham probably couldn't have done what she did at the Post in today's newspaper world. But I could very well be wrong. I don't know that much about retailing, except that it's incredibly hard and that aside from having the lowest costs or very desirable exclusive products, competitive advantages are hard to come by.

It was Malone. iirc, his mentor used to say "It's better to pay interest than taxes".

heth247, that's an interesting thought. I think it might be a lot harder for Eddie to do, though. What supercharged the returns of the Outsiders CEOs was a combination of good businesses that threw off lots of cash and great capital allocators who knew how to deploy that cash at very high returns (mostly a mix of acquisitions and buybacks). Eddie might be a great capital allocator, but his business definitely doesn't throw off lots of cash for him to deploy. He has a pile of assets and liabilities that are probably worth more than the market cap, but there's a step missing for him to be able to use the Outsiders model and for this not to be just a melting ice cube liquidation play. My view on SHLD is that if it really is going to turn into a great compounder that will do well for the next 10-20 years, then I don't mind waiting until year 3 or 5 (or whatever) to get in, after the new model has been demonstrated. People who got in before that, during the past decade, hoping for an investment vehicle, have so far been disappointed. Maybe there will be a huge spike in the early years when it starts, and I don't mind missing it because there's also always the chance that ESL will keep only doing his Ayn Rand retail experiment to the bitter end and results won't be as good as people expect. But if he stabilizes things, converts assets into cash and redeploys it into good businesses that provide lots of FCF for him to play with, then I'll certainly consider it. If not, there are other good Outsiders-style CEOs out there...

It happens. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/24/us/25sludge2_600.JPG Coal ash spill..

You're leaving part of the story out. The problem wasn't that it was funding research. The problem was that it was bogus research, with the only purpose of creating doubt and uncertainty in the minds of people, which is basically what the tobacco industry tried to do when science first came out about the harm of cigarettes. I think scientists' problem is not that there are those who don't agree with the consensus. It's that a lot of groups (incl. media) will give as much weight if not more weight to that 1% of dissenters as to the 99% others, and then pretend "well, it's undecided, we just don't know." There's always some people who disagree about everything, including flat earthers and moon landing hoaxers and plate tectonic skeptics and such, but it doesn't make the science any less settled until one of these dissenters comes out with strong enough evidence to show that they actually are right. Until they do that, the strongest evidence wins. The reason why there are over 90% of people who agree is not because they have more friends and have winning smiles, it's because in the eyes of the other experts, their evidence is much stronger. Anyway, I'm done with this thread, I don't feel much is being accomplished anyway.

Agalio, China today has technology infinitely more advanced than when the US passed the first coal laws. http://www.takepart.com/photos/amazing-photos-show-1940s-pittsburgh-blanketed-air-pollution/the-collection Technology allows things to get cleaner, but because the costs of all this is harm are externalized and diffused, while the benefits are concentrated and polluters don't pay the price, it often takes regulation to make things happen. Just like it's started to now happen in China and happened everywhere else that got significantly cleaner. So tech is necessary, but not sufficient for a lot of progress on that front. Same with leaded gasoline. It might not have been possible to ban it from the start, but it might still be in today if it was entirely up to gasoline producers to choose, and we'd have kids with lower IQs and more aggressive behaviors... As for dumping waste, you really think that if the only thing stopping people were lawsuits that waterways and the international oceans would be as clean? How many people have you sued in your life? How many middle-class folks could afford to sue when their small lake or river got destroyed, and wouldn't companies often decide it's cheaper to pay lawyers for a few years than do the right thing? Anyway, let's drop it here, you are obviously an ideologue, the very thing you claim to be against.

You know this how? Science is not what you think it is. If someone could come up with really solid research based on sound methodology that disproved any of the current consensus, they'd probably win a nobel prize. Some of the big businesses making money on fossil fuels would definitely fund that research. But so far, all they finance doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because the facts aren't in their favor.

Do you prefer to breathe air in the post Clean Air Act US or the air in Beijing right now? Do you prefer to live somewhere where lead has been banned in gasoline, or somewhere where it hasn't? Dumping waste in rivers and the ocean, you are for or against it? How about letting fisheries self-manage, people can catch everything they want out of the ocean, from the smallest shrimp to the biggest whale, and we'll see what happens? Some environmentalists are cult-like and anti-science, but others aren't, just like in all large groups there are rational people and irrational ones. What's new? But those who oppose the current crop of rational environmentalists (a lot of them the very scientists who know most about things like our planet's climate) will one day look like those who opposed the ban on lead in gasoline or anti-smog measures..

deepValue, you're saying the equivalent of "astrophysics and cosmology isn't science! Can you prove wrong or run a control group on a star or a galaxy! I think not!" Fact is, there's a group of gasses that we know trap infrared radiation, we've seen their effects in experiments and on other planets (venus, mars). The earth's atmosphere is incredibly thin on the scale of our planet and we've been burning billions of tons of carbon that were buried in the planet's crust for decades. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this massive chemical experiment will have an impact. Well, we've been documenting that impact in dozens of ways for a long time. The whole argument of "how much of that science is funded by government?" is ridiculous; who's going to do that research if not NASA and NOAA and universities? Scientists funded by Exxon? Volunteer PHDs who will self-finance satellites and core drilling in the arctic? Are you also not relying on any of the other government-funded science? Because that's a lot that I bet you rely on every day.

I actually wouldn't be that surprised if Apple was a partner on the factory, along with probably Panasonic. Apple has been making noise for a while that they want to bring back more manufacturing to the US (they did it with the new Mac Pro), but they won't do it if it results in much higher costs. Something like a massive battery factory that makes the lowest-cost and highest-quality batteries in the world would fit the bill perfectly. Even from a branding perspective, people don't give a crap about most batteries, they're the ultimate commodity... Except maybe for Tesla batteries. Saying you have a Tesla battery in your iPhone 7 or Macbook Pro would be very attractive to many people.

Live Nation reports Q4: http://investors.livenationentertainment.com/files/doc_news/2014/Q4-FY%202013EarningsRelease_FINAL.pdf Up about 12%.

Global warming can actually lead to more snow because there's more evaporation over oceans (snow = precipitation, not cold. As long as you're below freezing, more precipitation = more snow even if things are warmer than usual). Let's also not forget that global warming is GLOBAL, so looking at regional weather doesn't tell you much (ie. colder than usual over north-america this winter, but record heat in Alaska, russia, etc). Here's more global data: http://climatecrocks.com/2014/01/29/new-video-if-theres-global-warming-why-is-it-so-cold/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/12 http://qz.com/106814/if-youre-under-the-age-of-28-youve-never-experienced-a-month-of-below-average-global-temperature/

Galaxy S5 is out. http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441668/samsung-galaxy-s5-announcement-launch Notice the back of the 'gold' version, it looks a bit like a giant band-aid.

Eric, is your next step buying a ride on a SpaceX rocket? I can't wait for the news on the gigafactory this week. I think it could be a real gamechanger, bringing the cost of batteries way down and paving the way for their mass-market EV in 3-4 years. Those of you who are still short might want to read up on that gigafactory. Looking at the history of Tesla, I'm pretty sure the market will be positively surprised by the size, partners, and future battery pack cost-projections.

Pretty sure that was a Ted Weschler pick (or maybe Combs, but not WEB).

It's now available to those with guest accounts. It doesn't really contain anything that isn't here, and it isn't that detailed. It's already a bit dated too since it assumes that the TWC deal would happen.

I don't think this was posted here (sorry if it had): http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60318162

Thank you, that was great!