Liberty

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/07/26/how-a-brazillian-oil-billionaire-lost-99-of-his-fortune/

Thanks, bmichaud!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-25/samsung-misses-estimates-as-high-end-smartphones-near-saturation.html

Figured this one deserved a thread since so many here seem to have read it. :) [amazonsearch]Cable Cowboy[/amazonsearch] I've had this on order for a while but it's back-ordered and apparently not getting closer to shipping, so I decided to cancel that order and instead just get the kindle version (it isn't available in Apple's iBook store...) and read it on my iPad.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-25/china-cuts-capacity-in-some-industries-to-reshape-economy.html Wonder how big an impact that will have. Could be nothing..

That's sharp. And conversely, if the market is pricing in a merger but it doesn't happen, TWC stock will also drop, giving further incentive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/business/media/glenn-britt-to-retire-as-time-warner-cable-chief.html I wonder if this is a sign of a Charter merger (regardless of what he says publicly -- of course he can't say anything until there's an official announcement)... Would be surprised if the current charter management team ran the show if they merged, so Britt might have figured it was a good time to bow out.

Q2: http://investor.siriusxm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=780234

Solar will probably eventually go the graphene route. It's basically carbon, and it could lead to conversion efficiencies much greater than silicon (because in graphene, it's possible for one photon to free more than one electron). http://www.technologyreview.com/news/511751/research-hints-at-graphenes-photovoltaic-potential/ Some even thing efficiencies of 60% could be possible with graphene... But even traditional solar technology has been falling in price very rapidly (a kind of Moore's Law) and will be very competitive sooner than most people think. http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2013/05/cost-of-solar-power-graph-1980-2012.jpg.0x545_q100_crop-scale.jpg As for any toxic materials in thin film panels, they aren't really much of a problem since they aren't going anywhere for the decades of useful life of the panel and can then be recycled. It's not like toxic materials in fuels that you burn and then release in the air. Offshore wind farms will play a much bigger role because the wind is stronger, more constant, and there's less complaining. The birds thing is ridiculous. People suddenly become big bird defenders when they hear about wind power, yet the biggest killers of birds are power lines, buildings, cars, and house cats. Yet nobody complains despite these being many orders of magnitude bigger problems for birds. Climate change and toxins from coal also certainly kill many more birds and other animals than wind power... The noise thing is also way overblown. It can be a problem with badly sited wind farms, but overall, it's like the bird thing. Not nearly the problem that wind opponents would like people to believe IMO.

I disagree. Unless I'm mistaken (its been a while since I read about this), the energy source in current uranium reactors (ie. non breeders) is only the U235, not the U238. When you look at coal's energy density, you look only at coal, not at coal + the useless rock that surrounded it. Maybe if he was writing in a commercial context of uranium spot prices it would have been misleading, but the comic wasn't intended in that context. It was only about the energy density of various things, and in uranium, the 'fuel' part is the U235.

Good ol' Munger 8)

Indeed. U235 occurs naturally at about 0.7%, if I remember correctly, and even nuclear weapons only need to go to about 90% enrichment. Nobody would ever quote the price of pure U235 on the market (if anyone did, I'm sure Iran would be very interested) :) That's an aside, but what I'd like to see commercialized eventually is the thorium LFTR reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR It seems like a better, safer, more efficient model than the uranium reactors that we have, and if the military hadn't needed to make so many bombs, thorium would probably have been picked over uranium from the start...

I think it's 100% U235, otherwise it would read just "uranium" and would represent the energy density of a mix of U235 and U238. This comic is drawn by Randall Munroe, a former NASA guy. He tends to get the science right. Wikipedia has the energy density of U235 at 83,140,000 MJ/KJ, so the comic was apparently being conservative.

Liberty, thoughts on the book? I've read about 1/3 of it and then set it aside to focus on a few other books (I tend to always read a few things in parallel). So far, I feel like I've learned a lot about Greenberg and how he got his start in the business and how AIG was formed, but not so much about the current incarnation of the company, so there are very few useful insights so far. Maybe that'll come later in the book.. It does sound a bit like "Hank the super genius who saw what nobody else saw and made it work through sheer hard work and determination" at times, and I'm not sure if it's getting into hagiography territory or if it's just a fair description of how good Greenberg is (was?). It's not written in the most griping style, but it's not terrible either. I'm witholding judgement for now, though...

Congrats! :)

Heh, that works too. Solar shade's a nice bonus if you're going to get panels anyway, though.

Eric: Another benefit of getting solar panels is they keep your house cooler (by providing shade to your roof -- the effect is bigger if there's empty space between the panels and the roof) and reduce the need for AC: http://ssi.ucsd.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=468:solar-panels-keep-ucsd-buildings-cool-july-18-2011&catid=8:newsflash&Itemid=20

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/why-buffett-bailed-on-india.html

I'm curious, does anyone here own Charter directly?

That's my approach too. I'm renting, and will stay here until the market is a lot lower than it is now or the fundamentals change in some major way that make the valuations make sense (but I really don't see how that's possible other than with a big RE correction -- it's not like wages will suddenly start going up double digits to catch up and people's debts melt away without killing housing).

I don't short, but those looking at Canadian RE should probably have a look at this: http://www.cansofunds.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Canso-Px-The-Canadian-Housing-Market-July-2013-Revised-2.pdf

King Icahn is a good biography. It's a bit dated as it was written in the mid 90's but gives a good story of his career and life to that point. You can download its pdf file on the IEP - Icahn Enterprises thread. giofranchi Thanks, found it!

http://ceo.ca/uranium-outlook-and-paladin-energy-ltd-risk-profile/ (Sorry if it's a repost)

You might be interested in this if you haven't already seen it: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/07/pia-20130714.html

A lot of people go off-grid with lead-acid batteries. With advanced li-ion batteries like Tesla's, it wouldn't be that many. Of course, anyone going off grid should first make sure that their energy usage has been cut down as much as possible first (ie. energy efficient appliances, good house insulation, LED/CFL lighting, etc) to keep the need for batteries to a minimum. So if Eric doesn't go off-grid and keeps a grid tie, he could do with a lot fewer batteries and just get the extra power he needs on peak days from the grid yet get most of his power from batteries on normal days (I'm sure with historical data of his power usage he could do the math and figure out the optimal amount of battery storage for max ROI).