Liberty

Interesting. At least it seems like they always have the option of getting their power from the Quebec side.

Thank you very much Triedtestedand. I truly appreciate it, and wish I could have attended myself.

I'm just 25 pages in, but I can't say I'm very impressed so far. It does feel padded, and the writing isn't always top notch... I'll keep going and see if it improves.

[amazonsearch]Billion Dollar Mistake[/amazonsearch] Just started this. Have always loved learning from other people's mistakes...

Excellent. I didn't expect this until H2 2012, but I'll take it now. Even if it only brings Landquart to zero cash burn, that's truly all that is needed, but if it's a big order, we could actually see green ink.

I think they are targetting many people. Most of what I know about them comes from: http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=227 http://www.taimma.com/ But I think they are now mostly an addition to EBIX's existing health stuff (mostly ADAM), and a way to get a foot in the door to sell exchanges (ie. Here's what we have to offer, from back-office to exchanges to ways to train your salesforce, informs insurees for legal purposes, etc). Just a more complete offering than the competition, but probably not where most of the money will come from (at least not at first).

I wish they would record these and post the video on youtube. In fact, I think I'll email them with that suggestion. It's such a low cost way to provide more transparency for your shareholders, they should def. do it next year.

Thanks. Good to know Warren's in good hands 8)

So back when EBIX acquired Taimma I didn't have an iPad, so I couldn't check out their stuff.. Last night I got: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/physiology-respiratory-system/id449415152?mt=8 A free 'lite' version of one of their courses. Very well done, I learned a bunch and can see how this would be the way things are done in the future rather than paper courses. I also got the two EBIX apps that are available in the app store. iEmployee requires a login/pass, so I couldn't try it, but the other quoting app had a demo mode. Seems well made, intuitive and fast. As tablets become a lot more popular with brokers, this should make their lives much easier and increase productivity.

That's not a surprise, though, Baidu is the main search engine in China and Google isn't exactly a friend of the government because they won't censor everything the way they want.

Thanks <IV, interesting stuff. I don't pretend to be an expert on the minutiae of the cotton market, but I think the big trends are very favorable: -There's a floor below which cotton farmers switch to other crops (not a static floor because it depends on other ag-commodity prices), putting upward pressure on prices. We seem to be way below that floor right now, yet DP prices are at levels that would still make FTP profitable because the high-cost producers are idling (on top of that, they have their long-term contracts, and their higher quality DP is sold at a premium to the spot that we often see quoted). That's reassuring. -If I look out 5-10 years, I see very little chances that China won't require massively more cotton and cotton substitutes like rayon than it does now. Even if they grow at just 4-5% a year on average, that's hundreds of millions of people who can buy an extra pair of jeans and a few extra t-shirts. And there seems to be a consensus that China needs to rebalance its economy and encourage consumption, so even low total growth could hide high growth in consumption. -A couple more billion people in places like Africa, South-America, India.. will be able to upgrade their wardrobe, one of the most accessible luxuries as people start having a bit of money above subsistence levels -China's cotton production should be pressured downward for environmental reasons. Their high yields don't appear sustainable, and as has happened pretty much everywhere else, as people get richer, they start to care more about not being exposed to toxic chemicals, having clean air, safe water, etc. It has already begun in China. -At some point the US and European economies will show a lot more vigor and consume more cotton and cotton-substitutes (as well as specialty DP products). -Many of the things that can negatively impact FTP are things that will impact other companies too (ie. if China crashes or there's a global financial crisis, FTP will have a hard time, but so will most other things I could invest in too), but there are many unforeseeable but probable events that could give a lot of upside to FTP but not to others (ie. a big drought in a cotton-producing area, or the price of corn or soybeans going through the roof, making farmers switch to those). -I won't get into all the reasons why I think supply of DP won't go up nearly as fast as some people think, but let's just say that a lot of projects that were announced when prices were at record highs were cancelled or postponed, that very few plants are good conversion candidates (iirc, Chad said he found 6 around the world, and he's already bought 2 of them and hired many of the people who knew how to do a conversion), China isn't a good place to produce DP because of the wood supply situation, FTP is the only new entrant to that industry in the past 30-40 years, and building a DP plant from scratch is a big gamble (expensive and long to build, and if you aren't a low-cost producer and prices for DP aren't where you thought they would be, you have a batch process plant rather than a continuous process plant, which is sub-optimal if you want to convert it to other types of pulp). Barriers to entry in the industry seem fairly high. And since at current prices you are pretty much just paying for Dresden, you get to ride these big secular trends for free. My 2 cents.

As expected, more buybacks are underway: http://www.canadianinsider.com/node/7?ticker=ALS ADV up over 9% right now. Guess it's China's announcement.

I just finished it and loved it, but I always love Buffett interviews (especially when that CNBC Joe guy isn't always screaming stupidities).

Yeah, I kinda saw that and posted it here quickly, and then realized it probably wasn't much of a big deal after all.. But we can't delete our own threads anymore, so I couldn't remove it. but to make up for it, here's a video of a 40+ min interview with Buffett: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/43-min-interview-with-buffett-at-economic-club-of-washington-d-c-(video)/

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/94157601-buffett-speaks-on-career-u-s-economy.html

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/179020/buffetts-secret-stock-from-q1-filing-revealed

Certainly, but it's also good because there are many competing DP plants that probably won't be built, and when the cycle goes back up (the current downturn isn't unexpected after the record high prices that pushed farmers to plant a lot more cotton than usual), FTP should be ready to benefit massively.

I wish I could, but it's a bit far. Hopefully others who can attend will share their notes.

http://greatinvestors.tv/video/why-berkshire-hathaway-remains-an-attractive-investment-by-g.html Good overview.

Absolutely. The map change certainly is bad for Google, and Apple's control of that platform gives them a lot of power. Things would be much worse if Android didn't exist, though.

Absolutely, I'm not saying it can't happen. Just that timing can be very hard to predict even when it looks like things shouldn't be sustainable for the shorts.

Don't hold your breath, though. These things can take time, especially if the shorts are good at dropping the price on days with good news (so that all the people who use the market as a guide go "oh, I guess the news wasn't that good after all, look at how the market is reacting"). See EBIX. :P

"Oracle has paid Google more in legal fees than it could win in damages" http://news.techeye.net/business/oracles-google-java-show-trial-cost-more-than-it-couldve-won

Very interesting, thanks.

This book increased my respect for Ackman dramatically too! Welcome to the board!