Rainforesthiker

Anything in-particular from this year's presentation? The stock seems a bit expensive to me here. I wouldn't say anything in particular. I was just reminded what a well run company this is, with very shareholder-oriented management and good insurance and investment teams. I have held off buying because the stock did seem fairly priced to perhaps a bit overpriced. But I think they are a long term compounder that I am happy to hold for a long long time, most likely the rest of my life. And if they continue to compound decently, 20 - 30 years from now my entry point won't matter that much. I didn't want this stock to be like a Berkshire or a Walmart where you are waiting for it to get cheap and end up waiting a very long time and never buying.

I added to my Markel position. Every time I hear their investor presentation in Omaha I have to buy more.

Growth in the money supply is certainly inflationary. But there have been huge deflationary pressures at the same time to offset this, primarily the hundreds of millions of people entering the middle class in the last 30 years (mostly in China) and generating wealth, and all producing goods and services at a lower cost than those in the West would have. These deflationary pressures will eventually ease, and then I think we will be in for a bit of inflation.

Somehow, your new board signature has a lot of appeal to me, Jeff! :)

Bought a 5% position in DISCK (Discovery Communications) after the recent sell-off

Mostly Berkshire, BAM, Markel and Fairfax

Over the last month built a large position in BAM (now second largest position). Bought Teekay Offshore Partners (TOO) a few weeks ago; Sold down a lot more EZPW recently

I will second that!!!

Excellent! I hope you like it.

So basically take a 100% loss on it? Ouch. I just went through this with my Dad; he managed to assign it back to the time share company. A timeshare is a liability, not an asset.

Assume you are correct on all points...even though hundreds of thousands of protesters disagree with you, including a number of Republican party members, supporters and well-known Conservatives. You are telling me that this President's conduct so far, his compulsive tweeting, choice of words when characterising those that disagree with him, and the ridiculously inane and incompetent way he has executed this travel ban, doesn't worry you in the slightest? Top brass at the borders, Department of Homeland Security, foreign embassies, travel bureaus, you name it...had no idea what this ban meant and how to enforce it. Citizens, green card holders, children, etc were held at borders or denied entry. This was a major f**k up. Sears executes their retail business with more competency! Cheers! George Bush, Obama and Hillary's State Department bomb and kill thousands of Muslims with unprecedented drone strikes, destroy entire countries, slaughter people in Iraq, create starvation in Yemen, and create this entire refugee crisis to begin with, and yet I don't recall any mass protests about that . . . But now your main worry is about how a travel ban was implemented. Do you not see that perhaps your moral compass is a little askew?

Geez if you want to go political do it on a political thread; we don't need this on investing threads . . .

How many people were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by these illegals? Compare that number to how many were hurt, had their rights infringed, or were killed in 2015 or 2016 by guns? Restricting illegals or firearms...which would have more impact on the safety, livelihood and freedoms of Americans? I'm also guessing restrictions on firearms would be far cheaper than the $25B that is going to be spent on a wall! Cheers! IMO, an example of availability bias, the seen vs. the unseen, first level thinking. Looking at the 20th century how many people were murdered by state governments, many of whom after first being disarmed by those same governments? About 140 million or so. Those lives never enter into the equation of the gun control debate. But they should. If anyone really feels safer with only officers of the state owning firearms, then I would point to history - it hasn't worked out so well for those who surrender to the state and voluntarily disarm themselves. To answer your question, minor gun control regulations don't really do anything to reduce gun crime (see Chicago), but just make people feel like they are "doing something" and it harasses law-abiding gun owners. Outright ban of guns (a la the UK), likely would reduce gun crime (not overall crime) but would considerably increase the risk of future genocide, and leave citizens defenseless when large scale civil unrest occurs. (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-attacks-guns-idUSKCN10Y19U?il=0) No solution is perfect. But I would rather go down with the civil liberties ship than risk my fate disarmed against any state government.

"Bill Clinton 1995 State of the Union immigration comments"

I am a libertarian and voted third party, but I will answer your questions from my perspective: 1). I think the MSM was incredibly biased during the campaign, and think it makes sense for the Trump administration to hold the media accountable on day one. (Note that I am not sure where the truth lies on this particular issue) 2). I think he should release his tax returns, but I don't care that much. I think it most likely that he is not releasing them because they would show that he had a large amount of losses years ago and has not paid taxes in many years because of that. He knows it would be good fodder for his opponents. You can't view Trump's election victory in the abstract, but only relative to his opponent. Hillary was 100% bad - a big government politician and a warmonger to boot. Trump might actually do some useful things, such as reducing regulations, returning education to the states, reducing bureaucracy, etc., and may even be less interventionist in foreign affairs (I hope). I agree that this election was about the lesser of two evils; I just think Trump was the lesser evil here. Time will tell.