Buffet's seems to be slowing down. He invested in financials just before the 08 meltdown and was only saved by the bailout, and now he is investing in BoA. Either he's counting on an other bailout (which would be smart but morally very questionable), or he's taking a big risk.
Not to mention that he got a sweetheart deal with preferred shares paying a guaranteed 6%. I'm not 100% sure on the actual %, but it's not the yield that the morons that followed him will get.
I think an investment from Buffet is such a great PR coup that he can negotiates deals that would otherwise be detrimental to the company he invests in on a stand alone basis.
If you are a long term investor--a truly long term investor--I would buy this stock market with both fists and I would feast greedily at the banquest that has been layed out in front of you. I would get a diversified portfolio of big cap stocks (maybe weighted towards drug names) and I would not look back. This is the exact opposite of the '90s no earnings no EBITDA madness that drove stocks up with out a foundation. Once the common man is sure the world will end . . . . then you surely know that it will not.
Oh, and I would also buy Edward Green shoes because I love them
Last edited by g- (2011-08-27 19:19:46)
The thundering hooves of the four horsemen is getting to be all ubiquitous and mere background noise these days, nothing left to do but put on some Mark Murphy and pour the drinks for when they arrive.
The same problems of the failure of capitalism, massive structural unemployment and deindustrialisation were experienced during the 1930's, there's nothing new here, except for peak oil. The limits of growth call for a new economic paradigm and world population that the limits can offer a decent middle class lifestyle for. Simples.
The easy to get at oil has definitely peaked, an inconveniet truth. But.....
New technologies make revisiting and extracting the remaining deposits from old fields commercially viable. Most of the oil remains in the ground from traditionally pumped oil, so there's plenty there.
Deep water and deep drilling is the new frontier and this means previously unavailable deposits will be got at and extracted.
They will resolve the technological impasse of the oil and tar sands and find a process of extracting the oil with less energy than is got out than in the actual extracting it. A distinctive possibility and if so, happy days and screw the Middle East.
We use the two hundred year left deposits of coal and start like Nazi Germany making fuel out of it.
Gas, plenty of LNG and gas now being exploited.
The future's not so bad, maybe and in any event, we are going to ring out the last drops of easy oil and it would be foolish not to I suppose.
Extraction and refining capacity comes into play also, as the Saudis are finding out now, they have no spare capacity, they cannot increase production.
Glad to see G and Formby are eternal optimists, sadly I steer through the stormy seas of pessimism and at least when something good happens it is completely unexpected.
Last edited by g- (2011-08-28 19:53:36)
The stone age quote is most certainly not Delage's.
Peak Oil: So maybe we won't run out of it, but will be still be able to afford it?
Nuclear Power: Does anyone really believe that only "environmentalists" oppose it?
Last edited by formby (2011-08-29 07:17:39)
We are already engaged in wars for control and access to cheap and easy oil, anyone who thinks that the transition from an oil based economy to the next model is going to be seamless and without cataclysm may be vying on the overly optimistic. Peak of easy oil is scientific fact and has nothing to do with oil traders.
The question we should be asking is, will this new economy and energy source support human populations on the scale of the oil one?
Or maybe we should sit back like the Easter Islanders and wait, for as we all know, necessity is the mother of invention. Something new and good will come along in a minute.
Last edited by 4F Hepcat (2011-08-29 11:11:18)
Ok, we went from peak oil to "peak of easy oil", that's a start.
It's not clear to me that the cost of extracting a given amount of oil will go up anytime soon. I would like to see some data on this, net of real inflation (i.e., price of gold). I suspect we would find that the cost of oil is flatish, or maybe went down. Even if we have to dig much further, and in more difficult conditions, we have better techniques to do so. So these two factors go against each others. Not sure which one "won" in the past or will in the future.