Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
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LewisBraham
Hi Hank,
Your satire came across very well. Don't worry about the user name.
Best,
Lewis
@Out of Touch: time.com/money/3989171/best-big-cities-2015/
nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/economist-names-pittsburgh-livable-city/
You can't even do a put down without being long winded. Remember: Longueurs are the soul of wit.
@littlw The fact that our public courts can be corrupted by private interests is not an indication we should have a privatized system. I wouldn't want to compete in the free market court of EBay in which a desired verdict automatically went to the h…
@Prolix First, lighten up. It's a joke and it is funny. Second, there's a lot of "'isms" being thrown around without much sense as to their meanings. Some form of socialism and capitalism exists in almost every modern state. It's a spectrum or scale…
@OldJoe, You're assuming that increasing the minimum wage by a certain amount requires an equal increase in the price of the goods those workers produce. But minimum wage labor is often a small part of the overall cost of production. In the case of …
@Mark Ask and you shall receive:
money.cnn.com/2013/10/15/news/economy/fast-food-worker-public-assistance/
npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/16/235398536/why-u-s-taxpayers-pay-7-billion-a-year-to-help-fast-food-workers
Regarding the government's su…
Generally speaking, the more commoditized an industry is with razor-thin profit margins, the nastier it will be to its employees, consumers and the environment. Competition forces executives to cut corners to survive in such industries so there is a…
@VintageFreak I see you're interested in the Grandeur Peak Global Micro Cap Fund from your other posts. It has a 2.00% expense ratio. But it is that kind of fund which has a high expense ratio but a small asset base that I am talking about. Is it fa…
@VintageFreak The problem with your scenario is you assume that fund A and fund B will have the same gross returns. My argument is that the smaller fund B could very well beat fund A because of lower market impact costs and greater active share and …
Here's my prediction: Fossil fuel companies will continue to deny climate change is real and of human origin until alternative energy becomes competitively priced and a true threat to their business at every level sans government subsidies. Then fos…
@VintageFreak
From a legal perspective it's important to recognize that A) Most investors are not as sophisticated as you, but B) and more important, even if they are many don't have much of a choice as to the funds they invest in. Those invested …
@VintageFreak As the author of the article, I obviously disagree. But I wonder if you read it in its entirety. I think there are two good reasons why total dollars in fees matter. One is this question of economies of scale, which has huge legal rami…
@MSF The second part of the article is even more damning than the first:
nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-arbitration-a-privatization-of-the-justice-system.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=Deal…
@msf, Agreed, it is an old story, but I didn't know how pervasive it was today and how much political lobbying occurred behind the scenes to make it so pervasive and how utterly ineffectual and unfair the arbitration process now is as a result. It's…
@David, Your model doppelganger is almost as funny as mine, kind of looks like Mads Mikkelsen. If your in town, let me know. My wife and I go to the Strip District all the time.
@Vintage, Given that your list of ones you don't want includes many of the major brokers, this is a bit tricky. Since I don't know your trading style, there are two other significant ones worth mentioning. One is Interactive Brokers. For sophisticat…
@Scott That sounds really serious. Wow. I have to figure there will be some criminal investigation and suits over this. What is shocking to me is also how Sequoia missed all of this. I have long been a fan of the fund, but it is surprising when you …
@MJG I apologize if I said anything nasty to you, but do you realize how patronizing it sounds to tell an adult "I hope you learned something" after attacking their ideas with trumped up research from a dubious source? The media study is so obviousl…
Some other choice quotes from the Sequoia Letter:
"We work hard to understand Valeant and its business model. Our belief has always been that Pearson is honest and extremely driven. He does everything legally permissible to maximize Valeant’s earn…
@MJG and David, Even worse: "None of the outlets that reported on the study mentioned that the authors have previously received funding from the three premier conservative think tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute for Publi…
@Dex, I'm sorry but I don't think you've done yours. By your own numbers for the development of the health care web site it costs $2.142 billion. That amounts to $126 per person of the 17 million new people insured by the law. That just will not cov…
@Dex, OK Dex, you didn't say that, but do you honestly believe: "Healthcare.gov site development alone might have paid for those people." That's almost 17 million new people added to the insurance rolls, many of whom are sickly and previously uncove…
@Dex: As far as there being more people uninsured today than before the ACA, I don't know where you're getting your facts. All the evidence I've seen indicates more people are insured today because of the law:
cnn.com/2015/03/16/politics/obamacare-…
@Dex I am well aware stock prices are not profit margins, but there is a correlation between the two, no? Consider this: Many of the people who were uninsured prior to the law that are now insured were sickly people insurers want to deny coverage to…
@Dex, What you're saying isn't accurate. Health insurers have been seeing record profits because of the ACA and they have been gouging customers, particularly small businesses. Yet many more people are insured under the law:
publicintegrity.org/20…
@Dex, The thing I find interesting is you blame the ACA and not the insurers themselves for gouging people. I think the ACA was the best legislation that could be passed to insure millions of Americans without insurance given the current political c…
@bee. Agreed the ACA is a far from optimal solution to America's healthcare problems. That would have been a single payer option or extending Medicare to every citizen. Medicare has proven far more efficient and less costly per capita than private h…
@davfor, I agree the situation purely on a climate basis is not apocalyptic and I'm sorry if my post sounded that way. It is more humanity's reaction to it that could be apocalyptic. Your first article states: "The stakes are obviously very high -- …
@Dex, That depends on how you define the point of no return. A significant number of scientists say we have already passed the point of no return. But what that means is that many species will go extinct and millions of humans will die or be displac…
@Bee, That the poor have less savings to cover their healthcare costs has less to do with they're not being "frugal" and more to do with the fact that wages for the average American have not increased on an inflation adjusted basis for over 30 years…
I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with either the capacity of the other funds such as international small cap which is closed or does it have to do with the promotion of the managers to Global Leaders Fund. Maybe there's staffing issues or…
Has anyone considered increasing their IRA or 401k contributions to reduce their income and thus increase their healthcare subsidy on ACA? I hate the title of this article but still worth noting:
emarotta.com/how-to-bilk-obamacare/
Also, my impress…
@MJG It is a false equivalency to compare the NYT to Heritage Foundation because of its editorial page's presidential endorsements. The editorial page of a newspaper is one page and it is supposed to take a political stance. It's misunderstanding wh…
@MJG, I'm sorry but to to compare a conservative/libertarian think tank like Heritage which is financed and run by conservative/libertarian operatives and politicians with an express goal of shifting public policy in a right wing direction to a vene…
