“Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.” -Warren Buffett, 1992 Letter to Shareholders
Warren Buffett says the US will do fine under Trump because we've got the 'secret sauce' (short video and article) (LINK)
AIG to Pay Berkshire $9.8 Billion in Insurance Transfer Deal (LINK)
Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed (LINK)
The Most Coveted Ball in Golf Is From Costco (LINK)
The Art of Holding - by Ian Cassel (LINK)
January 2017 Data Update 3: Cracking the Currency Code - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)
Five Good Questions for Marko Dimitrijevic about his book Frontier Investor (video) (LINK)
Exponent Podcast: Episode 101 — TV is the Oak Tree (LINK)
The Illusions Driving Up US Asset Prices - by Robert Shiller (LINK)
Some videos from the World Economic Forum in Davos (more HERE):
A Conversation With George Soros at Davos 2017
Ray Dalio: Populism Threatens Multinational Corporations
The Crisis of the Middle Class: Davos Panel (Ray Dalio, et al.)
Davos 2017 - Strategic Update: The Future of Innovation
Davos 2017 - An Insight, An Idea with Sergey Brin
Davos 2017 - An Insight, An Idea with Jack Ma
Davos 2017 - An Insight, An Idea with Ginni Rometty
Davos 2017 - Artificial Intelligence
Davos 2017 - Strategic Update: The Future of Finance
Davos 2017 - The Global Fintech Revolution
Davos 2017 - Strategic Update: The Future of Energy [I don't have any idea if this is true, and it is dangerous to make an investment on any kind of macro forecast, but it was an interesting enough comment that I thought was worth mentioning, though it's also worth remembering that demand is only one side of the supply/demand equation: "Last year...less than one car [sold in a] hundred was an electric car...If we were to assume that, as of tomorrow, every second car sold was an electric car...for twenty-five years, global oil demand will still continue to grow.']
An Evening with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (audio) (Part 1, Part 2)
Most Primate Species Threatened With Extinction, Scientists Find (LINK)
Decoding the Origami That Drives All Life - by Ed Yong (LINK)
Books of the day:
The Transformed Cell (1992) [H/T Peter Attia]
Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will - by Geoff Colvin
I'm not sure I had previously read Martin Luther King Jr.'s entire "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." But given the recent holiday in his honor, I decided to give it a listen on Audible, and I think it'll now be something I listen to every year. Here's one particular quote that I saved:
"My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."