"[The economics profession] has been confident in various formulas, but economics is not physics. The same formula that works in one decade doesn't work in the next. Economics is a difficult subject, and a lot of overconfidence has been removed from the economics profession over the last 20 years. They've been really surprised." - Charlie Munger (on CNBC this morning)
Warren Buffett on CNBC (FULL VIDEO, TRANSCRIPT)
Berkshire Hathaway Boosts Its Board Size (LINK)
Warren Buffett has elevated two longtime Berkshire Hathaway Inc. executives to vice chairman roles at the company, all but confirming years of speculation that one of them is in line to replace him.
Berkshire said Wednesday that it is expanding its 12-member board of directors by two and naming Gregory Abel and Ajit Jain to fill the spots.
Eddie Lampert: Enhancing Our Liquidity and Accelerating Our Return to Profitability (LINK)
Good Luck Spending Your KodakCoins (LINK)
I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor - by Oobah Butler [H/T Santangel's Review] (LINK)
Panel remarks by Claudio Borio: A blind spot in today's macroeconomics? (LINK)
A standard presumption in today's macroeconomics is that when making sense of first-order macroeconomic outcomes we can treat the economy as if its output were a single good produced by a single firm. This means that issues of resource misallocation can be safely ignored. But the link between resource misallocations and macroeconomic outcomes may well be tighter than we think. This speech illustrates the point with reference to two examples that highlight the link between finance and macroeconomics: the impact of resource misallocations induced by financial booms and busts on productivity growth, and an intriguingly close relationship between the growing incidence of "zombie" firms and declining interest rates since the 1980s.When Humans War, Animals Die - by Ed Yong (LINK)
Why dolphins are deep thinkers (from 2003) [H/T @juliagalef] (LINK)
At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, Kelly the dolphin has built up quite a reputation. All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean.
Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on. This behaviour is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification. She has realised that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food coming. She has, in effect, trained the humans.
"Accounting is but an aid to business thinking, not a substitute for it." - Warren Buffett [H/T CIO]