“What fools you are, all who seek to gain honour in war and the clash of spear on spear, stupidly trying to solve men’s troubles by death! If they are to be settled by contest of blood, never will strife end among the cities of men.”

— Euripides1

Note to Readers

I started The Digest on January 1, 2020. A weekly cadence has been maintained for five years. The goal was to grow my subscriber list and this has been accomplished with a fifteen-fold increase. While the broader readership is gratifying, publishing a weekly newsletter is very resource intensive. This has become unsustainable.

I plan to cease publication of The Digest and this will be the final issue. I would rather devote the time I have available for writing to original articles.

The Rational Walk has been the home of my writing for nearly sixteen years. All of my writing will continue to be published on the website. There are now over 1,300 articles in the archive, all of which are free to read.

In recent months, I have chosen not to distribute all of my articles via email, opting instead to include links to my articles in issues of The Digest. I did so to respect the inboxes of my readers who are no doubt inundated with incoming emails. However, without The Digest, most readers will be unaware of new articles on The Rational Walk. For this reason, I will resume sending new articles to email subscribers.

Over the years, my interests have shifted from an almost exclusive focus on business and investing to a number of other subjects. I do not plan to completely stop writing about business and investing, but I will also write about public policy matters related to economics and foreign policy. In addition, I have taken up a study of the Great Books over the past year and have written several articles about this project.

I realize that a majority of my current subscribers signed up to read business and investing articles and that the new content I plan to publish might not be what everyone is interested in. In particular, I will not shy away from writing about controversial topics. I plan to use my small platform to speak out on topics that I believe will have a major impact on the United States and the world.

Over time, I expect that my subscriber base will evolve to match my writing. I will not be offended by those who choose to unsubscribe. I struggle myself to keep up with new articles and routinely trim my own subscriptions.

I have no plans to create a paid subscription tier. All articles will be free.

Thanks for reading!

Articles

Bitcoin Hits $100,000, Lifted by Hopes of a Crypto-Friendly Washington by Alexander Osipovich, December 5, 2024. The end game for Bitcoin speculators seems to involve manipulating the government to prop up an intrinsically worthless token via a “strategic bitcoin reserve.” One popular social media account has proposed that the government print $250 billion to buy Bitcoin. If this strategy works, Bitcoin may gain a perceived imprimatur from the government that leads ordinary Americans into speculative activity and makes Bitcoin too politically sensitive to collapse, leading to future bailouts. I hope the Trump Administration rejects these proposals. (WSJ)

Buffett And Munger Unscripted by , December 5, 2024. Alex Morris, the author of TSOH Investment Research, has written a book that aims to present the highlights of Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings. I am sure that this book will be excellent and I have pre-ordered a copy! (The Science of Hitting)

Christmas Comes Early: A Closer Look at Warren Buffett's Surprise Shareholder Letter by , December 3, 2024. This article contains key highlights and comments about Warren Buffett’s recent letter revealing his latest gifts to his family foundations. I briefly discussed Mr. Buffett’s gifts last week. (Kingswell)

Becoming Berkshire: 1970 Part 2 - Blue Chip Stamps by , December 1, 2024. For some reason, many current Berkshire Hathaway investors are not familiar with Blue Chip Stamps which was one of the most important early collaborations between Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Blue Chip was an issuer of trading stamps and benefited from float much like insurers. This article describes the business as well as other events that took place during 1970. (Becoming Berkshire)

Recession Since 2022: US Economic Income and Output Have Fallen Overall for Four Years by EJ Antoni and Peter St Onge, October 9, 2024. The CPI provided on a monthly basis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is treated with reverence on Wall Street. Few question whether the numerous changes to the model over the years have led to a more or less accurate estimate of the cost of living for Americans. This article claims that inflation statistics are deeply flawed. If this is the case, real GDP growth has been significantly biased as well. h/t (Brownstone Institute)

Luca Dellanna on Why Investors Must Understand Ergodicity by John Mihaljevic and Luca Dellanna, November 28, 2024. MOI Global recently launched a Substack. “Ergodicity may be one of the most consequential yet least well-understood concepts, not just in investing but also in business and life. I’m sure we will come back to ergodicity many times in the future and examine its implications from different perspectives. There’s no better place to start than a conversation with Luca Dellanna …” ()

The End of Shame by Lawrence Yeo. “What makes shame so pernicious is that it doesn’t take much from the outside world to install it. Of course, a negative comment can agitate it, but what keeps it alive is the narrative you tell yourself about that comment. For example, if someone said that you chose the wrong career, that statement will convert to shame only if it coincides with the story you tell yourself about your career as well.” (More to That)

Why Notre-Dame Is So Important by , December 4, 2024. “Notre-Dame was never meant to be just another church. From the day its construction began in 1163, the cathedral was designed to showcase Paris as a cultural and political powerhouse. With its soaring arches and pioneering flying buttresses, the cathedral became a model of Gothic innovation and a source of local pride.” (Culture Critic)

Podcasts

Joe Rogan Experience #2237 - Mike Benz, December 4, 2024. 2 hours, 43 minutes. Mike Benz is a former official with the State Department and current Executive Director of the Foundation For Freedom Online. In this episode, he discusses highly disturbing efforts by governments around the world to suppress freedom of speech over the past decade, especially on the internet. These allegations, if accurate, indicate that the deep state is far from mere “right wing” hyperbole. (Joe Rogan Experience)

SpaceX, December 4, 2024. 1 hour, 4 minutes. Elon Musk has attracted criticism in recent months for his political activity. But the fact remains that he is one of the most consequential entrepreneurs of our time. Most of his critics have never created anything of consequence in their lives. In my opinion, his leadership of SpaceX is far more important for society than making electric cars. This podcast does a good job of describing unique aspects of a very admirable company. (Business Breakdowns)

Choices, Costs and, Challenges in U.S. Healthcare, December 2, 2024. 2 hours, 48 minutes. This is a very comprehensive discussion of our often dysfunctional health care system. Americans spend more for healthcare as a percentage of GDP than any other developed country and there are many historical and political reasons for this. Peter Attia and Saum Sutaria present a masterclass. (The Peter Attia Drive)

Max Meyer Launched a Print Magazine in 2024. Here’s Why, December 5, 2024. 1 hour, 14 minutes. Why would anyone launch a print magazine? Max Meyer is the proprietor of Arena Magazine, a new quarterly publication exploring technology, capitalism and civilization. This is an interesting discussion. (Infinite Loops)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The press release includes Mr. Buffett’s advice regarding how to manage inheritance issues in a manner that minimizes family disputes. I particularly like his philosophy of leaving children enough money to do anything, but not so much that they can spend a lifetime doing nothing. It is obviously bad if an estate is squandered because resources that took a lifetime to build would be wasted. But it is even worse to facilitate a lifetime of idleness which could destroy human potential and lead to misery.

I wrote about Warren Buffett’s philanthropic record two years ago and I updated my comments last year in another article. The timing of his gifts near the Thanksgiving holiday is no accident. Mr. Buffett is clearly pleased with how his children have turned out and is expressing gratitude. He has so much confidence in his children that the balance of his estate at the time of his death will be entrusted to their oversight.

The Buffett legacy is not intended to be multi-generational and he hopes that his children will live long enough to give away his remaining assets but has designated successor trustees if necessary. The Gates Foundation will not be a beneficiary of Mr. Buffett’s estate, as I discussed in an article earlier this year, although annual gifts to the Gates Foundation will apparently continue during Mr. Buffett’s lifetime.

Readers who are interested in more details should refer to my articles linked above. I have updated my analysis of Mr. Buffett’s gifts to the four family foundations as well as to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The exhibit below is a summary of gifts given to each foundation aggregated by year. The value columns show the value of the gifts at the time they were made. While the gifts were valued at $58.2 billion at the time they were made, the shares would be worth nearly $190 billion at today’s market price.

Warren Buffett will be remembered as one of the greatest investors and businessmen of all time, but he is also an excellent teacher and an exceptional philanthropist. The press release shows that he’s quite aware of his limited life expectancy at age 94, but I believe that if he had any materially negative news, he would share it with the public. In 2000 and 2012, Mr. Buffett shared personal details regarding his health that went well above and beyond what he was required to do. For this reason, I view the absence of such information in yesterday’s press release to be a positive indicator of his health.

Berkshire Hathaway’s ownership will change dramatically over the next two decades as Mr. Buffett’s shares are given away to foundations that will sell the stock in order to fund operations. This will likely result in the shareholder constituency shifting toward institutional owners. Voting control will change as the dwindling number of Class A shares exert their power. If I have any concerns about Berkshire, it is that it will gravitate toward a more typical corporate governance structure in the decades to come. For this reason, I have suggested that the Class A shares might be split to allow more longtime individual investors to retain their voting power over time.

But these are concerns for another day. Thanksgiving is a good time of year to count our blessings and I consider it a privilege to have had Warren Buffett as a “partner” in business over the past quarter century. Come to think of it, I should not put partner in quotes because Berkshire is actually managed with shareholder-partners in mind.

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk LLC own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

“For the most part, false and harmful opinions are distributed and supported by influence. We are too likely to accept the views and thoughts of other people without trying to investigate them deeper and further ourselves. Unimportant people are those who accept other people’s thoughts without developing them themselves.”

— Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

Articles

A Dangerous Interregnum, November 18, 2024. President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to fire American missiles deep into Russian territory risks plunging the world into crisis in the finals months of his administration. We need to consider shortening the period between the election and inauguration. (The Rational Walk)

In Praise of Chris Wright by , November 18, 2024. Doomberg endorses President-elect Trump’s nomination for Secretary of Energy: “Should he win approval in the Senate, Wright has the opportunity to be a historic and transformational figure. His talent, knowledge, leadership attributes, and track record of success make him more than qualified for the job. Count us among those excited at the prospect.” (Doomberg)

The Siren Song of Sustainability: The Theocratic Trifecta's Third Leg by , November 14, 2024. This article is a critical examination of “ESG” by a longtime skeptic of the movement. (Musings on Markets)

The Crash of 1970 by , November 16, 2024. Reflections on Warren Buffett’s activities during 1970 at the start of a decade of great economic turbulence for the United States. (Becoming Berkshire)

How Inflation Ended Neoliberalism—and Re-Elected Trump by Jennifer Burns, November 15, 2024. Many wealthy people do not understand how inflation hammers people on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Alternate Link. (WSJ)

A Taxing Retirement by Jonathan Clements, November 16, 2024. This is a useful article covering many of the pitfalls and opportunities in retirement. (Humble Dollar)

The Books You Come Back To by , November 16, 2024. “What I find in conversations is that people usually have at least a few titles like this. Rereading books is one of life’s joys, and for many of us it’s a necessary part of our literary experience, even our growth as human beings.” (Miller’s Book Review)

A Sex Strike isn't Going to Work by , November 17, 2024. “Why is the legacy media so hyped about promoting a fringe movement from a country [South Korea] with cratering birthrates? Because many of the people who staff these organizations are sad and want to spread their misery.” (Rob Henderson’s Newsletter)

Walking Japan (again): From Fukuoka to Nagasaki by , November 15, 2024. “I don’t think it is a stretch to say the Japanese approach being a citizen as a craft to master, with their elders as the guild leaders, which makes sense because I believe the most salient cultural feature of Japan is a dedication to craftsmanship that extends to almost every part of life.” (Chris Arnade Walks the World)

Podcasts and Videos

James J. Hill: The Empire Builder, November 18, 2024. 59 minutes. David Senra examines the life and career of James J. Hill, a railroad pioneer. (Founders Podcast)

IKEA, November 18, 2024. 3 hours, 22 minutes. “IKEA may be the most singular company we’ve ever studied on Acquired. They’re a globally scaled, $50B annual revenue company with no direct competitors — yet have only ~5% market share.” (Acquired)

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, November 14, 2024. 53 minutes. Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom warned that the central planning required in a wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. (In Our Time)

How Shakespeare Bought His Way into the Upper Class, November 16, 2024. interviews Stephen Greenblatt about social mobility during Shakespeare's time and how he acted to realized his ambitions. (YouTube)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“History repeats itself. The fact is a testimony to human stupidity. The saying has become a truism; nevertheless, the study of the past is relegated to the scholar and the school-boy. And yet it is really a chart for our guidance — no less than that. Where we now are going astray and losing ourselves, other men once did the same, and they left a record of the blind alleys they went down. We are like youth that can never learn from age — but youth is young, and wisdom is for the mature. We that are grown should not find it impossible to learn from the ages-old recorded experience of the past.”

— The Roman Way by Edith Hamilton (1932)

Articles

BHE Investor Presentation, November 8, 2024. Berkshire Hathaway Energy posted a new presentation last week. Last year, I wrote about BHE’s presentation and followed up with a more detailed article in early 2024. Berkshire Hathaway acquired all BHE minority interests at the end of the third quarter and now owns 100% of BHE.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Q3 2004 13-F, November 14, 2024. It is easy to view changes to Berkshire’s portfolio via dataroma.com. Berkshire owned exactly 300,000,000 shares of Apple as of September 30, down from exactly 400,000,000 as of June 30. My opinion is that the round number means exactly nothing but it will keep people guessing about whether Warren Buffett is done selling, which may be his intent! (Dataroma)

Is Buffett Bearish? by , November 9, 2024. (Eagle Point Capital)

Why Buffett's move to cash isn't a bad bet on the election by Alex Crippen, November 8, 2024. (Warren Buffett Watch)

Some Notes From One Of My Favorite Warren Buffett Interviews by , November 12, 2024. CNBC Squawk Box interview on August 22, 2008. (Kingswell)

Advice for the Kids by Jonathan Clements, November 9, 2024. (Humble Dollar)

Trump’s Win Cemented It: New Media Is Leaving the Old Guard Behind by Isabella Simonetti and Anne Steele, November 8, 2024. Alternate Link. “Podcasts are exploding, TikTok is a news source, and traditional media is shrinking in reach and influence.” (WSJ)

Radical extension of the human lifespan, science fiction or reality? by Peter Attia, November 9, 2024. “Humanity may be reaching the limits of lifespan extension that are possible through treatment of chronic disease, but the door is still open for future advances in aging biology itself.” (Peter Attia MD)

Freedom in a Gulag by , November 12, 2024. (Books of Titans)

Podcasts

Fastenal: A Nuts & Bolts Success Story, November 13, 2024. 59 minutes. “Starting as a small fastener retailer in Minnesota, the company has evolved into a mission-critical supply chain partner for its industrial customers. Today, the business sports a nearly $50 billion market cap and produces nearly $8 billion in sales.” (Business Breakdowns)

• Fastenal was one of my favorite companies to research as part of my series of reports published in 2022. Bob Kierlin is an exemplar like few others in business history. After researching the company, I considered an investment but the shares seemed far too expensive. Since then, the stock has nearly doubled!

The Founder of IKEA: Ingvar Kamprad, November 11, 2024. 1 hour, 5 minutes. Top 10 Highlights. “A demon in me says I have so much to do. I am never satisfied. Something tells me what I’m doing at the moment has to be done better tomorrow.” (Founders Podcast)

Brett Gardner: Buffett’s Early Investments, November 12, 2024. An interview with the author of a new book about Buffett’s early investments. (Investing by the Books)

The Trump Economy, Interest Rates, Deficits, Supermarkets, and an Intriguing Value Stock, November 8, 2024. (Focused Compounding)

Andromache by Euripides, November 15, 2024. “If you were to rank the individual suffering of those in Greek Literature, Andromache would easily rise to the top of that list. She lost her father, 7 brothers, and husband Hector to one man, Achilles. Her son was thrown from the walls of Troy. To top off the suffering cake, she was then forced to marry the son of her husband’s murderer, Neoptolemus.” ()

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

In 2017, the corporate tax rate was cut from 35% to 21%. Unlike many of the tax cuts passed in that year, this tax cut was not set to expire after 2025 unless extended by Congress. During the Presidential campaign this year, the candidates offered very different proposals for the corporate tax rate. Kamala Harris called for increasing the rate to 28% while Donald Trump floated the idea of cutting the rate to 15%, but only for companies that manufacture products in the United States.

With Donald Trump’s resounding victory, along with Republican control of Congress, it is clear that the corporate tax rate will not go up over the next four years and could be cut substantially. The prospect of tax cuts appeared to be one of the major reasons for the sharp rally in stock prices in the days after the election.

Taken in isolation, the retention of the 21% corporate tax rate and a cut to 15% for some firms clearly represents an accretion of value that should be reflected in stock prices. However, it seems like first level thinking to simply apply a new rate to projected pre-tax profits in perpetuity and assign a higher valuation in response.

Longer term treasury yields have been creeping up for weeks, perhaps in anticipation of a Trump victory, and went up further once election results were known. This is most likely due to fears of higher structural budget deficits in the years to come. Higher interest rates translate into a higher cost of capital for companies using debt and could pressure stock prices as bonds become more attractive to investors.

Higher tariffs, while potentially justified, will have an adverse impact on many companies and could also curb consumer spending. It is too soon to know precisely what kind of tariffs will be implemented, and it is impossible to determine if other countries will retaliate with their own tariffs on American products.

The corporate tax rate is an important variable that is relevant for determining how much to pay for stocks, but the impact will vary from company to company. Equally important is the fact that the rate is subject to change and no one has any idea how the political winds will shift in the long run. Since the majority of the present value of a company’s market capitalization is in anticipation of earnings well into the future, it is hazardous to assume that we will enjoy low corporate tax rates in perpetuity.

Articles

Election Gambling Sparked the “Best Investing Book Ever”, November 5, 2024. Betting on the outcome of the election was very much in the news this year. It was interesting to read about how Benjamin Graham was influenced by the betting markets in the 1916 Presidential Election. (Beyond Ben Graham)

Cash! by Brooklyn Investor, November 6, 2024. This is the first article by Brooklyn Investor in over a year. He writes about topics including how investors might interpret Berkshire Hathaway’s record cash balance. (The Brooklyn Investor)

What to Buy if the Election Has You Worrying About Inflation by Jason Zweig, November 8, 2024. With rates on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities ranging from 1.75% to 2.25% plus inflation as measured by the CPI-U, Jason Zweig suggests that these bonds might be good options for investors concerned about inflation. (WSJ)

• I’ve written about TIPS in the past and agree that it is a potential option to hedge against inflation. My concern is that the CPI-U over the past several years has failed to match increases in the cost of living. More generally, I suspect that the government will purposely understate CPI in the future given that many obligations as well as tax brackets are linked to this measure. Still, TIPS might be the “least bad” option for long-term investors who wish to invest in bonds.

The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds: Market Prices as Political Predictors! by , November 7, 2024. An interesting article on political prediction markets and polling. (Musings on Markets)

The Everything Notebook by , November 5, 2024. I have kept various notebooks over the years but usually each of them has been dedicated to a specific purpose. This article suggests having one consolidated notebook and makes some interesting arguments about why this could be helpful. (Books of Titans)

• The Power of Morning Pages, August 15, 2020. I wrote about my use of the “morning pages” journaling system a few years ago, a habit I started in 2019. I recently abandoned this form of journaling because I found that it was not focused enough and made me prone to useless ruminating. Instead, I now write a daily journal about what I read the prior day. (The Rational Walk)

Podcasts

Sajith Pai — Exploring the Indus Valley, November 7, 2024. 1 hour, 28 minutes.“India isn't the monolithic 1.5-billion-person market that many Westerners believe. Instead, it's three distinct ‘countries’ hiding in plain sight. There's India One: 120 million affluent, English-speaking urbanites (think the population of Germany) who love their iPhones and Starbucks. Then comes India Two: 300 million aspiring middle-class citizens who inhabit the digital economy but not yet the consumption economy. Finally, there's India Three: a massive population with a similar demographic profile to Sub-Saharan Africa, that’s still waiting for its invitation to join India’s bright future.” (Infinite Loops)

Redefining Semiconductor Progress, November 5, 2024. 1 hour, 28 minutes. “My guests today are Andrew Homan and Chris Miller. … we get into a comprehensive discussion on the semiconductor ecosystem. Andrew and Chris share insights on how venture capital is navigating this complex industry and what it means for the future of computing. We discuss the AI-driven revolution in chip demand, the geopolitics of semi-manufacturing, and the next wave of innovation beyond NVIDIA.” (Invest Like the Best)

Rare and Powerful Skills, November 4, 2024. 16 minutes. “A few easy-to-overlook skills that are so vital in today's world.” (The Morgan Housel Podcast)

Heracles by Euripides, November 8, 2024. 31 minutes. I have been working my way through all of the Greek tragedies and recently read Heracles, so I found this podcast very interesting. If you have never read a Greek tragedy, I would highly recommend doing so. I have written about several of them on my website. ()

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

― Heraclitus

Articles

Berkshire Hathaway’s Q3 2024 Results were released over the weekend. I no longer provide commentary regarding Berkshire’s quarterly earnings but I have included links to the filings for the convenience of readers. BHE and BNSF file separate reports with the SEC which may be of interest to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

• Berkshire Hathaway Q3 2024 Press Release

• Berkshire Hathaway’s Q3 2024 10-Q

• BHE Q3 2024 10-Q

• BNSF Q3 2024 10-Q

More Than Meets The Eye: Berkshire Hathaway's Q3 2024 Earnings Report by , November 4, 2024. Many media reports failed to pick up on nuances such as the $14.9 billion liability line item for purchases of treasury bills that had not yet settled as of September 30. Kingswell provides the correct cash balance and makes other interesting observations. (Kingswell)

Tidal files for first leveraged Berkshire Hathaway ETF by Alex Crippen, November 1, 2024. I can only imagine what Charlie Munger would say about this grotesque product: “Tidal Trust's Kick BRK 2X Long Daily Target ETF (BRKX) says it will seek ‘daily leveraged investment results of two times (200%) the daily percentage change in the share price’ of Berkshire's Class B shares using derivatives.” 🤮 (Warren Buffett Watch)

Presidential Election Polling. Final polling indicates a close race, with the contest likely to be decided in a handful of swing states. Making financial commitments based on speculation regarding who might win is dangerous. One would have to be correct regarding who will win AND the market’s reaction. I have my own guess regarding who will win an electoral college majority, perhaps more comfortably than many expect, but I’m not betting a dime on the accuracy of my crystal ball. (538)

Stepping into the River, November 1, 2024. I have read Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor on multiple occasions over the past thirty years. What I have taken from each reading has depended on my life experiences and circumstances. (The Rational Walk)

To save our democracy, we must get rid of online anonymity by Mark Weinstein, November 2, 2024. The idea that curtailing online speech is essential to preserving democracy will invite tyranny in the long run, no matter how many “protections” are put in place. Many of the most important documents published during the revolution were anonymous or had pseudonymous bylines in newspapers. (The Hill)

• Pseudonyms on Social Media, November 16, 2023. I wrote this essay after Nikki Haley proposed restrictions similar to what is suggested in the above article. The fact that a supposedly “conservative” Republican proposed such measures demonstrates that members of both political parties are in favor of heavy handed government controls when it suits their agendas. (The Rational Walk)

The Dangers of Price Controls by Henry Hazlitt and Brian Wesbury, September 2024. “The first thing to be said about price and wage fixing is that it is harmful at any time and under any conditions. It is a giant step toward a dictated, regimented, and authoritarian economy. It makes impossible arrangements that both sides are willing to agree to. It sets aside contracts that have already been made in good faith. If an employer wishes to give a man a raise in pay, and the man deserves it, he is nonetheless forbidden to do it under the new regulations. This is a grave abridgment of individual liberty.” (Imprimis)

Walking Phnom Penh by , October 31, 2024. “Phnom Penh is a young city chock full of kids. They are everywhere, and they bring a positive energy, warmth, and joy that no amount of adult diversions — no amount of bars, casinos, exceptional cuisine, and museums — can replicate, because nothing warms the heart like a big smile from a tiny face. I don’t care how silly and maudlin that sounds, because it’s simply true, at an innate and an intellectual level.” (Chris Ardane Walks the World)

Podcasts and Videos

Will America Fall Like Rome? Shakespeare's Caesar Explained, November 1, 2024. I enjoyed this lecture by which is really much more of an analysis of Shakespeare’s Caesar than a commentary on the similarities between the United States and the late Roman Republic. That being said, the lecture brought to mind many of the concerns that I had when I read The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan a couple of years ago. I wrote a brief review of that book in September 2022. (YouTube)

Elon Musk and The Early Days of SpaceX, November 1, 2024. 1 hour, 3 minutes. I have been critical of Elon Musk’s financial machinations and standards of corporate governance, but there is no doubt that he is an exceptional risk taker. It is interesting to observe how the mainstream media narrative regarding Mr. Musk has completely flipped since he endorsed Donald Trump for President. (Founders Podcast)

David Senra: The Hard Way is The Right Way, October 31, 2024. 1 hour, 22 minutes. “David Senra is in pursuit of one goal: helping people learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. In a world obsessed with quick wins and overnight success, David has spent eight years building Founders podcast and distilling decades of sage advice. David joins us to connect the dots between sport's GOATS and business legends, and as it turns out - being slightly crazy about your craft is a universal key to success.” (Glue Guys)

A Deep Dive into Micro-Cap Investing, October 31, 2024. 59 minutes. “In this episode, we sit down with Ian Cassel, founder of MicroCap Club and Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management. We explore the fascinating world of microcap investing, where Ian shares his expertise in finding and investing in ultra-small public companies.” (Excess Returns)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”

— Jeff Bezos

Readers of Jeff Bezos’ brilliant letters to Amazon shareholders will doubt the notion that he only recently became aware of the bias that has infected The Washington Post for many years. But his diagnosis is accurate. If he is serious about charting a new course, this would represent a healthy development for American journalism.

There are many examples of media bias but the coverup of President Biden’s decline is the most obvious. The media finally began to do its job after President Biden’s debate performance left no room for doubt regarding his mental state. This followed months of complicity with the Democratic Party to downplay the President’s impairment, a topic that I addressed in late July. I would like to think that the media focused on this story after the debate out of a sense of civic duty, but this is doubtful. Instead, the goal was to change nominees once it was clear that the President was on a path to defeat.

Since Kamala Harris was named as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee, not by primary voters but by party bosses, the media has fallen into line. Stories about President Biden’s decline have nearly vanished despite the fact that he is still serving as President. A greater indictment is that Vice President Harris has not been pressed regarding when she realized that President Biden’s cognitive abilities were failing.

What did the Vice President know and when did she know it?

If President Biden had withdrawn from the race earlier in the year, primary voters could have selected the party’s nominee. Was Vice President Harris reluctant to compete in an open primary, knowing that she would likely be named the nominee by party bosses if the issue was deferred until the summer? These are fair questions to ask, especially by a newspaper declaring that “democracy dies in darkness.”

If Donald Trump is elected to a second term, there is no doubt that the media will hold him accountable on a daily basis. The same cannot be said if Kamala Harris wins the election. A well-functioning and unbiased news media is critical for the long term health of any democratic society, especially one with a severe trust deficit.

If Mr. Bezos is serious about restoring credibility, he should insist on unbiased coverage in the Post’s newsroom regardless of who wins the election next week.

Articles

Ruminating on Asset Allocation by Howard Marks, October 22, 2024. “My recommendation at this time is that investors do the research required to increase their allocation to credit, establish a ‘program’ for doing so, and take a partial step to implement it. While today’s potential returns are attractive in the absolute, higher returns were available on credit a year or two ago, and we could see them again if markets come to be less ruled by optimism. I believe there will be such a time.” (Oaktree Capital)

A Small Bank’s Failure Leaves Big Depositors Feeling the Pain by Jonathan Weil, October 22, 2024. After the FDIC provided unlimited deposit insurance for the failures of Signature and Silicon Valley Banks in early 2022, observers questioned whether this policy will apply universally. Apparently not, at least not for small, less politically connected institutions. The risk of moral hazard is obvious. (WSJ)

• Barney Frank’s Signature Bank Compensation, March 13, 2023. “If current politicians and regulators see former politicians and regulators rewarded in this manner, they will get a clear message from the private sector: ‘Let’s be friends while you are in public service and we will take care of you once you retire.’” (The Rational Walk)

Meta’s AI Abundance by Ben Thompson, October 29, 2024. The future is bright for Meta according to a longtime industry analyst. Unfortunately, Meta is uninvestable for me at any price due to the company’s record of willful disregard for the impact of their products on young people. Mark Zuckerberg has never adequately answered for the damage his company has knowingly done to a generation of children. (Stratechery)

• Meta, October 28, 2024. 6 hours, 22 minutes. I have not listened to this marathon podcast, but Acquired generally does a great job with long form discussions and I’m including it here for readers who might be interested. (Acquired)

TikTok and Instagram are intellectual poison by , October 2, 2024. “Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engines of distraction and cultural rot. They stand in front of the more difficult but more rewarding aspects of life: deep work, intimate connections with friends and loved ones, focused attention for hobbies with intrinsic rewards. By training users to crave constant novelty and the immediate approval of anonymous audiences, these platforms slowly destroy our humanity one scroll at a time.” (Hot Takes)

Vision Pro Bites Dog by John Gruber, October 25, 2024. Apple is likely to halt production of the current version of its Vision Pro headset by the end of the year, but does this mean that the product launch was a failure? The question is whether the product has underperformed Apple’s expectations. This article argues that Vision Pro has performed in line with company and industry expectations. (Daring Fireball)

How Virtual Reality Died by , October 27, 2024. A longtime skeptic of Silicon Valley’s recent innovations believes that industry’s heavy investment in virtual reality is likely to be a massive failure. I agree that much of what has taken place recently has dystopian qualities, but I’m not as certain as the author regarding the long-term failure of these investments. Form factors will eventually become smaller, less “nerdy,” and more transparent for mainstream users. (The Honest Broker)

Becoming Berkshire: The Go-Go Years of the 60s by , October 26, 2024. Included in this article is one of my favorite Warren Buffett stories of all time: “When we were due to close the purchase [of National Indemnity] at Charlie [Heider]’s office, Jack [Ringwalt] was late. Finally arriving, he explained that he had been driving around looking for a parking meter with some unexpired time. That was a magic moment for me. I knew then that Jack was going to be my kind of manager.” (Becoming Berkshire)

• If someone responds to this joke by questioning whether Ringwalt was making an irrational economic choice since his time was surely worth more than a few cents per hour, you are probably dealing with a humorless person who is best avoided!

Alice Schroeder Talks Buffett, Berkshire, and The Snowball by , October 28, 2024. This is a transcript of a talk given by Alice Schroeder in 2008 shortly after the release of Snowball, her biography of Warren Buffett who cooperated fully with the book project. In later years, this relationship frayed and I do not recall any recent commentary about Berkshire from Alice Schroeder. This is unfortunate since few analysts have a better understanding of the company. (Kingswell)

Problems at The Wall Street Journal by , October 24, 2024. This article contains disturbing allegations of communications between a Wall Street Journal reporter and a short seller prior to publication of market moving information. In my opinion, the WSJ operates with far more integrity than other mainstream media publications. I hope this incident is an isolated case. (The Bear Cave)

The Crazy Election of 1800, January 19, 2021. “The election of 1800 was absolutely wild — it had everything from slanderous personal attacks, anonymously written screeds in newspapers, claims that Adams was a monarchist, counterclaims that Jefferson was a radical who favored the lawlessness of the French Revolution — and the outcome was eventually decided by the House of Representatives in a contingent election that required 36 rounds of voting before Jefferson was declared the President-elect.” (The Rational Walk)

Podcasts

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, October 29, 2024. 2 hours, 12 minutes. This is a great interview of a founder who built a premium brand in a highly competitive industry. “John Mackey takes us from the inception of SaferWay—the precursor to Whole Foods—to building one of the most successful natural food empires in the United States. He shares how a life-altering experience shifted his consciousness about food and health, leading him to pioneer the organic food movement.” (The Knowledge Project)

Black Diamond Equipment: Peter Metcalf, October 28, 2024. 59 minutes. I am a big fan of Black Diamond’s products for backpacking. The Black Diamond Sprinter Headlamp is also essential safety equipment for my runs in darkness during the fall and winter months. Peter Metcalf’s story is inspiring, both in terms of his business success and how he’s still an active adventurer at the age of seventy. (How I Built This)

Merck & Co: Blockbuster Drugs, October 30, 2024. 1 hour, 8 minutes. I once thought that pharmaceutical companies were within my “circle of competence” before being told otherwise by Mr. Market. Like a cat who jumped on a hot stove, I’ve avoided the sector for decades. I found this discussion fascinating, although it reinforced the fact that I have no business investing in companies like Merck. (Business Breakdowns)

Wormholes, October 24, 2024. 1 hour. “The idea [of wormholes] emerged in the context of Einstein's theories and the challenge has been not so much to prove their unlikely existence as to show why they ought to be impossible. The universe would have to folded back on itself in places, and there would have to be something to make the wormholes and then to keep them open. But is there anywhere in the vast universe like that?” (In Our Time)

The Conquest of Constantinople, 40 minutes. “On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, bringing an end to over a thousand years of Byzantine rule. The city's formidable walls, which had stood nearly impenetrable for eight centuries, finally fell to his forces. With its conquest, Constantinople was declared the new capital of the Ottoman Empire.” (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man - his courage and hope, or lack of them - and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.”

— Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

The Intelligent Investor

I knew virtually nothing useful about investing in the fall of 1995 when I first read The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham’s classic book which was first published in 1949. Although the version I read had been updated in 1973, it was showing its age. But I still found the contents revolutionary compared to what I had been taught in college.

I read The Intelligent Investor soon after finishing Roger Lowenstein’s biography of Warren Buffett. There is no way to calculate the value of reading these books nearly thirty years ago, but I know that my net worth today would be a small fraction of what it is had I not been exposed to Graham and Buffett in my early twenties. Without this wisdom, I would have surely lost a great deal of money in the dot com bubble.

Benjamin Graham is often criticized for being rigid and dogmatic, but this is a lazy and extremely unfair caricature. What Graham tried very hard to do was provide individual investors with practical guidance that they could actually use. This was based on an underlying investment philosophy that was timeless, but the specifics were never written in stone. It is absurd to think that Graham, if still alive today, would advocate rigidly following formulas that he last revised over fifty years ago.

In 2003, a new version of The Intelligent Investor was published with extensive commentary written by Jason Zweig. I read that version and have given away several copies over the years. Benjamin Graham’s words were not altered, but much additional useful content was added to make it more relevant to modern readers.

When I read about the 75th anniversary edition of the book, I assumed that Jason Zweig had made updates to his 2003 version. I did not realize that his commentary had been re-written from scratch, which he revealed in a recent podcast interview (included in this week’s podcast listing below). It’s very impressive for an author to completely set aside so much earlier work to start a new version from a blank sheet of paper, so I ordered the new edition and look forward to reading it.

Articles

The Intelligent Investor at 75 by , October 22, 2024. “By my count, there are over 200 pages of new commentaries by Zweig — making this new edition an appealing two-for-one proposition. Graham’s untouched classic and nearly a full book’s worth of writing by Zweig. It creates an interesting juxtaposition between new and old, giving readers a whole new perspective on Graham’s message.” (Kingswell)

Breaking up Big Tech: Cui Bono? by , October 18, 2024. This is a great historical account of antitrust policy in the United States and its application (or misapplication) to tech companies in the 21st century. (Musings on Markets)

Berkshire Hathaway: Moat Rating Lowered to Narrow by Greggory Warren, October 21, 2024. While I agree with the author regarding trouble at large subsidiaries such as BNSF, BHE, and GEICO, I expect that Greg Abel has been working overtime to bring about the kind of margin improvements he delivered in the Manufacturing, Service, and Retailing group in recent years. This could represent a partial offset to limited reinvestment opportunities due to Berkshire’s large capital base. (Morningstar)

Death Benefits by Jonathan Clements, October 19, 2024. It takes a great deal of financial expertise to settle on an optimal strategy for claiming social security benefits, and the situation is even more complex for spousal benefits. (Humble Dollar)

Nuclear-War Risks Rise Again, Stoked by Global Conflicts by Laurence Norman, October 16, 2024. It is good to see mainstream media articles covering the most important existential threat to the continued existence of humanity on earth. (WSJ)

The Price of Progress by , October 15, 2024. When should society adopt the precautionary principle and when should we be more willing to “roll the dice” when it comes to new technologies? There are some gray areas here and the answer is not always obvious, as this article discusses in more detail. (Future Blind)

What ‘The Invisible Man’ Made Visible to Me by , October 19, 2024. If you could become invisible, the possibilities for mischief would be endless. However, there would also be serious downsides. This is a review of one of my favorite books which raises important philosophical and ethical questions. (Miller’s Book Review)

Exercise and Depression by Peter Attia, October 19, 2024. Exercise is often thought to be very positive for better mental health, but can exercise do a better job of dealing with depression and anxiety than pharmaceuticals? As attractive as the idea might be, a recent study that made headlines falls short when it comes to proving causality. I like Peter Attia’s series on evaluating medical studies because he calls out flawed studies even in cases where he might personally like the conclusion. (Peter Attia MD)

Podcasts

Jason Zweig Interviews. The following podcasts feature Jason Zweig discussing the 75th anniversary edition of The Intelligent Investor which was released today:

• The Intelligent Investor w/Jason Zweig, October 20, 2024. 1 hour 53 minutes. “William Green chats with Jason Zweig about his updated and revised edition of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, which Warren Buffett describes as ‘by far the best book on investing ever written.’” (Richer, Wiser, Happier)

• Jason Zweig talks about his life, career, and books, October 19, 2024. 58 minutes. “Jason became a columnist for The Wall Street Journal in 2008, and before that, he was a senior writer for Money magazine and a columnist for Time magazine … From 1987 to 1995, Jason was the mutual funds editor at Forbes.” (Bogleheads on Investing)

AIG: Rise, Fall, and Rebirth, October 16, 2024. 52 minutes. “AIG's story is one of a remarkable turnaround, a tale of a global insurance giant emerging from near collapse during the great financial crisis. Over nearly two decades, AIG has transformed itself into a more focused and efficient property and casualty insurer.” (Business Breakdowns)

John Collison, October 18, 2024. 51 minutes. “Matt and Katie talk with their first guest, John Collison about the financial services business, why payments are hard, what's good about crypto, why IPOs don't matter and how to fly planes.” (Money Stuff: The Podcast)

Why Housing is Artificially Expensive and What Can Be Done About It, October 21, 2024. 1 hour, 6 minutes. “Housing is artificially expensive. Bryan Caplan of George Mason University and the author of Build, Baby, Build talks with Russ Roberts about the causes behind high housing prices and what can be done to bring prices down.” (Econ Talk)

Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, October 17, 2024. 31 minutes. “The Barbary Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa from 1801 to 1815, fought over the piracy and tribute demands imposed on American ships. These wars marked the U.S. Navy's first significant overseas military engagements and helped establish American maritime power. We also see the birth of the U.S. Marines and how they literally fought on the shore of Tripoli.” (History Unplugged)

The Speeches of Pericles, October 18, 2024. 31 minutes. “In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, the Athenian general Pericles gives two extraordinary speeches. One is a eulogy and the other a response to an angry and devastated populace in the midst of war and pestilence.” ()

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“Distractions are the assassins of great work. You don’t need more time; you need more focus. Time expands when we eliminate interruptions—our attention, not the clock, ultimately limits what we can achieve.”

— Farnam Street

Articles

Roth IRA Conversions For Early Retirees, October 9, 2024. If marginal tax rates rise in the coming decades, it could prove advantageous to convert Traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs in 2024 or 2025 while current tax rates remain in place. However, there are many complexities that need to be considered before converting. (The Rational Walk)

My Net-Net Strategy by , October 8, 2024. It is common to read that Benjamin Graham’s net-net investing strategy is obsolete, but this is not the case. While most net-nets revealed by screeners have serious problems that could make them value traps, the enterprising investor managing small amounts of capital can still employ this strategy successfully today. (Dirt Cheap Stocks)

• I found George Risk Industries in early 2010. It was a very safe net-net. I wrote about it and watched it for months before deciding that it lacked a catalyst, so I did not buy shares. I revisited George Risk in a detailed article in 2022 but by then it was not a net-net. George Risk traded at $4.25 when I found it in 2010. It trades at $15.23 today. The company has paid $6.55 in dividends since 2010. This is not a spectacular result, but there was very little risk of permanent loss of capital.

Chapter 20 of The Intelligent Investor: Margin of Safety by , October 8, 2024. One of the reasons Ben Graham liked net-nets is because this is a statistical condition that often proves to be fertile ground for solid returns with minimal risk of loss of capital. In other words, there is a built in margin of safety. Kingswell’s article comments on Graham’s margin of safety concept. Also, he somehow worked in a reference to George Costanza so now you have to click the link! (Kingswell)

TreasuryDirect to Bond Buyers: Moving Your Money Could Take a Year by Imani Moise, October 9, 2024. Alternate Link. The only way to purchase United States Savings Bonds is through the archaic Treasury Direct website, but the site also sells marketable securities (Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds). The problem is that one cannot sell marketable securities on Treasury Direct and transferring them to a brokerage can apparently take up to a year! There is no good reason to buy Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds on Treasury Direct. Many brokerages, including Fidelity and Vanguard, offer Treasury securities at auction with no commission. (WSJ)

Why I Brought My Toddler to Watch SpaceX’s Flying Skyscraper by Tim Urban, October 14, 2024. “It’s hard to wrap your head around SpaceX’s mission. If they actually succeed in putting a single human on Mars, let alone their goal of a million people, it will be one of the major milestones in not just human history but life history—on par with the moment animals first began to walk on land. Whether or not they end up pulling it off, space is officially exciting again.” (The Free Press)

• Watch SpaceX Catch A Starship Booster In Air, October 13, 2024. This video shows the reusable Super Heavy booster being caught by “chopsticks” on the launch tower. An incredible feat of engineering that Elon Musk and his team deserve great credit for. For the first time in many years (actually many decades), I am optimistic about the future of human space travel. (YouTube)

• NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter, October 14, 2024. “NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket …” (NASA)

8 Ways of Connecting a Smartphone Can't Deliver by , October 13, 2024. Smartphones promise “connectivity” but often deliver isolation: “Your smartphone can order an Uber driver or delivery pizza, but it can’t give you a glorious sunset or gratitude or a trusted friend—or any other form of genuine connectedness. At best, the phone can serve as a tool. But, too often, it’s a distraction instead. Or—increasingly in the Age of AI—a deception, offering fake constructs that imitate real human connection.” (The Honest Broker)

A Message From the Past (Thoughts on Nostalgia) by Morgan Housel, October 14, 2024. Often the past was not as great as we like to remember, which is the valid point made in this article. But sometimes nostalgia is warranted. For example, I purchased a home in the Silicon Valley in 1998 at the age of twenty-five. My income was good but hardly spectacular. I doubt many young people can do the same today. The American Dream was definitely in reach for young people in my generation who worked hard. This is simply no longer true in many parts of the country today. (Collaborative Fund)

Podcasts

Inside the Contrarian Mind of Sam Zell, October 8, 2024. 50 minutes. David Senra talks about what he learned from reading Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell by Ben Johnson. (Founders Podcast)

Bargains in the UK Stock Market, October 7, 2024. 1 hour, 15 minutes. “In this episode, co-hosts Elliot Turner and John Mihaljevic welcome special guest Daniel Prather to discuss investment opportunities in the UK stock market. Daniel shares the investment theses behind three of his favorite ideas.” (This Week in Intelligent Investing)

Gregorys Coffee: From Bean to Dream, October 9, 2024. 1 hour, 38 minutes. “This is a look into what it takes to open up a coffee shop and the economics behind it. We get into what it's like to innovate in an industry where innovation can last a week before a competitor releases the same thing on their menu. Greg shares all of the challenges around going from one store to a second store to scaling into what Gregorys is today.” (Business Breakdowns)

Misinformation and the Three Languages of Politics, October 14, 2024. 1 hour, 2 minutes. Free speech is under intense assault, with would-be censors attempting to justify their actions by claiming that they must eliminate “misinformation” for the sake of society. This is a good discussion regarding threats to free speech. (Econ Talk)

Dopamine and Addiction, October 14, 2024. 2 hours, 34 minutes. “Anna Lembke outlines the risk factors for addiction, including inherited and nurture-based risks, explores the rise of addictions in younger generations, and discusses effective ways to address these issues with children. Additionally, she touches on healthy coping strategies, the evolution of the marshmallow experiment, and provides insights into GLP-1 agonists as a possible tool for addiction treatment. Finally, she reflects on the value of 12-step programs and how she navigates the emotional challenges of her work.” (Peter Attia Drive)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Every time I read the Book of Proverbs, I am struck by the worldly wisdom it contains. The primary audience of the book appears to be young men getting started in life, but anyone can benefit from common sense advice. Of course, this is a religious text, but most proverbs ring true regardless of religious beliefs, such as these related to wealth:

“One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing;
another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.”

— Proverbs 13:7

“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle;
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.”

— Proverbs 13:11

“In toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty.”

— Proverbs 14:23

Articles

What I’ve Been Reading, October 5, 2024. A series of brief reviews about the books I read over the past three months. Books include Persian Fire by Tom Holland, The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin, A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva, The Plays of Sophocles, and the ESV Study Bible (Genesis to Psalms). (The Rational Walk)

Thoughts on Israel’s 9/11, October 12, 2023. A year ago, Hamas terrorists steeped in violent Islamic extremism murdered over 1,200 people and took at least 240 hostages, many of whom remain in captivity today. I wrote this article shortly after the terrorist attack. My only regret is that it was not even more strongly worded given the rise in antisemitism that took place in America in the following months. (The Rational Walk)

Homeowners Hit by Hurricane Helene Are In for an Insurance Claim Shock by Jean Eaglesham, October 5, 2024. Alternate Link. The inland devastation from this hurricane has been shocking. As a longtime owner of insurance company shares, I cringe when I read about policyholders being surprised about coverage. This should never happen. Insurance companies have a responsibility to be exceptionally clear when writing policies. There should never be any surprises after a disaster hits. (WSJ)

Can a ‘Precision Scheduling’ Expert Fix Berkshire Hathaway’s Railroad? by Esther Fung, October 4, 2024. Alternate Link. BNSF has underperformed its peers for far too long. Warren Buffett takes a long term perspective, but his patience is not without limit, as we could see in his 2023 shareholder letter and comments at the annual meeting. Steps are now being taken to improve BNSF’s performance. (WSJ)

• Burlington Northern Santa Fe — 2023 Results, March 9, 2024. In addition to examining 2023 results in detail, this article summarizes the performance problems at BNSF compared to other Class 1 railroads. (The Rational Walk)

• Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius of Hunter Harrison, September 20, 2022. A review of the biography of Hunter Harrison, the man who developed many of the principles of “precision scheduled railroading.” (The Rational Walk)

Borsheims CEO on Working With Warren Buffett by Ella Hopkins, October 1, 2024. “He visits the store several times a year and usually tells me ahead of time, but not always. Once, I was helping a customer pick out some jewelry, and he walked into the store and started asking questions about inventory. I had to ask the customer to excuse me. She had no idea Warren Buffett was standing next to her.” (Entrepreneur Magazine)

Illinois National Bank by , October 6, 2024. “The acquisition was part of Buffett’s strategic shift away from the faltering textile business that Berkshire was initially known for. It was evident that textiles was no longer a viable business. Buffett continued to allocate capital away from the division and into sectors with better long-term prospects, like financial services and insurance, which were cash-generating and had predictable earnings. Moreover, Buffett appears to have targeted businesses with float, as National Indemnity and Illinois National Bank were flush with cash.” (Becoming Berkshire)

Just do it! Brand Name Lessons from Nike's Troubles by , October 1, 2024. This is a great article about brand value in general with a focus on Nike’s brand, its current troubles, and its valuation. (Musings on Markets)

When To Do What You Love by Paul Graham, September 2024. “There's some debate about whether it's a good idea to ‘follow your passion.’ In fact the question is impossible to answer with a simple yes or no. Sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't, but the border between should and shouldn't is very complicated.” (PaulGraham.com)

• Finding Your Life’s Work, November 14, 2023. (The Rational Walk)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Market Fluctuations by , October 1, 2024. This is my favorite Charlie Munger quote! “I try never to go too long without quoting Charlie Munger, so here’s one of my favorites: ‘If you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century, you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get.’” (Kingswell)

Consuming the News, a.k.a. Guzzling the Limbic Cocktail by , October 2, 2024. I’ve followed almost exactly the same path over the past decade, and I’m far better off as a result: “About a decade ago I decided to opt out of about 80–90 percent of the news coverage I had previously consumed. I remain largely disconnected. I pay attention to the weather, such as the disastrous Hurricane Helene, and a handful of pet issues. But for my own sanity I intentionally ignore most everything else.” (Miller’s Book Review)

• Gell-Mann Amnesia, November 11, 2022. Never assume that the mainstream media is an authoritative source of accurate information. Even when the media had far more integrity, this was a bad assumption to make. (The Rational Walk)

Writing Examples. David Perell, who I often link to in this newsletter, has launched a website with examples of how successful authors have applied the art of writing to their specific purposes. In addition to articles, there are videos explaining these techniques. Anyone who writes regularly will profit from this material.

Do humans age in distinct rapid bursts instead of gradually over time? by Peter Attia, October 5, 2024. A recent study concluded that aging is nonlinear and sharp spurts occur around age 44 and age 60. However, the study has some limitations that cast doubt on the precision of these breakpoints for any specific individual. FWIW, I did not notice a major change in my mid-forties (sample size of one). (Peter Attia MD)

Podcasts

Ray Ozzie — The Future of Intelligent Machines, October 1, 2024. 1 hour, 33 minutes. “Ray is perhaps best known as the creator of Lotus Notes, a collaboration tool that revolutionized business communication in the 1990s. He later succeeded Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, where he played a key part in the development of Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform.” (Invest Like the Best)

Phil Ordway Returns to Discuss the Equity Market Environment and Outlook, October 2, 2024. 1 hour. I found the discussion regarding artificial intelligence particularly interesting, especially the possibility that AI could disrupt companies in the software industry. With software company valuations typically leaving little room for disappointment, it seems like the prospect of this type of AI disruption has not been discounted in market prices. (This Week in Intelligent Investing)

Compounding Beyond Wealth, October 6, 2024. 1 hour, 18 minutes. “Kyle Grieve chats with co-host Clay Finck about Clay’s favorite book, The Joys of Compounding. They discuss how compounding can affect people's lives inside and outside of investing, simple thinking tools to make better decisions, why humility is such an important trait all good investors possess, how to think about value and quality traps, why you should emphasize compounding in your relationships with others and your health…” (We Study Billionaires)

• The Joys of Compounding, June 1, 2020. My review of Gautam Baid’s book which I enjoyed reading a few years ago and highly recommend. (The Rational Walk)

Aesop’s Fables, October 3, 2024. 33 minutes. “Written by a non-Greek slave (who may not have existed but was reported to be very ugly), Aesop was an outsider who knew how to skewer Greek society and identify many of the contradictions of antiquity. HIs tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.” (History Unplugged)

• Babrius and Phaedrus Fables (Aesop's Fables), August 23, 2024. 30 minutes. “We don’t have actual writings or fables from Aesop. We do have collections from 600+ years later from these two, Babrius and Phaedrus, who collected, added, and made innovations to Aesop’s Fables.” ()

Appalachian Trail Devastation from Hurricane Helene, October 7, 2024. 32 minutes. I have never been to the trail towns at the south end of the Appalachians, but I do know the importance of small communities elsewhere. There has been surprisingly little coverage of the devastation in these small rural communities. This podcast is oriented toward hikers but this episode provides information that should interest anyone who is looking for information about storm damage. (Thru Hiking Podcast)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Berkshire Hathaway Acquires BHE Minority Interests, October 1, 2024. Berkshire is now the sole owner of BHE after a series of transactions with the family of the late Walter Scott Jr. and related entities. BHE’s value has declined precipitously over the past two years amid wildfire litigation and an unfavorable political and regulatory climate. This is reflected in the transaction price. Berkshire also issued Class B shares to fund part of the transaction which has implications for Berkshire’s valuation.

Measuring Competence, September 30, 2024. It is immediately obvious when a dentist, a carpenter, or a musician has mastered their craft. Incompetence is equally apparent. The same is not true in fields such as investing where it is not possible to separate skill from luck over short periods of time. It takes multiple market cycles to determine if an investor has any skill at all. This has important career implications.

Other Articles

Greg Abel credits Alberta roots ahead of honour at Global Business Forum by Chris Varcoe, September 25, 2024. Alternate Link. A profile of Berkshire’s future CEO. “‘From a young age, business intrigued me. I mean, it was as simple as back in the day you could collect pop bottles and people had a tendency to throw them away. And we’d get the nickel. I almost viewed it like a business,’ Abel said in an interview.” (Calgary Herald)

The Two Big Insurers Still Betting on Fossil Fuels by Shane Shifflett and Jean Eaglesham, September 25, 2024. Alternate Link. Berkshire Hathaway and State Farm are not divesting fossil fuel investments, a source of irritation for political virtue signalers who do not seem to comprehend that the world will need fossil fuels for decades to come and someone has to provide capital. It is also revealing that many insurers appear to run their investment operations based partly on political considerations, not a great prospect when it comes to rational capital allocation. (WSJ)

The Fed Wants Your Cost of Living to Go Up by , September 25, 2024. No one exposes the Fed’s hypocrisy more clearly, both on X and on Substack. Contrary to popular belief and the propaganda relentlessly disseminated in the media, the Fed does not have any authority to destroy 2% of the value of the United States Dollar every year. Furthermore, it is increasingly apparent that 2% inflation is now a floor rather than a target. This state of affairs, particularly after the massive inflation of the past few years, should be a national scandal. (A Havenstein Moment)

Jimmy Carter, Champion of Deregulation by Phil Gramm, October 1, 2024. Jimmy Carter turns one hundred years old today, the first American President to reach the milestone. Phil Gramm reflects on the former President’s willingness to confront entrenched constituencies in his own party to pursue deregulation in the late 1970s. Jimmy Carter was a better President than he is usually given credit for. (WSJ)

Metric-Less Success by Lawrence Yeo, September 2024. “Integrity is the ability to navigate the outer world without discounting your inner values. In the context of work, it’s to be able to make a living without sacrificing your interests and ethics. In the context of family, it’s to be able to listen to your loved ones without outsourcing your agency. In the context of community, it’s to be able to form lasting friendships without relying upon flattery. In each case, there is an anchor of authenticity that you’re unwilling to budge, no matter how fervently people want you to.” (More To That)

Status Over Money, Money Over Status by , September 29, 2024. “The low-ranked workers are giving up status for money. The high-ranked workers are giving up money for status. In other words, there is an implicit tax on the earnings of higher-ranked workers. If the tax isn’t too high, the higher-ranked workers are happy to remain with the firm. Even though they could earn more elsewhere. And the lower-ranked workers find the extra pay sufficient to compensate for the burdens of low rank.” (Rob Henderson’s Newsletter)

No, the world doesn't hate America by , September 25 2024. “… American culture is the cultura franca of the world, and as with English as the linga franca, pointing that out shouldn’t be necessary since it’s obvious to any traveler, at least those not blinded by ideology.” (Chris Arnade Walks the World)

How Did Pop Culture Get So Gloomy? by , September 28, 2024. Even though I do not follow “pop culture” closely, I have noticed the gloomy trend. The disappearance of lighthearted playfulness in the James Bond movies of recent years is a great example. 007 has transformed from the hedonistic playboy of the 1960s and 70s into a ruthless and dark “superhero” type. (The Honest Broker)

Podcasts

The Nomad Investment Partnership, September 29, 2024. 59 minutes. “Kyle Grieve discusses the investing philosophy and concepts from the Nomad Investment Partnership, how they created their fund structure to align themselves with partners, why they settled on inactivity, the powerful effects of businesses that share profits with customers rather than shareholder, how they ended up focusing on the scale economies shared business model, how they dealt with commitment bias, and a whole lot more!” (We Study Billionaires)

• Pair this discussion of Nomad with David Senra’s recent podcasts: Founders #364 (Nick and Zak’s Excellent Adventure) and Founders #365 (Nick Sleep’s Letters)

Sam Altman — The Man Behind ChatGPT, September 25, 2024. 48 minutes. David Perell interviews Sam Altman about “how Sam uses ChatGPT in his daily life; how LLMs are changing the future of writing; what it means to be a novelist in the age of technology; and Sam’s best-learned writing lessons from Paul Graham.” (How I Write)

The Underrated Bruno Leoni, September 30, 2024. 1 hour, 17 minutes. “Friedrich Hayek credited Bruno Leoni with shaping his ideas on laws and legislation. James Buchanan said that Leoni identified problems that led to his own work on public choice. How is it possible that few of us know of the groundbreaking Italian political philosopher?” (Econ Talk)

Thermopylae, October 1, 2024. 52 minutes. After recently reading about the famous Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, as told by Herodotus, I found this episode very interesting. I did not realize how many additional battles were fought at this same highly strategic location over the centuries. (History Unplugged)

Leonidas at Thermopylae

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

“Just as many smart people fail in the investment business as stupid ones. Intellectually active people are particularly attracted to elegant concepts, which can have the effect of distracting them from the simpler, more fundamental, truths.”

— Peter Cundill

Rational Walk Articles

Just Hold the Goddamn Stock!, September 21, 2024. Earlier this year, I wrote Too Clever by Half which was critical of Berkshire shareholders who traded the stock as it reached record highs. Intellectual honesty required another article to admit that I recently did what I had criticized, albeit at a materially higher valuation. Fortunately, I was able to correct my mistake without incurring any damage. (The Rational Walk)

• Archive of Berkshire Hathaway Articles (2009 — 2024) (The Rational Walk)

The Theban Plays, September 23, 2024. My (long) article about the three Theban plays by Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. (The Rational Walk)

• Archive of Great Books Articles (The Rational Walk)

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Note to Readers: I mention all new articles on The Rational Walk in each issue of The Digest but I no longer send out articles via email. Readers who wish to be notified of new articles when they are published can follow my RSS Feed using any RSS Reader. I would suggest Feedly, a news reader I have used for many years.

Other Articles

Shall We Repeal the Laws of Economics? by Howard Marks, September 19, 2024. Audio (55 minutes). “Anyone who thinks it’s better to live in a centrally planned economy that prefers evenly distributed benefits over free markets hasn’t studied history (or read Animal Farm). It may sound good in theory, but it has never worked. The laws of economics will always win out eventually. Nations can respect them and reap the associated benefits, or they can try to contravene them and pay the price in terms of underperformance. In the world of politics, there can be limitless benefits and something for everyone. But in economics, there are only tradeoffs.” (Oaktree Capital)

• Howard Marks was non-partisan in his criticism of the Presidential candidates. In my opinion, both Vice President Harris and former President Trump believe in central planning, albeit with very different priorities. The United States does not have a political party that is committed to free markets. The dominant bipartisan political ideology today is the cynical pursuit of power at any cost, no matter the negative long term implications for the future of our country.

Fed up with Fed Talk? Factchecking Central Banking Fairy Tales! by , September 20, 2024. “I believe that it is time for us to put the Fed delusion to rest. It has distracted us from talking about things that truly matter, which include growing government debt, inflation, growth and how globalization may be feeding into risk, and allowed us to believe that central bankers have the power to rescue us from whatever mistakes we may be making.” (Musings on Markets)

Becoming Berkshire: 1969 Part 1- Buffett Retires by , September 20, 2024. This is an interesting account of Warren Buffett’s decision to “retire” in 1969 … of course, he just retired from managing his investment partnership and shifted his attention to running Berkshire Hathaway which he still leads today at the age of ninety-four. Retirement is not for everyone! (Becoming Berkshire)

Benjamin Graham: In Big Trouble with Money and Love, September 22, 2024. I’ve enjoyed reading Benjamin Graham’s granddaughter reminisce about his life. These articles are more personal than what we normally read about Graham and help to frame the psychology of the man who transformed security analysis and influenced generations of value investors, especially Warren Buffett. (Beyond Ben Graham)

The next generation of Buffetts is poised to become one of the biggest forces in philanthropy by Thalia Beaty and Josh Funk, September 16, 2024. Allocating hundreds of billions of dollars over a ten year period is going to be a monumental task for Warren Buffett’s children. Howard Buffett: “I can tell you, we’ll sit down in a room when the time comes, and we’ll get it figured out pretty quickly. … Somebody is going to spend that money. Somebody is going to give that money away. So, I would rather do that with my brother and sister and do it together, as a partnership, than see it done any other way.” (AP)

Re-Noted: Robert Caro's Cork Board by , September 16, 2024. “On September 16th, 1974 a young journalist published his first book. It quickly became a modern classic, earning him the Pulitzer Prize among other accolades. The Power Broker remains one of the best books ever written about New York. As we celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, I thought it appropriate to share one of Noted’s earliest posts—on the notes Robert Caro took while writing his magisterial histories.” (Noted)

The Complexity Paradox Curve by , September 20, 2024. “Beginners and masters share one thing in common; a penchant for simplicity. They are two different forms of desire. The beginners want things to be communicated simply so that they can understand. The master wants that too, but the differences lie in from their ability to take a complex subject matter and communicate it as though it were simple. When you hear someone say ‘they make it look easy!’ it’s because that person has a deep enough level of understanding in their craft to do so.” (Investment Talk)

My Secret Life as a Social Media Coach by , September 24, 2024. This article contains good advice for those who are interested in building a social media presence. But I am skeptical that doing so makes sense for those who do not have any product or service to sell. Social media is a massive drain on time and attention — addiction is the clear goal of all current social media algorithms. (The Honest Broker)

What the Ancient Greeks Can Teach Us about Innovation by , September 18, 2024. “Today we’ve got Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Mary Barra, Jennifer Doudna, and others. So, who needs Aristotle and other dusty throwbacks telling us how to innovate? What could they possibly teach us?” (Miller’s Book Review)

Why Measuring ApoB Is The Key To Preventing Heart Disease by , September 21, 2024. This article makes the case for tracking ApoB rather than relying on LDL-C, something that Dr. Peter Attia has also advocated. The test is not covered by my absurdly low quality, high cost, high deductible “ACA” health insurance policy, but the ApoB test cost is relatively modest at around $50-60. (Dr. Paddy Barrett)

Podcasts

Building Buffett: The Foundation of Success, September 22, 2024. 1 hour, 13 minutes. “Kyle Grieve discusses an underrated book called ‘Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules’ by Jeremy Miller, he’ll discuss how to avoid being taken advantage of by Mr. Market, how to maximize the effects of compounding, how Warren thinks about tracking investment performance, how Buffett aligned himself with his partners, why contrarianism is such a good trait in investing, the challenge of scaling capital and a whole lot more!” (We Study Billionaires)

• Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules, May 27, 2016. My review of the book covered in the podcast. I highly recommend reading it! (The Rational Walk)

Sherwin Williams: Brushstrokes of Success, September 18, 2024. 1 hour, 5 minutes. I’ve always viewed Sherwin Williams as the most important competitor of Berkshire’s Benjamin Moore subsidiary, so this episode was interesting. (Business Breakdowns)

Building a Robust Investment Strategy: Insights from Tobias Carlisle, September 18, 2024. 1 hour, 5 minutes. “Tobias Carlisle … shares his personal journey—from his beginnings as a corporate advisory lawyer in Australia to his transition into investing inspired by Warren Buffett. His career spans roles as an activist hedge fund analyst and general counsel, leading up to his authorship of Deep Value, Quantitative Value, and Concentrated Investing.” (The Education of a Value Investor)

The Mysterious World of Owls with Jennifer Ackerman, September 23, 2024. 1 hour, 5 minutes. “An owl will eat a rabbit whole, but owls can't digest the fur or the bones. So how do they survive? Why do their eyes face forward rather than to the side? Long-eared Owls don't have ears, so what's up with the name and how do they hear? How can dogs help us track owls--that seems impossible. Owls don't make nests, so where do they live?” (Econ Talk)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. Even if one were to walk for one's health and it were constantly one station ahead—I would still say: Walk!”

— Soren Kierkegaard h/t James Clear

Ajit Jain’s Sale of Berkshire Stock

On September 9, Ajit Jain sold 200 shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock at an average price of $695,417.65 for proceeds of $139.1 million. Mr. Jain now owns 61 shares of Class A stock and 466 shares of Class B stock personally, in addition to 55 shares of Class A stock owned by family foundations. An additional 50 Class A shares and 124,308 Class B shares are owned by Mr. Jain’s charitable foundation.

This is obviously a large sale and several readers have asked for my thoughts on what might be behind the transaction. The short answer is that I cannot possibly know Mr. Jain’s motivations and neither can anyone else who Mr. Jain has not spoken to about his decision. This has not stopped the mainstream media and countless others from making guesses, many of which seem off the mark.

I wrote an article about Berkshire’s 2024 Proxy Statement earlier this year that included the following exhibit showing the ownership interest of the board. This presentation disaggregates ownership interest between personal “skin in the game” represented by direct ownership and trusts and interests in charitable foundations.

Mr. Jain’s recent sale reduces his “skin in the game” from 316 Class A shares to 116 Class A shares, worth approximately $79.5 million, when including both directly held shares and family trusts. This is still a substantial holding when compared to Mr. Jain’s 2023 compensation of just over $20 million, and it still puts him at the high end of share ownership on Berkshire’s board.

But why did Ajit Jain sell 200 Class A Shares?

Applying Occam’s Razor, my baseline assumption is that he sold the shares because Berkshire stock is no longer cheap, at least compared to its “typical” valuation since the financial crisis of 2008-09. Warren Buffett paused repurchases starting in June as shares continued to appreciate, even as cash on Berkshire’s balance sheet continues to rise toward $300 billion. This is a signal that Mr. Buffett no longer views Berkshire’s share price to be “below intrinsic value, conservatively determined.”

Mr. Jain is seventy-three years old and perhaps he wishes to diversify his holdings or consume some of his wealth. I am skeptical about rumors that he is in poor health, because if that were the case he would likely have avoided selling appreciated shares in order to benefit from the step-up in cost basis that occurs when shares are passed to heirs at death. I am also skeptical that the sale was motivated by charitable donations since it would make more sense to donate appreciated shares directly.

As much as I would like to see Ajit Jain and Greg Abel own even more Berkshire stock, it is hard to be too critical when both men have very large holdings and seem committed to ensuring Berkshire’s success once Warren Buffett is no longer running the company. As Mr. Buffett has said many times, Berkshire shareholders are very lucky to have benefited from Mr. Jain’s wisdom over the past four decades. If he now wishes to enjoy some of the fruits of his labor, I will not criticize his decision.

Articles

What the Struggles of Dollar Stores Reveal about Low-Income America by Gregory Meyer, September 13, 2024. Alternate link via archive.ph. For a newspaper published in the United Kingdom, this article does a good job of identifying the challenges facing low-income people in the United States and the appeal of dollar stores for this demographic that has been hammered by high inflation. (Financial Times)

• Dollar Stores Expand Aggressively Even as Sales Shrink by Kate King, September 17, 2024. (WSJ)

• DG Tegus Panel Discussion, September 12 2024. (The Science of Hitting)

The Things They Carried by John Gruber, September 16, 2024. A reflection about the items people carry on a daily basis, before and after the invention of the smart phone. The article focuses on Apple’s products and makes some important points contrasting the leadership style of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. I tend to agree that Apple would be far less risk averse but probably also less financially successful if Steve Jobs had lived and continued to run Apple over the past thirteen years. (Daring Fireball)

Robert Caro on ‘The Power Broker’ 50 Years Later by Christopher Bonanos, September 11, 2024. Alternate link via archive.ph. Robert Caro is arguably the greatest living biographer. At the age of 89, he is hard at work completing his multi-volume biography of LBJ. It has been fifty years since Caro published his biography of Robert Moses. This interview gives readers a sense of how much material Caro has collected on his subjects that did not make it into his books. (New York Magazine)

• “Turn Every Page” — Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive. "‘Turn Every Page’ is the first public exhibition drawn from the archive of the author whose award-winning works on Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson are regarded as masterpieces of modern biography and history.” (New York Historical Society)

• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, June 12, 2020. My lengthy article written soon after I read The Power Broker. (The Rational Walk)

Some Things Never Change: The Timeless Teachings of Warren Buffett by September 17, 2024. “Buffett’s ability to keep his message both timeless and timely really sets him apart. Today, I’ve pulled out three lessons from his ‘50s-era letters that could just as easily have been written in the ‘80s, ‘90s, or today.” (Kingswell)

Some Thoughts — Maybe Too Many by Texirish, September 17, 2024. This is a very insightful post about Berkshire Hathaway that encapsulates many of the issues facing the company far better than coverage in the financial media. (Shrewdm.com)

Memo to Janet Yellen: Please Do the Right Thing for Pittsburgh – and for the U.S. by , September 13, 2024. I am more skeptical about trade and foreign investment than I used to be, but I tend to agree with Roger Lowenstein regarding the proposed purchase of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel. National security is unlikely to be compromised by a largely demilitarized country in which the U.S. maintains a large military presence and Nippon Steel’s investment in U.S. Steel appears to be favored by those with the most at stake. (Intrinsic Value)

• Nippon Steel Finds Unlikely Ally in Pittsburgh Workers by Kris Maher, Bob Tita, and Aaron Zitner, September 15, 2024. (WSJ)

It’s Not Too Late to Start Reading the Great Books by , September 17, 2024. “I wish I had started reading The Great Books as a teenager. I dabbled but didn’t get serious about it until I was 43 years old. I’m now on a quest to read 200+ of those books in chronological order over the next 15 years. I came to a point where I didn’t want to die not having read The Great Books.” I agree completely. (Books of Titans)

Why Insulin Resistance Is The Biggest Silent Risk Factor For Heart Disease by , September 14, 2024. Insulin resistance is a major risk factor for heart disease but is rarely formally tested. (Dr. Paddy Barrett)

Fact Checking Kamala Harris at the Debate by , September 17, 2024. The mainstream media’s job is to provide informative reporting across the political spectrum. They certainly do so when it comes to “fact checking” Donald Trump, but they fail when it comes to applying equal scrutiny to Kamala Harris. Regardless of who one favors in this presidential election, this state of affairs is unhealthy for our society. Drew Holden goes where the mainstream media dares not tread and fact checks several dubious statements made by Kamala Harris in the recent debate. (Holden Court)

• The Trust Deficit, July 4, 2024. (The Rational Walk)

• Biden’s Withdrawal and Limits of Gaslighting, July 22, 2024. (The Rational Walk)

Weaponizing Anger is a Useful Political Strategy by , September 15, 2024. “It seems like people are angrier than ever. According to a poll by CBS News, 84 percent of Americans believe we are angrier than previous generations. Another survey recently found that nine in ten Americans can name either a recent news event or something about American politics that made them angry, while only half could identify a recent news event or something about American politics that made them proud.” (Rob Henderson’s Newsletter)

Politics

This newsletter includes short essays and links to articles that I find interesting. Occasionally, this involves politics, and I make no apology for such material.

The legacy mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on political discourse. I choose to use my small platform to weigh in on topics when I see fit and to bring attention to other writers who are making a good faith effort to practice the type of journalism long abandoned by a highly corrupted mainstream media.

Occasionally I hear from readers who are “triggered” by politics. Such readers should feel free to skip such content, which is typically a small percentage of what I publish, and I take no offense if readers choose to unsubscribe entirely.

The Rational Walk is entirely free to read and is not supported by advertisements in order to provide the intellectual freedom to serve as my First Amendment platform.

Thanks for reading!

Podcasts

Nick Sleep’s Letters: The Full Collection of the Nomad Investment Partnership, September 16, 2024. 56 minutes. This is a must-listen episode for all investors! “I read all 110,000 words of Nick’s letters (twice!) to make this episode and what I found most important is Nick’s ability to develop a deep understanding of ‘honestly run compounding machines’ (like Costco and Amazon) years before everyone else.” (Founders Podcast)

How to Think About Risk with Howard Marks, September 2024. This is a ten-part series of short videos covering the all-important topic of taking investment risks. Howard Marks is one of the most insightful investors on this topic. (Oaktree Capital)

The Mark Zuckerberg Interview, September 18, 2024. 1 hour, 27 minutes. Video. I’m no fan of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta for a variety of reasons (here’s just one example) but there is no denying that he built an extremely valuable business from nothing. I suspect readers will be interested, so I’m including the link. (Acquired Podcast)

What Modern Medicine Gets Wrong, September 16, 2024. 1 hour, 13 minutes. “Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Marty Makary talks about his book Blind Spots with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Makary argues that the medical establishment too often makes unsupported recommendations for treatment while condemning treatments and approaches that can make us healthier. This is a sobering and informative exploration of a number of key findings in medicine that turned out to be wrong and based on insufficient evidence.” (Econ Talk)

• Peter Attia also interviewed Marty Makary earlier this week. (The Drive)

A 1,300 Year History of the Middle East in Seven Religious Wars, September 12, 2024. 49 minutes. “From the taking of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy.” (History Unplugged)

Note to Readers: I no longer permit comments on newsletter articles for the same reason that I have stopped using all forms of social media. It takes too much time to enter into discussions online and the costs far outweigh the benefits for me. Readers who wish to send feedback may reply to any newsletter email. While some replies invariably get caught up in spam filters, I do read comments that reach my inbox although I cannot promise to provide replies to all emails. Thanks for reading.

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

Three years ago, I wrote that, at some point, the attacks of September 11, 2001 transformed from a collective national trauma seared into the memories of all who lived through that day into a historical event that seems to have less impact every year.

To a certain extent, this is a natural part of a healthy healing process, but there is very little that is happening in the United States today that can be characterized as “healthy.” A good example of this is the Presidential debate that took place last night in which the September 11 attacks did not come up as part of any of the (mostly vapid) questions and was not brought up by either candidate in their closing statements.

I vividly recall the weeks following the attacks and the national unity that existed for a brief period of time. Older generations compared American unity in the fall of 2001 to the national mood after the Pearl Harbor attacks sixty years earlier. But unlike the 1940s, national unity soon evaporated in the midst of endless wars where American objectives shifted from fighting terrorism to regime change and nation building.

There are many legitimate questions that remain unanswered. In last week’s Digest, I included an interview of former Democratic Senator Bob Kerry who served on the 9/11 commission and spoke about the culpability of Saudi Arabia and the lapses at the CIA prior to the attacks. If, due to complacency, we fail to demand answers and learn from mistakes that led to 9/11, we could very well face an even worse attack in the future.

1960 Presidential Debate

The first Presidential debate broadcast on television was held on September 26, 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It is worth watching this debate for many reasons. It is of historical significance, but more importantly, it highlights the decline in American political discourse over the past six decades.

In both form and substance, the 1960 debates treated the American people with a great deal of respect, as intelligent citizens worthy of a discussion of the issues facing the country. Even the vocabulary used by the candidates made it obvious that they were not trying to dumb down the discussion or patronize voters.

Recent Presidential debates treat the American people as imbeciles incapable of understanding substantive issues who are only concerned with sound bites related to issues that concern their immediate wants, needs, and desires.

Bread and Circuses

This is an insult to Americans who are concerned about the future of our country.

Is this excessive hyperbole? Watch the 1960 debate followed by either of the two wretched “debates” held this year and decide for yourself.

Articles

Boomer Apple by Ben Thompson, September 10, 2024. This is a well thought out article regarding Apple’s overall product strategy and its stage in its corporate life-cycle. I particularly liked the discussion of the growing services business. This is not a new story, but it is increasingly important for Apple’s future prospects. (Stratechery)

Dealing with aging: The Intel, Walgreens and Starbucks Stores Updated! by , September 10, 2024. How should companies handle aging and decline? This has been a frequent topic of Aswath Damodaran’s articles. The way I see it, a major problem with companies in decline is that every incentive exists to attempt turnarounds no matter how futile. Managing an orderly decline with the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth is not going to be on the table if it eliminates the CEO’s job and $250-500K annual sinecures for board members. (Musings on Markets)

Berkshire Hathaway: Book Value Keeps Losing Relevance by Eric Sprague, September 10, 2024. This article raises some good points regarding the distortion of book value per share at Berkshire Hathaway, particularly the effect of repurchases on this popular valuation metric. However, I have not totally abandoned book value per share as a very rough, yet understated indicator of intrinsic value. As long as a large percentage of Berkshire’s value is attributable to cash and marketable securities, book value will retain at least some limited relevance for shareholders. (Seeking Alpha)

Piecing Together Berkshire Hathaway's 1988 Annual Shareholders Meeting by , September 10, 2024. Kingswell has been documenting several of the meetings that took place prior to the earliest meeting in the CNBC archive. I found it interesting to read Warren Buffett’s views on inflation in 1988. I’ve long been interested in Mr. Buffett’s thoughts on inflation which was the topic of a recent three-part series on The Rational Walk. (Kingswell)

Founder Mode by Paul Graham, September 2024. “In effect there are two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a startup meant switching to manager mode. But we can infer the existence of another mode from the dismay of founders who've tried it, and the success of their attempts to escape from it.” (PaulGraham.com)

How Eighty-One Dollars Made Lyndon Johnson by , September 8, 2024. This is an interesting anecdote from the early life of LBJ that was told in the first volume of Robert Caro’s epic biography. I’ve read all four volumes and highly recommend it. The most common pushback I get for this suggestion is that LBJ isn’t “interesting enough” to warrant so much time. My response is that LBJ is far more interesting than most people realize and that Caro really used LBJ as a vehicle for writing a great history about the twentieth century. (The Alchemy of Money)

• Sad Irons, September 12, 2023. I wrote this article about another early episode in LBJ’s life based on Robert Caro’s biography. It is impossible to understand LBJ without understanding the poverty in which he grew up. (The Rational Walk)

When Chasing More Dividends Leaves You With Less by Jason Zweig, September 6, 2024. Investors love dividends and hate the idea of selling stock to fund living expenses because doing so would be “invading principal.” Instead, investors should focus on total return. Focusing on yield alone exposes investors to many strategies and schemes that will leave them worse off in the end. (WSJ)

• Berkshire Hathaway as an Income Stock, February 17, 2023. Berkshire pays no dividend which causes some investors to eliminate it as an investment candidate. Last year, I wrote an article explaining how Berkshire shareholders can create their own “dividend” by selling shares, modeled after how Warren Buffett has given away a percentage of his shares every year to foundations while the dollar amount of his investment in Berkshire continued to increase. (The Rational Walk)

Podcasts

Nick & Zak’s Excellent Adventure, September 10, 2024. 45 minutes. “How Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria built their radically unconventional investment partnership. From the incredible book [Richer, Wiser, Happier] by William Green.” (Founders Podcast)

Peter Lynch’s Guide to Investing in Your Expertise, September 8, 2024. 1 hour, 7 minutes. Peter Lynch is one of the best investors of all time, but has kept a very low profile in recent decades. In this podcast, Kyle Grieve discusses lessons he’s learned from Peter Lynch’s book, One Up on Wall Street. (We Study Billionaires)

Epicureanism: Withdrawal vs. Political Action, September 6, 2024. 48 minutes. interviews Katharina Volk on Epicureanism. “How did a philosophy whose key doctrine is to abstain from politics become one of the dominant philosophies for politicians? This is a central question I discuss with a leading classicist Katharina Volk. My hope is that by understanding why even Epicureans decided to enter the political world, I can see if I'm overlooking any reasons to engage in politics myself.” (Johnathan Bi)

The Family that Summited Everest, September 9, 2024. 57 minutes. I have many wilderness treks on my “bucket list” but Mt. Everest is not one of them! I’d rather listen to podcasts or read about these trips. “Clay Jenkinson’s interview with adventurer Alan Mallory about his family’s ascent of Mount Everest. That’s 29,032 feet, a third of it in the Death Zone, where your body actually starts to die from lack of oxygen and other factors. Mallory walks us through the process—getting to Nepal, the cost, the outfitters, the journey to base camp, where you stay to adjust to the altitude, and then the slow, steady, and exhausting climb through four camps before attempting the summit.” (Listening to America)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

“It’s no disgrace for a man, even a wise man, to learn many things and not to be too rigid. You’ve seen trees by a raging winter torrent, how many sway with the flood and salvage every twig, but not the stubborn — they’re ripped out, roots and all. Bend or break. The same when a man is sailing: haul your sheets too taut, never given an inch, you’ll capsize, and go the rest of the voyage keel up and the rowing-benches under.”

— Sophocles

Articles

Trillion Dollar Berkshire by , September 3, 2024. “It’s a number that would have been scarcely imaginable when Warren Buffett started buying bargain-priced shares of Berkshire for his partnership nearly six decades ago. How could a failing New England textile operation transform itself from a discarded cigar butt into one of the most admired (and valuable) companies in the world?” (Kingswell)

1968 - Sun Newspaper & Blacker Printing Company by , September 1, 2024. “Buffett’s love of newspapers started when he was 13 years old. He would deliver copies of the Washington Post at 4:30 am while his father served in Congress. At the end of 1968, Berkshire purchased Sun Newspaper and Blacker Printing Company for $626,000 and $600,000, respectively.” (Becoming Berkshire)

There May Be Something Big Going On Behind Buffett’s Selling by Jim Sloan, September 4, 2024. Warren Buffett has been building a position in Chubb over the past several quarters. This has led to speculation that Berkshire might make an offer for the entire company. At a current market cap of $118 billion, and considering the control premium likely required in an acquisition, Chubb is not minor pocket change for Berkshire. Jim Sloan speculates that some of Warren Buffett’s recent selling of stocks might be in anticipation of a deal for Chubb. (Seeking Alpha)

Intel Honesty by Ben Thompson, September 3, 2024. “… My initial response to the meltdown over Intel’s earnings was to defend Gelsinger; what is happening to Intel now is downstream of mistakes that happened years before Gelsinger came back to the company. That remains true, but Gelsinger does have one fatal flaw: he still believes in Intel, and I no longer do.” (Stratechery)

Beat your Bot: Building your Moat against AI by , August 28, 2024. “In the months since I was made aware of the Damodaran Bot, I have thought in general terms about what AI will be able to do as well or better than we can, and the areas where it might have trouble.” (Musings on Markets)

Trump’s call for a bitcoin strategic reserve is a very bad idea by Vitaliy Katsenelson, September 3, 2024. “What will happen if strangers fall in love with another story that is not green and doesn’t have pictures of the US presidents? The demand for the US dollar will decline. Foreigners will stop financing our lavish lifestyle beyond our means. The interest we are paying on our debt will go up. Our budget deficits will rise…” (The Intellectual Investor)

Google Thinks Beethoven Looks Like Mr. Bean by , August 30, 2024. Should search engines highlight AI generated images for historical figures? That appears to be the case for several long-dead individuals, including many that have portraits or even actual photographs readily available. This raises obvious questions regarding the distinction between fiction and reality. (The Honest Broker)

They’re Breaking Every Retirement Rule to Be Off Now, Not Later by Oyin Adedoyin, September 4, 2024. Rather than aiming for very early retirement, known as FIRE, some young people are taking “sabbaticals” during prime earning years without having much of a financial base. Some justify doing so by reasoning that they will be physically unable to be active later in life. But personal experience tells me that, with proper diet and exercise, there is no reason that middle-aged people cannot do almost all of what these young people want to do right now. (WSJ)

Not Useless: We Just Don’t Know What It’s for Yet by , September 4, 2024. “‘The pursuit of these useless satisfactions proves unexpectedly the source from which undreamed-of utility is derived,’ wrote [Abraham] Flexner. He also acknowledged that not every investigation or experiment would yield profitable results. But the point, as he argued, was to create settings for discovery and invention—which happens to be the only way to ensure profitable results in the long run.” (Miller’s Book Review)

From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer by Maria Popova, September 1, 2024. “Fyodor Dostoyevsky … was twenty-seven when he was arrested and sentenced to death for belonging to a literary society deemed dangerous by the tsarist regime. His sentence was repealed at the last moment, prompting him to send his brother an ecstatic letter about the meaning of life. But he was not set free — instead, he served four years in a hard labor camp in Siberia.” (The Marginalian)

Podcasts

Value Investing in a Changing World with Aswath Damodaran, August 29, 2024. 1 hour, 9 minutes. I often link to articles by Aswath Damodaran due to the rigorous approach he applies to valuation. His approach differs materially from what he sees as unwarranted rigidity applied by many value investors. He’s particularly critical of attendees of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting even though he has never attended a meeting. From my experience attending past meetings, I don’t think that Berkshire shareholders are quite as rigid as his caricature suggests. (Excess Returns)

Crushing the Market Over 50 Years w/Jay Bowen, September 1, 2024. 2 hours, 12 minutes. “William Green chats with Harold J. (“Jay”) Bowen III, President & CIO of Bowen, Hanes & Company. Jay & his late father generated dazzling returns for their biggest client, the Tampa Firefighters’ & Police Officers’ Pension Fund. The fund’s stock portfolio has achieved an annualized return of 14.4% over 50 years.” (Richer, Wiser, Happier)

Rudy Havenstein, September 3, 2024. 55 minutes. has mastered the art of simultaneously being a truth-teller, particularly on monetary policy, while also maintaining a sense of humor. Rudy’s X account is widely followed on fintwit and he also publishes a newsletter on Substack. In this interview, he discusses the Fed’s misguided policies, his investment approach, and much more. (Kontrarian Korner)

New Revelations About Saudi Arabia and the CIA’s Actions Ahead of 9/11, September 2, 2024. 1 hour, 13, minutes. 23 years after 9/11/2001, the Saudi villains who facilitated the attacks have never been held accountable.“Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bob Kerrey, the former governor of Nebraska, a U.S. senator, and a member of the 9/11 Commission, about the latest revelations regarding support for the 9/11 hijackers by Saudi Arabia and troubling details about the CIA’s actions in the lead-up to 9/11.” (Hidden Forces)

The Bible Triggered Two Communications Revolutions: The Codex and the Printing Press, September 3, 2024. 52 minutes. “We discuss the story of the Bible’s journey around the globe and across more than two thousand years, showing how it has shaped and been shaped by changing beliefs and believers’ different needs. The people who received it interpreted it in radically different ways, from desert monasteries and Chinese house churches, Byzantine cathedrals and Guatemalan villages.” (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Berkshire Hathaway’s market capitalization surpassed $1 trillion for the first time this week. Berkshire’s Class A shares traded above $700,000, just a little over six months after breaching $600,000. Warren Buffett will turn ninety-four years old tomorrow and many people have been suggesting that these milestones are a great “birthday present.” However, the downside is that Berkshire might not repurchase shares during the third quarter while cash on the balance sheet is likely to approach $300 billion.

In February, I wrote Berkshire Hathaway at $600,000 to explain how I thought about the rapid advance in the share price, although I did not present a valuation. However, I did explain the two-column method that Mr. Buffett and others have suggested as a way of thinking about Berkshire’s valuation. The same approach could be used today to consider the stock at $700,000. Shares obviously now trade at a higher valuation

In 2016, I wrote Berkshire Hathaway in 2026 which was my attempt to look forward a full decade. I made the case that Berkshire could approach a $1 trillion valuation by 2026, with assumptions that seemed sensible to me at the time. This figure was outlandish ten years ago but today trillion dollar market caps are not unusual.

Hopefully Warren Buffett has allowed himself to celebrate Berkshire’s trillion dollar milestone, but I suspect that he would be much happier if shares traded at a price at which he would be willing to use the company’s massive cash hoard to repurchase large quantities of stock. It is very unlikely that Berkshire will repurchase stock during the third quarter given where the shares have been trading recently. If this situation persists for many years, the likelihood of a dividend will increase.

I have published many articles about Berkshire Hathaway over the years. Readers who are interested in these articles can visit the selected articles section of the Berkshire Hathaway archive on The Rational Walk website. The first several articles in the archive are shown in the image below. However, since ending paid subscriptions I no longer provide detailed coverage of Berkshire or other companies.

Articles

Warren Buffett’s Canvas, August 30, 2023. I wrote this article as a tribute to Warren Buffett a year ago on his ninety-third birthday. I’ll repeat my closing comment again this year! “The painting remains incomplete, the canvas is still on the easel, and hopefully this state of affairs will continue for many years to come!” (The Rational Walk)

Dollar General 2Q'24 Update by Abdullah Al Rezwan, August 29, 2024. This is a concise update outlining Dollar General’s dismal quarterly results which sent its stock down by over 30% in today’s trading session. (MBI Deep Dives)

• Dollar General: Value or Value Trap?, September 4, 2023. I spent Labor Day weekend last year researching Dollar General after the company reported poor results, so today’s news seems like déjà vu … it is now looking like Dollar General has significant problems and that re-hiring the company’s former CEO in October 2023 was no panacea. Although I did not purchase shares, researching the company and visiting one of its stores provided useful insights into lower income consumer behavior in rural areas. (The Rational Walk)

Mr. Market Miscalculates by Howard Marks, August 22, 2024. “Given Mr. Market’s inconsistent behavior, the prices he assigns to stocks each day can diverge – sometimes wildly – from their fair value. When he’s overenthusiastic, you can sell to him at prices that are intrinsically too high. And when he’s overly fearful, you can buy from him at prices that are fundamentally too low. Thus, his miscalculations provide profit opportunities to investors interested in taking advantage of them.” (Oaktree Capital)

Competing in Search by Benedict Evans, August 19, 2024. “A quarter century after ‘don't be evil’ a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in search. But no-one knows what happens next, and whether this ruling will change anything. Will Apple build a search engine? Will ChatGPT change search? Does it matter?” (Benedict Evans)

How Costco Hacked the American Shopping Psyche by Ben Ryder Howe, August 20, 2024. This is a well written article about Costco’s business model. I became a new Costco member two years ago and there’s no doubt that I have saved hundreds of dollars. The key is to be disciplined and avoid impulse purchases! (New York Times)

The American Dream Feels Out of Reach for Most by Rachel Wolfe, August 28, 2024. Our society is built on the belief that the American Dream is within reach, so we should be concerned that a majority of Americans no longer believe it is attainable. This article highlights how inflation has hammered Americans and how very rapid home price appreciation is a highly dubious “benefit” for many homeowners. (WSJ)

A Time to Give by Jonathan Clements, August 24, 2024. No one likes to think about death, but sometimes circumstances force us to consider the financial implications. This has been the case for Jonathan Clements who has been very generous in sharing the details of his financial journey after his recent cancer diagnosis. (Humble Dollar)

New Painkiller Could Bring Relief to Millions—Without Addiction Risk by Marla Broadfoot, August 20, 2024. “The medication initially known as VX-548 blocks sodium channels in nerves, blocking pain signals before they reach the brain.” (Scientific American)

How to Die in Good Health by Dhruv Khullar, April 15, 2024. This is a somewhat skeptical article about Dr. Peter Attia’s approach to longevity based on an interview with Dr. Attia as well as some of his critics, including Ezekiel Emanuel who “derides Attia as an ‘American immortal’ who overcomplicates straightforward advice.” In my view, the critics have not bothered to understand that Dr. Attia’s primary goal is not longevity, per se, but improving health span — the number of years of healthy life during which people can pursue the activities they find meaningful. (The New Yorker)

• Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, April 6, 2023. My review of Peter Attia’s book. I have adopted a number of the suggestions in this book, particularly regarding exercise and metabolic health. (The Rational Walk)

Live Music Is Coming Back! by , August 25, 2024. This is great news! “Live music somehow out-lasted COVID. It resisted urban blight. And it has survived the disappearance of almost every newspaper music reviewer on the planet. Most amazing of all—it overcame all the distractions on your smartphone.” (The Honest Broker)

Podcasts

Li Lu, August 26, 2024. 38 minutes. Transcript. “Charlie Munger said that Li Lu was the only outsider he ever trusted with his money.  Decades before Li Lu made Munger half a billion dollars, Li survived one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable: Born into poverty, abandoned, hungry, beaten, surrounded by death. Persistent. Smart. Disciplined. Intensely curious. Obsessed with reading and learning. Determined to escape. This is a story you absolutely cannot miss.” (Founders Podcast)

Gavin Baker - AI, Semiconductors, and the Robotic Frontier, August 27, 2024. 1 hour, 33 minutes. Transcript. This is an excellent discussion which goes into great depth on AI and semiconductors. However, many technical details were difficult to follow, which just proves that my circle of competence does not extend to anywhere near the red hot companies operating in artificial intelligence. (Invest Like the Best)

The Impact of Debt with Howard Marks and Morgan Housel, August 27, 2024. 39 minutes. “[Marks and Housel] explore the relationship between leverage and longevity, the nature of risk, and the eternal relevance of Voltaire’s famous saying: ‘History doesn’t repeat itself. Man always does.’” (Behind the Memo)

• The Impact of Debt by Howard Marks, May 8, 2024.

• How I Think About Debt by Morgan Housel, April 30, 2024.

Life after near-death: a new perspective on living, dying, and the afterlife, August 26, 2022. 2 hours, 22 minutes. Video. Show Notes. Sebastian Junger remains a self-described atheist, but his experiences when he suffered an abdominal aneurysm and nearly died caused him to question whether there might be an afterlife and led him to write a book. In this episode, he discusses the experience with Peter Attia. (The Drive)

Steering an Aerial Plywood Box Through Enemy Fire: The Glider Pilots of WWII, August 29, 2024. 42 minutes. This is an amazing story I was unaware of: “The men who flew on gliders were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions.” (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Individuals associated with The Rational Walk own shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

“He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.”

— Proverbs 9:7-9

“Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.”

— Matthew 7:6

Articles

Thucydides, August 16, 2024. Thucydides is best known for his extensive history of the Peloponnesian War which took place between 431 - 404 BC. This is not a “book review” that attempts to summarize the history. Instead, I describe a few incidents documented by Thucydides and explain why people in the 21st century might gain a better understanding of human nature by reading the book. (The Rational Walk)

The Corporate Life Cycle: Managing, Valuation and Investing Implications by , August 20, 2024. This article is a concise summary of Aswath Damodaran’s new book. There is also a free online course that presents the contents of the book in a series of YouTube lectures along with slides. It costs thousands of dollars to attend Prof. Damodaran’s classes in person and I’ve long thought that he is incredibly generous to provide so much material free of charge. (Musing on Markets)

• The Berkshire Hathaway MBA, August 14, 2023. It is amazing how much free content is available for those who wish to learn about business and investing. In this article published a year ago, I provide suggestions for self-study. There is no doubt that an MBA from a top school is an important credential for certain career paths, but much of the raw knowledge is available for free. (The Rational Walk)

Ben Graham’s Shrewd Arbitrage Profit Changed His Life, August 20, 2024. This article examines an arbitrage opportunity found by Benjamin Graham early in his career. In 1915, the Guggenheim family decided to dissolve the Guggenheim Exploration Company. Graham calculated that the sum of the assets that would be distributed to shareholders exceeded the share price of the company. His investment turned out well, bolstering Graham’s finances and reputation. (Beyond Ben Graham)

The Lessons of a Lousy Business by , August 20, 2024. This article is about one of my favorite early Warren Buffett stories — his investment in Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company. This searing experience turned out to be a financial success but at the cost of considerable peace of mind. There is no doubt that Dempster reduced the appeal of activist investing and “turnaround” situations! (Kingswell)

• Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company, August 29, 2022. (The Rational Walk)

Avoiding Bad Guys by Adam M. Grossman, August 18, 2024. This article presents a few useful tips on how to avoid bad actors in the investing world. “Money Managers Raj Rajaratnam and Joel Greenblatt share a number of similarities. They’re almost exactly the same age. Both received business degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and both started well-known hedge funds. But the similarities end there.” (Humble Dollar)

A Cautionary Tale of Forecasting, August 21, 2024. “A weird thing happens when confidence and optimism get distorted. We overestimate the likelihood of a good outcome. Fisher had both in spades. He believed his forecasting approach was superior. He also believed in the New Era ideology of the time [The 1920s]. He overestimated his ability to predict the future and that future looked bright. He was also brilliant and knew it.” (Novel Investor)

Pandemic Darlings That Never Bounced Back by , August 19, 2024. This article is a reminder that highly speculative situations rarely turn out well in the long run. The S&P 500 continues to flirt with record highs, making the pain of the bear market of early 2020 seem like a distant memory. However, many of the speculative stocks that were supposedly going to take advantage of “permanent” societal changes in 2020 and 2021 collapsed and remain far below their highs. (Investment Talk)

A Number From Today and A Story About Tomorrow by Morgan Housel, August 20, 2024. “We have lots of data, but none of it means much until you attach a story to it about what you think it means and what you think people will do with it next. That seems obvious to me. But ask forecasters if they think the majority of what they do is storytelling and you’ll get blank stares. At best. It never seems like storytelling when you’re basing a forecast in data.” (Collaborative Fund)

10 Reasons Why Technological Progress Is Now Reversing by , August 19, 2024. “Until recently, most of us welcomed innovation, but something changed. And now a huge number of people are anxious and fearful about the same tech companies they once trusted. What caused this shift? That’s a big issue. Unless we understand how things went wrong, we can’t begin to fix them.” (The Honest Broker)

Coronary atherosclerosis is a silent killer, but we have tools to stop it by Peter Attia, August 17, 2024. “A new study reveals that the prevalence of atherosclerosis is alarmingly high among asymptomatic adults classified as ‘low risk’ and underscores the importance of lipid-lowering therapies for avoiding atherosclerosis progression and mortality.” (Peter Attia)

Podcasts

Track Record and Risk w/Guy Spier, August 18, 2024. 2 hours, 26 minutes. Guy Spier discusses his track record with a degree of modesty uncommon in the hedge fund world. In addition, he discusses the benefits and downsides of being famous within the value investing community and his overall approach to life. (We Study Billionaires)

• The Education of a Value Investor, October 2, 2014. My review of Guy Spier’s 2014 book reflecting on his life and career. (The Rational Walk)

Estée Lauder, August 18, 2024. 58 minutes. “Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger said it was a crime that more business schools didn't study Henry Singleton. I think it's a crime that more entrepreneurs don't study Estée Lauder. She is one of the best founders to ever do it. This is the story of how she went from a childhood obsession, to a single counter in a beauty salon, to a multibillion dollar empire.” (Founders Podcast)

How Ben Thompson Built a Writing Empire, August 21, 2024. 1 hour, 33 minutes. “Ben Thompson makes millions of dollars a year with his writing. He’s the OG of subscription-based newsletter writers. Maybe that’s your dream, too, but you’re plagued by questions like: ‘What should I write about?’ ‘What’s my business model?’ ‘How do I make my first dollar online?’ … Ben has the answers. In this episode, you’ll learn his exact playbook for how to monetize your writing — not just for right now, but also for the future.” (How I Write)

Nineteen Eighty-Four, August 22, 2024. 52 minutes. It would be an overstatement to suggest that the United States in 2024 is anything like Orwell’s dystopia but there is no doubt that the surveillance of citizens by government and corporations has vastly increased due to technological advances. Orwell’s “telescreens” are a joke compared to the surveillance possible with modern technology. Central bank digital currency (CBDC) is an example of technology that would make Orwellian dystopias much more likely. This podcast discusses Orwell’s life and his famous novel. (In Our Time)

Rethinking Nutrition Science, August 19, 2024. 2 hours, 9 minutes. “David Allison, a leading expert in obesity and nutrition, quantitative genetics, clinical trials, and research methodology explores the evolving landscape of nutrition science and obesity … The conversation also delves into the rise of GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic and Mounjaro, exploring their ethical and practical considerations…” (The Peter Attia Drive)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“The world is going to disappoint you. You’re probably going to fail more than you succeed — in anything. That’s just the way it works. Life is iteration. It is, by and large, trial and error. No one has ever lived your life before.”

— Adam Wright

Disinflation vs. Deflation

When ordinary Americans heard the Federal Reserve refer to the post-pandemic spike in prices as “transitory,” there is no doubt that this was interpreted to mean that prices would return to “normal” levels at some point. What the Fed actually meant, however, is that the rate of inflation was expected to fall, not that prices would decline.

The distinction between deflation, which refers to declining prices, and disinflation, which refers to a decline in the rate of inflation, might seem obvious to many readers, but it is not obvious to the majority of people. This distinction explains a great deal when it comes to voter dissatisfaction in a highly contentious election year.

There are reasons for the Fed to oppose outright deflation, but the dual-mandate calls for price stability, not 2% inflation, which was an objective unilaterally set by Ben Bernanke in 2012.1 The chart on the left in the tweet below, posted by the Wall Street Journal’s Fed reporter, does not look like “price stability” to any ordinary American.

With the CPI up by 2.9% and “core” CPI up by 3.2% over the past year, according to the July 2024 report published by the BLS, inflation is running meaningfully higher than the Fed’s conjured “2% mandate” and far above the statutory price stability mandate set by the United States Congress in the 1978 Humphrey-Hawkins Act. The Fed’s objective of 2% inflation is a dishonest attempt to harness money illusion.

The failure of the Federal Reserve to come anywhere near to fulfilling its statutory mandate is no joke for hundreds of millions of Americans, especially the poor and lower middle classes which are the least able to absorb the impact of inflation.

When will mainstream media reporters start asking Fed officials tough questions about the Congressional mandate rather than acting like government propagandists?

Articles

The Benefits of Zooming Out, May 7, 2022. Recent market volatility reminded me of an article that I wrote a couple of years ago. In May 2022, there was a period of similar volatility which, of course, is now long forgotten. I suggested that readers should avoid looking at quotes so frequently. The same was true last week. The more you look at daily price fluctuations, the greater will be the perceived volatility of your portfolio. Looking less often provides a much smoother subjective ride. (The Rational Walk)

Thoughts on Buffett Selling Apple by , August 9, 2024. I agree with the following observation … price matters. “While Buffett is known for being a long-term investor, very few of his stock investments are actually permanent holdings. He views stocks of quality companies as safe when they are cheap, but those same quality businesses are risky stocks when they are expensive. And the rare occasions where he didn’t sell a stock that reached fair value, he has occasionally regretted it … ” (Base Hit Investing)

• Berkshire Hathaway’s 13-F was released yesterday which shows the size of the Apple sales during the second quarter. Berkshire owned 400 million shares of Apple at the end of the quarter. The filing also disclosed new positions in Ulta Beauty and Heico. The size of these new positions makes it very likely that they are picks made by Todd Combs or Ted Weschler rather than by Warren Buffett.

The Process Is The Reward by , August 13, 2024. This article is about Adam Wright, the CEO of Pilot, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. He was previously CEO of MidAmerican Energy Company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Mr. Wright was praised by Warren Buffett and Greg Abel at the annual meeting. They referred to a podcast appearance by Mr. Wright but they did not specify which podcast. Kingswell found the podcast which is the basis for his article. (Kingswell)

• The Power of the Process with Adam Wright, July 2020. 47 minutes. “Adam Wright breaks down the power of the process on his journey to becoming President and CEO of MidAmerican Energy Company.” (Love Leadership Podcast) h/t

• How Pilot CEO Adam Wright uses faith, family and football to lead former Haslam empire, August 7, 2024. (Knox News) h/t

11 Nuggets of Wisdom from Joel Greenblatt by , August 11, 2024. This is a trend which is not often discussed: “The US market is over-regulated which is why there are just 4,000 public companies, vs 9,000 a few decades ago. Quoted stocks are larger and are bigger relative to GDP, but the costs of being a public company is now c.$3m pa so you need to have earnings of (well) over $10m.” (Behind the Balance Sheet)

Picking the Hill for Your Snowball by , August 10, 2024. “… Remember to pick your hill and then stick to your game. Don’t get upset because someone else picked a steeper (and riskier) hill and just so happens to be getting rich faster than you for a short period of time. Don’t hop from hill to hill, trying to chase the latest fad. People on other hills are playing a different game and rolling down a different mountain.” (Eagle Point Capital)

Warren Buffett: Prioritize Sensible Management Over Great Businesses by Johnny Hopkins, August 7, 2024. “… I would say that if you really think you’re in with people that have got a good business, but they’re going to keep doing dumb things with your money, you’ll probably do better to get out and get in with people who’ve got a good business and you think they’re going to do sensible things with it.” (Acquirers Multiple)

What happened when I made my sons and their friends go without smartphones by Decca Aitkenhead, August 11, 2024. “‘It’s a trap,’ Edie says. ‘You’re stuck, because if you do escape, you’re classed as a weirdo, and you’ll fall behind on trends, you won’t understand what people are talking about.’ Rose jumps in, ‘But if you do watch TikTok, you’re going to get influenced. You know it’s all fake, but you still feel like it’s real. You still can’t help comparing yourself with everyone who looks pretty, and feeling bad about yourself. And you’re going to get addicted. It’s literally like a drug.’” (The Sunday Times) h/t

A Stalled American Dream by , August 9, 2024. A depressing view of American decline. This is not pleasant reading, but it shows a side of America that very few journalists and writers even pretend to care about. (Walking the World)

Where Was Jesus Actually Buried? by , August 14, 2024. I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in 2012, so I found this article very interesting. It is well worth the time to stand in line to see the tomb. (Culture Critic)

Podcasts

Robert Kierlin: Founder of Fastenal, August 12, 2024. 57 minutes. Fastenal was one of my favorite companies to research when I published my series of company write-ups, so I was excited to listen to David Senra’s review of The Power of Fastenal People, a book that sells for hundreds of dollars. (Founders Podcast)

• Fastenal Company, November 26, 2022. My detailed (and now free) write-up of Fastenal, available as a PDF file with historical data in Excel. (The Rational Walk)

• Exemplars, In 2000, Robert Kierlin set up a stock option plan using his own shares to avoid dilution for other owners. November 17, 2022. (The Rational Walk)

Bruce Berkowitz: Avoiding Disaster and Generating Returns, August 8, 2024, 1 hour, 4 minutes. Bill Brewster interviews Bruce Berkowitz on a wide variety of topics and does not hesitate to ask about some of Berkowitz’s investments, such as Sears Holdings, that failed to work out as he had hoped. (The Business Brew)

Navigating the Sea Change with Howard Marks at Oaktree Conference 2024, 10 minutes. “Howard Marks opened Oaktree Conference 2024 with a deep dive into his sea change thesis, exploring the broad implications for the investment world.” (Oaktree Capital)

Stock Market Bubbles, AI, and Climate Change w/Jeremy Grantham, August 9, 2024. “Jeremy Grantham gives his updated views on the recent stock market run up, how today’s market compares to market bubbles of the past, and indicators that point to the potential bear market that lies ahead.” (We Study Billionaires)

The Deep State and the War in Ukraine, August 15, 2024. Jeffrey Sachs and Demetri Kofinas discuss the war in Ukraine in the context of three decades of post-Cold War history. Sachs presents a non-consensus diagnosis of the situation, one that has been almost entirely absent in our political debate. (Hidden Forces)

Civilization Owes Its Existence to the Horse, August 13, 2024. “The use of horses by humans began roughly 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe when a daring man (or a woman – we have no way of knowing) jumped on the back of a docile mare. Thus began  the horse’s unrivaled historical influence across millennia to the present day.” (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Berkshire Hathaway released second quarter results on Saturday, August 3. The company now holds an astounding $271 billion of cash and treasury bills after selling approximately half of its shares of Apple during the quarter.

There have been many highly questionable takes on why Warren Buffett has built up such a large cash position. The most dubious theory is that he has done so because he is nearly ninety-four years old and has a limited life expectancy. People who believe that Warren Buffett is conflating his personal longevity with Berkshire Hathaway’s time horizon simply do not understand Mr. Buffett or Berkshire Hathaway’s culture.

We cannot know exactly why Mr. Buffett has chosen to accumulate so much cash, but we can be sure that it is not burning a hole in his pocket. Berkshire is simply run in an ultra-conservative manner. As a shareholder for nearly a quarter century, this policy is precisely what I want to see, both during Mr. Buffett’s remaining tenure and beyond.

“Extreme fiscal conservatism is a corporate pledge we make to those who have joined us in ownership of Berkshire. In most years – indeed in most decades – our caution will likely prove to be unneeded behavior – akin to an insurance policy on a fortress-like building thought to be fireproof. But Berkshire does not want to inflict permanent financial damage – quotational shrinkage for extended periods can’t be avoided – on Bertie [Warren’s sister] or any of the individuals who have trusted us with their savings.”

— Warren Buffett, 2023 Letter to Shareholders

Articles

Ted Weschler Case Study by , August 1, 2024. The story of Ted Weschler’s IRA is legendary. “Weschler graduated from Wharton in 1983. He went to work for W.R. Grace in New York City at a salary of $22,000. Weschler’s salary deferrals along with employer matching and stock appreciation led to an account balance of $70,000 at the end of 1989. At that time he left W.R. Grace and began managing the IRA himself. Over the next 22 years Weschler grew the account at a 41% CAGR.” (Dirt Cheap Stocks)

Berkshire Hathaway's 1994 AGM At-A-Glance by , July 30, 2024. CNBC’s Warren Buffett Archive is a treasure trove of useful information about Berkshire Hathaway, but it is time consuming to go through all of the annual meeting videos and transcripts. Kingswell summarized the 1994 meeting in this article. (Kingswell)

Becoming Berkshire: 1967- National Indemnity by , July 24, 2024. “Buffett had met Jack during the earlier days of the Buffett Limited Partnership. As the legend goes, Ringwalt offered to invest $10,000 in the partnership. However, Buffett stated it should be $50,000. Ringwalt replied, “If you think I am going to let a punk kid like you handle $50,000 of my money, you are even nuttier than I thought!” (Becoming Berkshire)

In Defense of Andrew Left by , July 29, 2024. I have always viewed short sellers as useful for market efficiency, but I don’t like deceptive practices. While I have not reviewed the allegations against Andrew Left in detail, several charges are disturbing. I found this defense of Left interesting as a counterpoint. Obviously, Left deserves the opportunity to defend his conduct in court. (The Bear Cave)

The Haves and Have-Nots at the Center of America’s Inflation Fight by David Uberti, July 30, 2024. Inflation hammers the poor and the middle class. The rich fare much better. “‘This is the most money we’ve ever made and this is the brokest we’ve ever felt,’ said Nicole Lewis, a mother of three who lives north of Flint, Mich. Pay raises since the pandemic helped Lewis and her husband, now a city manager, double their earnings to what had previously seemed unattainable: more than $90,000 a year. But price hikes for everything from groceries to auto insurance still forced the couple to siphon funds from savings.” (WSJ)

• The High Cost of Poverty, June 10, 2022. “Americans are no longer fooled by the money illusion of nominal increases in wages that are woefully inadequate to even cover the official increase in the CPI-U, to say nothing of the larger increases in their personal cost of living which is tilted toward items within the CPI that are rising much faster than the overall average indicates.” (The Rational Walk)

For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote by Dave Michaels, July 30, 2024. The fact that felony convictions of corporations no longer mean much of anything is another sign of the degradation of our society. Furthermore, the financial “penalties” imposed on companies are borne by shareholders, not by the executives who oversaw the criminal conduct. “Boeing’s agreement this month to plead guilty over two employees’ misconduct in the run-up to two fatal crashes of 737 MAX planes shows how times have changed. A criminal conviction now matters less for big companies, which have proven able to mitigate the negative consequences and survive bad publicity.” (WSJ)

Why You Need To Lift Heavy Things by , July 27, 2024. Focusing only on cardiovascular fitness is insufficient for maintaining good health as we get older, as this article explains. For this reason, I added resistance training to my running routine a few years ago and I have recently started rucking with about thirty-five pounds of weight a few times per week. (Dr. Paddy Barrett)

• Rucking: Benefits, Gear, FAQs, March 4, 2024. 2 hours, 50 minutes. “Delving into the significance of rucking in military training and its applicability to the wider population, Jason McCarthy, the founder of GoRuck, discusses the mental and physical benefits of rucking as a mode of training, provides practical tips for beginners, and answers frequently asked questions ... ” (The Peter Attia Drive)

$656,000 of Frugal Things I Still Love Doing by Mr. Money Mustache, July 23, 2024. Old habits die hard. Long past the point where it is necessary to be frugal, many people continue to derive satisfaction from frugality. In many cases, saving money coincides with activities that help build and maintain a healthier body and better mental health. While not all of the ideas in this article will appeal to everyone, the point is that saving money does not need to feel like deprivation. (Mr. Money Mustache)

Walking as Inactivity by , August 5, 2024. “The vital thing to understand- and the point that I want to stress the most- is that walking is not an activity. Or rather, it should not be conceptualised as and reduced to being a mere activity. It is much more than that because it is much less than that. Walking is one of the great forms of inactivity and in a world of striving and consumerism and grasping and impatience it is one of only very few potential forms of inactivity left.” (The Commonplace)

Podcasts

Adam Mead on the Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway, July 29, 2024. 1 hour. Adam Mead, the author of the Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway, joins Tobias Carlisle and Jake Taylor to discuss the company. (Value After Hours)

Essential Skills for Successful Investing w/Ian Cassel, July 28, 2024. 1 hour, 15 minutes. Ian Cassel was a private investor managing his own capital before starting a fund. In this episode, he discusses challenges facing private investors who must seek attractive returns from their holdings while also generating cash flow to pay for living expenses. I can relate to this since I went down a similar path starting in early 2009, although I never switched to managing other people’s money. (We Study Billionaires)

The Russian Rockefellers: The Nobel Family Dynasty, August 7, 2024. 1 hour, 6 minutes. “The name of Nobel usually calls to mind Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, and the internationally prestigious prizes that bear his name. But Alfred was only one member of a creative and innovative family who built an industrial empire in prerevolutionary Russia. The saga begins with an emigre from Sweden, Immanuel Nobel, who was an architect, a pioneer producer of steam engines, and a maker of weapons.” (Founders Podcast)

Longevity 101, July 29, 2024. 1 hour, 32 minutes. I have often linked to Peter Attia’s podcast and I am a big fan of his book which I reviewed last year. For those who are just getting started, I would recommend this episode in which Peter discusses the highlights of his program to increase the odds of living a long life and, far more importantly, enjoying good health in the final decade of life. (The Peter Attia Drive)

Eisenhower’s Logistics and Diplomatic Nightmare, July 25, 2024. 1 hour. When we think of D-Day, we naturally think of the great military victory over Nazi Germany that represented the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s tyranny. However, D-Day was a highly risky and controversial decision at the time. I learned a great deal about the behind-the-scenes planning and politics in this podcast. (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“For the most part, false and harmful opinions are distributed and supported by influence. We are too likely to accept the views and thoughts of other people without trying to investigate them deeper and further ourselves. Unimportant people are those who accept other people’s thoughts without developing them themselves.”

— Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

Articles

Biden’s Withdrawal and the Limits of Gaslighting, July 22, 2024. President Biden's withdrawal from the election is the culmination of months of gaslighting by the Democratic Party and their allies in the mainstream media. (The Rational Walk)

How the Bet on an 81-Year-Old Joe Biden Turned Into an Epic Miscalculation by Rebecca Ballhaus, et al., July 21, 2024. Was this really an “epic miscalculation” or a deliberate effort to disenfranchise ordinary voters in the Democratic Primary so the party bosses could install Kamala Harris as the nominee without competition? (WSJ)

Crashes and Competition by Ben Thompson, July 22, 2024. “In any massive failure there are a host of smaller errors that compound; in this case, CrowdStrike created a faulty file, failed to test it properly, and deployed it to its entire customer base in one shot, instead of rolling it out in batches. Doing something different at each one of these steps would have prevented the widespread failures that are still roiling the world.” (Stratechery)

Insurers face business interruption claims after global tech outage by Noor Zainab Hussain, July 19, 2024. Maybe it is side effect of owning Berkshire Hathaway for nearly a quarter century, but I automatically think about potential insurance losses whenever some strange event occurs. Sure enough, articles soon started appearing about potential business interruption claims after the recent worldwide outage caused by an errant CrowdStrike software update. The extent of losses for the industry in general, and for Berkshire in particular (if any) is not known at this time. (Reuters)

The Munger Series - Learning from Benjamin Franklin, July 14, 2024. “Charlie Munger never stopped learning. From a young age, his parents instilled in him the virtues of continuous education. This lifelong pursuit of knowledge mirrored that of Benjamin Franklin, who shared a deep curiosity for life and a love of books. Warren Buffett even joked that scholars might question whether Charlie was a reincarnation of Ben Franklin, reflecting the profound influence Franklin had on him.” (Investment Masters Class)

How Benjamin Graham Survived World Panic on Wall Street, July 2024. This is another installment in a series about Ben Graham’s early life. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Ben Graham was a brilliant college graduate with multiple academic job offers, but he opted for Wall Street instead. (Beyond Ben Graham)

The Objects of Our Life, July 2024. In 1983, Steve Jobs delivered a talk at the 1983 International Design Conference, a year before the release of the first Macintosh. “On the eve of launching the first truly personal computer, Steve is not solely preoccupied with the founding technology and functionality of the product’s design. This is extraordinarily unusual, as in the early stages of dramatic innovation, it is normally the primary technology that benefits from all of the attention and focus.” (Steve Jobs Archive)

10 Updated Rules for Reading by , July 23, 2024. This is a set of suggestions that should help anyone read more every year. (Books of Titans)

Podcasts

Microsoft Volume II, July 22, 2024. 4 hours, 51 minutes. I’ve just started listening to this long episode, but I’m confident that it merits inclusion in The Digest based on the high quality of past episodes of Acquired. “In this episode we explore and analyze the browser wars and the DOJ case, Windows XP through 8, Surface, Xbox, search, Yahoo!, Bing, the iPhone, Nokia, mobile, social, Facebook… and oh yeah, a little thing called Azure and the enterprise — which ended up becoming so big that no failures mattered.” (Acquired)

The Indispensability of Risk, July 23, 2024. 32 minutes. “In this episode, Howard Marks is joined by two special guests: Oaktree cofounder Bruce Karsh and the chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss Howard’s recent memo ‘The Indispensability of Risk’ as well as the inspiration for that memo: Maurice’s Wall Street Journal article, ‘Chess Teaches the Power of Sacrifice.’” (The Memo by Howard Marks)

Haruki Murakami, July 21, 2024. 59 minutes. David Senra shares what he learned from Haruki Murakami, a novelist and essayist whose work has been translated into more than fifty languages. I found Murakami’s interest in long-distance running especially interesting since I enjoy running for similar reasons. (Founders Podcast)

Luca Delanna on Winning Long-Term Games and Ergodicity, July 22, 2024. 1 hour, 3 minutes. Luca Delanna discusses his recent books and explains the important concept of ergodicity in non-technical terms. (Value After Hours)

How the U.S. Marines Fought on Guadalcanal While Surrounded, July 23, 2024. 59 minutes. A discussion of the amazing account of how the Marines persisted in unbelievably harsh conditions on Guadalcanal during the Second World War. I was reminded of reading E.B. Sledge’s book, With the Old Breed, which discussed his similar experiences in the battles for Peleliu and Okinawa. (History Unplugged)

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC.  The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.