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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (71856)	12/27/2009 12:19:41 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 74559

C2, it was an example of thinking, not "good thinking". Even people who disagree with me can be doing thinking, albeit incorrectly. It was the link which was good, not the thinking therein. "Good" in this case meant not that the link was working but that it was worth following because there were some actual thinking and ideas contained there. "Old fool" simply means a person 10 years or more older than the person using the expression and who disagrees with the young whipper snapper. It says more about the person using the epithet than the other person. Since we know that our great and estimable venerable idol Uncle Al KBE is 80ish, we can conclude that you are younger than 70 and likely younger than 60 [sixty year olds are starting to think that 80 year olds are not totally past it]. We can also conclude you disagree with our wonderful wise sage. Normally, those disagreeing with me have heard of a cliche, preferably one that rhymes, combined with a slogan, and that's all the thinking they need to do = they receive their thoughts all bundled up in one handy little phrase. It's fashionable now to denigrate Uncle Al KBE, which is amusing because it means people still haven't learned anything. Way back in Mindless Zombie days, I pointed out that it wasn't Alan's fault that people mindlessly borrowed. In subsequent years, people went ahead in swarming hordes and did the same again. They can't learn anything, so they are doomed to go on and do more of the same, which they are doing, while thinking they have solved their problem by blaming Alan. Their current fantasy is that they can borrow their way out of problems, "to stimulate the economy". Their problem is debt and they hope to alleviate their problem by taking on more debt. Alcoholics anonymous might have thoughts on that. People speak of "the economy" as though it's an entity in its own right, with its own mind and "levers". It's similar to the way they describe "inflation" as though it's a mythical beast which gets out of a cage from time to time, or visits from over the horizon, and is not simply a process resulting from those controlling the size of the measuring stick [the unit of money]. Hooray for Uncle Al KBE. Mqurice

To: carranza2 who wrote (71856)	12/27/2009 3:56:03 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

After Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett made what proved to be a successful $100-a-share bid to Burlington CEO Matthew Rose, Burlington management sent the railroad's board four potential financial scenarios to consider as it weighed Buffett's proposal. The most optimistic -- that Burlington could earn $5.06 a share if the economy and the company's business recover in 2010 -- was at odds with Wall Street's far more upbeat 2010 consensus earnings estimate of $5.50 a share, according to the preliminary proxy for the merger. Management thought it more likely the economy wouldn't start to recover until 2011 and that the railroad would earn a depressed $4.40 a share in 2010. The other two scenarios were even more bearish: Either there would be no recovery and unit growth would be flat for five years, or the economy would enter a "deeper recession." These forecasts suggest Berkshire overpaid for Burlington. Wall Street thinks Buffett paid a full but not excessive price, especially as 40% of the deal price will be paid in Berkshire shares. online.barrons.com