ABII Spinoff

Abraxis Bioscience To Spin Off Abraxis Health In 2010

January 29th, 2010 by john

In a terse stock spin-off announcement on January 28, 2010, Abraxis Bioscience (ABII) said that it would be spinning off Abraxis Health some time this year. It was one of those statements that say everything and nothing, and leave you wondering what’s really going on. Sort of like saying that the CFO is departing to “spend more time with his family”.

Here’s what they said:

“By spinning off Abraxis Health as an independent, stand-alone company, we believe we will enhance the intrinsic value of both companies by allowing each company to pursue its differing drug development and commercialization strategies,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., Executive Chairman of Abraxis BioScience. “We also believe the spin-off will facilitate each company pursuing the most attractive long-term growth opportunities and business strategies, thereby maximizing shareholder value.”

Maximizing shareholder value is always good and we know the part about the separate units being able to pursue their own strategies. But, is it a good deal for shareholders of the parent, the spin-off stock, or perhaps both? Unlike the CFO leaving for more time with his family, we will be finding out. The mandatory information that the company will be filing with the SEC will see to that. -

Now we just have to wait for those SEC filings and set aside the time to read them. Then we can decide for ourselves whether there is indeed shareholder value in this or not.

Doug Kass’ 2010 Predictions: Goldman Goes Private, Buffett Steps Down

From http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2009/12/21/doug-kass-2010-predictions-goldman-goes-private-buffett-steps-down-and-tigers-back/tab/print/

• Monday, December 21, 2009 ET

Doug Kass’ 2010 Predictions: Goldman Goes Private, Buffett Steps Down and Tiger’s Back

By Randall Forsyth

Seabreeze Partners’ Doug Kass today is expanding on his outlook articulated in a recent Barron’s interview (”Skeptical Growth Will Take Root,” Dec. 14), notably about rising populist fervor in the land. One outcome he sees is Goldman Sachs‘ (GS) deciding it no longer wants to be a public punching bag and will revert to private status.

And why, you may ask, should anybody pay attention to Kass’ prognostications. For one thing, he saw a “generational low” in stocks in early March, just days before the market’s bottom. In any case, here are Dougie’s Top 20 Surprises for 2010:

1. There is a glaring upside to first-quarter 2010 corporate profits (up 100% year over year) and first-quarter 2010 GDP (up 4.5%). It grows clear that, owing to continued draconian cost cuts, coupled with a series of positive economic releases and a long list of company profit guidance increases in mid to late January and early February, there is a very large upside to first-quarter GDP (up 4.5%) and, even more important, to S&P profit growth (which doubles!). The upside on both counts is in sharp contrast to more muted growth expectations. While corporate managers, economists and strategists raise earnings per share, full-year growth and S&P target estimates, surprisingly, the U.S. equity market fails to respond positively to the much better growth dynamic, and the S&P 500 remains tightly range-bound (between 1,050 and 1,150) into spring 2010.

2. Housing and jobs fail to revive. An outsized first-quarter 2010 GDP (up 4.5.%) print is achieved despite a still moribund housing market and without any meaningful improvement in the labor market (excluding the increase in census workers) as corporations continue to cut costs and show little commitment to adding permanent employees.

3. The U.S. dollar explodes higher. After dropping by over 40% from 2001 to 2008, the U.S. dollar continued to spiral lower in the last nine months of 2009. Our currency’s recent strength will persist, however, surprising most market participants by continuing to rally into first quarter 2010. In fact, the U.S. dollar will be the strongest major world currency during the first three or four months of the new year.

4. The price of gold topples. Gold’s price plummets to $900 an ounce by the beginning of second quarter 2010. Unhedged, publicly held gold companies report large losses, and the gold sector lies at the bottom of all major sector performers. Hedge fund manager John Paulson abandons his plan to bring a new dedicated gold hedge fund to market.

5. Central banks tighten earlier than expected. China, facing reported inflation approaching 5%, tightens monetary and fiscal policy in March, a month ahead of a Fed tightening of 50 basis points, which, with the benefit of hindsight, is a policy mistake.

6. A Middle East peace is upended due to an attack by Israel on Iran. Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities before midyear. An already comatose U.S. consumer falls back on its heels, retail spending plummets, and the personal savings rate approaches 10%. The first-quarter spike in domestic growth is short-lived as GDP abruptly stalls.

7. Stocks drop by 10% in the first half of next year. In the face of renewed geopolitical tensions and reduced worldwide growth expectations, stocks drop as the threat of an economic double-dip grows. Surprisingly, though, the drop in the major indices is contained, and the U.S. stock market retreats by less than 10% from year-end 2009 levels.

8. Goldman Sachs goes private. Goldman Sachs stock drops back to $125 to $130 a share, within $15 of the warrant exercise price that Warren Buffett received in Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKA) late 2008 investment in Goldman Sachs. Sick of the unrelenting compensation outcry, government jawboning and associated populist pressures, Warren Buffett teams up with Goldman Sachs to take the investment firm private. The deal is completed by year-end.

9. Second-half 2010 GDP growth turns flat. The Goldman Sachs transaction stabilizes the markets, which are stunned by an extended Mideast conflict that continues throughout the summer and into the early fall. While a diplomatic initiative led by the U.S. serves to calm Mideast tensions, flat second-half U.S. GDP growth and a still high 9.5% to 10.0% unemployment rate caps the U.S. stock market’s upside and leads to a very dull second half, during which share prices have virtually flatlined (with surprisingly limited rallies and corrections throughout the entire six-month period). For the full year, the S&P 500 exhibits a 10% decline vs. the general consensus of leading strategists for about a 10% rise in the major indices.

10. Rate-sensitive stocks outperform; metals underperform. Utilities are the best performing sector in the U.S. stock market in 2010; gold stocks are the worst performing group, with consumer discretionary coming in as a close second.

11. Treasury yields fall. The yield of the 10-year U.S. note drops from 4% at the end of the first quarter to under 3% by the summer and ends the year at approximately the same level (3%). Despite the current consensus that higher inflation and interest rates will weigh on the fixed-income markets, bonds surprisingly outperform stocks in 2010. A plethora of specialized domestic and non-U.S. fixed-income exchange-traded funds are introduced throughout the year, setting the stage for a vast speculative top in bond prices, but that is a late 2011 issue.

12. Warren Buffett steps down. Warren Buffett announces that he is handing over the investment reins to a Berkshire outsider and that he plans to also announce his in-house successor as chief operating officer by Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in 2011.

13. Insider trading charges expand. The SEC alleges, in a broad-ranging sting, the existence of extensive exchange of information that goes well beyond Galleon’s Silicon Valley executive connections. Several well-known long-only mutual funds are implicated in the sting, which reveals that they have consistently received privileged information from some of the largest public companies over the past decade.

14. The SEC launches an assault on mutual fund expenses. The SEC restricts 12b-1 mutual fund fees. In response to the proposal, asset management stocks crater.

15. The SEC restricts short-selling. The SEC announces major short-selling bans after stocks sag in the second quarter.

16. More hedge fund tumult emerges. Two of the most successful hedge fund managers extant announce their retirement and fund closures. One exits based on performance problems, the other based on legal problems.

17. Pandit is out and Cohen is in at Citigroup (C). Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit is replaced by former Shearson Lehman Brothers Chairman Peter Cohen. Cohen replaces a number of senior Citigroup executives with Ramius Partners colleagues. Sandy Weill rejoins Citigroup as a senior consultant.

18. A weakened Republican party is in disarray. Sarah Palin announces that she has separated from her husband, leaving the Republican party firmly in the hands of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. An improving economy in early 2010 elevates President Obama’s popularity back to pre-inauguration levels, and, despite the market’s second-quarter decline, the country comes together after the Middle East conflict, producing a tidal wave of populism that moves ever more dramatically in legislation and spirit. With the Democratic tsunami (part deux) revived, the party wins November midterm elections by a landslide.

19. Tiger Woods makes a comeback. Tiger Woods and his wife reconcile in early 2010, and he returns earlier than expected to the PGA Tour. After announcing that his wife is pregnant with their third child, both the PGA Tour’s and Tiger Woods’ popularity rise to record levels, and the golfer signs a series of new commercial contracts that insure him a record $150 million of endorsement income in 2011.

20. The New York Yankees are sold to a Jack Welch-led investor group. The Steinbrenner family decides, for estate purposes, to sell the New York Yankees to a group headed by former General Electric (GE) Chairman Jack Welch.

Behind Buffett’s Decision, a Lesson From a Mentor

Posted: 03 Nov 2009 08:20 PM PST

By Jason Zweig (WSJ)

Warren Buffett’s purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) is the newest chapter in the oldest story of his professional life.

Mr. Buffett’s mentor, the pioneering “value” investor Benjamin Graham, trafficked for decades in railroad stocks and bonds. In the early 1950s, at the outset of his career, Mr. Buffett read every page in Moody’s voluminous transportation manuals — twice, to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Working at Mr. Graham’s fund, Graham-Newman Corp., Mr. Buffett analyzed a portfolio with 21% to 36% of its assets in railroads.

But there is a more subtle side to the story. Mr. Graham taught Mr. Buffett that at the heart of the relationship between management and shareholders is a profound conflict of interest. Managers, Mr. Graham believed, will always want to pile up cash to protect themselves in case they make mistakes. But that cash belongs to the shareholders, who may be able to put it to better use than the company’s managers.

Graham also highlighted a painful paradox: The better the business and the more skilled its managers, the greater its profits, causing cash to pile up to unreasonable levels. And, to Mr. Buffett’s own chronic discomfort, he and Berkshire Hathaway are living proof of Mr. Graham’s paradox. Because of Mr. Buffett’s extraordinary skill at picking stocks and buying lucrative businesses, Berkshire consistently generates far more cash than even Mr. Buffett thinks he can put to productive use.

As long ago as 1998 — when Berkshire had $122 billion in assets and less than $14 billion in cash — Mr. Buffett worried his company was getting too big for its britches. “We have always known,” he wrote to a fellow investor, “that huge increases in managed funds would dramatically diminish our universe of investment choices.” That’s because investments of a few million dollars apiece could no longer make a material difference to Berkshire’s fortunes.

By 2006, when Berkshire’s cash mountain had risen to $37 billion, Mr. Buffett said, “We don’t like excess cash…We would be much happier if we had $10 billion.”

“Size is always a problem,” Mr. Buffett told me last month. “With tiny sums [to invest], it’s extraordinary what you can find. Most of the time, big sums are one hell of an anchor.”

Mr. Buffett would rather not resort to the simplest way of solving this problem — paying excess cash out to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Since he owns roughly 26% of Berkshire’s shares, a cash dividend would saddle Mr. Buffett with one of the largest personal-income tax bills in American history. That’s not the kind of thing at which he likes to excel. Mr. Buffett’s reluctance to pay a dividend leaves him with little choice but to buy big companies outright.

Mr. Buffett is paying for Burlington Northern partly with Berkshire shares — something he has long been loath to do. In 2007 he lamented buying Dexter Shoe in 1993 for $433 million in Berkshire stock — which would later have been worth at least $3.5 billion if Mr. Buffett had not exchanged them for Dexter, which ended up worthless. “He’s so sensitive to this issue that I can’t believe he would [pay in stock for Burlington Northern] unless he had absolute confidence that it will work out well over time,” says David Carr of Oak Value Fund, which owns $25 million in Berkshire shares.

At age 79, Mr. Buffett has no plans to retire, but he wants to ensure that Berkshire’s businesses will endure for decades after he is gone. He is betting that no new technology can make rail transportation obsolete. Mr. Buffett has sometimes been wrong about which businesses will prosper forever. Over the years, he’s invested in shoes, newspapers and printed encyclopedias. But Mr. Buffett’s approach underscores a key lesson for any investor: Before you buy any business, ask how vulnerable it is to new technology or price competition.

As a result of the Burlington Northern deal, Berkshire’s Class B shares will split 50-for-1, which would knock its share price down from $3,300 to $65. That puts the shares, for the first time in years, within psychological reach of most investors (who have long balked at Berkshire’s high per-share price).

Like Burlington Northern itself, Berkshire’s shares aren’t quite a steal. Mr. Buffett is putting tens of billions of dollars into a company that he thinks has only moderate growth prospects. That implies that the market as a whole isn’t a steal, or he would have put the money elsewhere. But Mr. Buffett has built an investing bulwark — and an industrial conglomerate. Berkshire is likely to survive any storm, but whether it can continue to beat the market by such wide margins is another story.

Behind Buffett’s Decision, a Lesson From a Mentor

Behind Buffett’s Decision, a Lesson From a Mentor

Posted: 03 Nov 2009 08:20 PM PST

By Jason Zweig (WSJ)

Warren Buffett’s purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) is the newest chapter in the oldest story of his professional life.

Mr. Buffett’s mentor, the pioneering “value” investor Benjamin Graham, trafficked for decades in railroad stocks and bonds. In the early 1950s, at the outset of his career, Mr. Buffett read every page in Moody’s voluminous transportation manuals — twice, to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Working at Mr. Graham’s fund, Graham-Newman Corp., Mr. Buffett analyzed a portfolio with 21% to 36% of its assets in railroads.

But there is a more subtle side to the story. Mr. Graham taught Mr. Buffett that at the heart of the relationship between management and shareholders is a profound conflict of interest. Managers, Mr. Graham believed, will always want to pile up cash to protect themselves in case they make mistakes. But that cash belongs to the shareholders, who may be able to put it to better use than the company’s managers.

Graham also highlighted a painful paradox: The better the business and the more skilled its managers, the greater its profits, causing cash to pile up to unreasonable levels. And, to Mr. Buffett’s own chronic discomfort, he and Berkshire Hathaway are living proof of Mr. Graham’s paradox. Because of Mr. Buffett’s extraordinary skill at picking stocks and buying lucrative businesses, Berkshire consistently generates far more cash than even Mr. Buffett thinks he can put to productive use.

As long ago as 1998 — when Berkshire had $122 billion in assets and less than $14 billion in cash — Mr. Buffett worried his company was getting too big for its britches. “We have always known,” he wrote to a fellow investor, “that huge increases in managed funds would dramatically diminish our universe of investment choices.” That’s because investments of a few million dollars apiece could no longer make a material difference to Berkshire’s fortunes.

By 2006, when Berkshire’s cash mountain had risen to $37 billion, Mr. Buffett said, “We don’t like excess cash…We would be much happier if we had $10 billion.”

“Size is always a problem,” Mr. Buffett told me last month. “With tiny sums [to invest], it’s extraordinary what you can find. Most of the time, big sums are one hell of an anchor.”

Mr. Buffett would rather not resort to the simplest way of solving this problem — paying excess cash out to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Since he owns roughly 26% of Berkshire’s shares, a cash dividend would saddle Mr. Buffett with one of the largest personal-income tax bills in American history. That’s not the kind of thing at which he likes to excel. Mr. Buffett’s reluctance to pay a dividend leaves him with little choice but to buy big companies outright.

Mr. Buffett is paying for Burlington Northern partly with Berkshire shares — something he has long been loath to do. In 2007 he lamented buying Dexter Shoe in 1993 for $433 million in Berkshire stock — which would later have been worth at least $3.5 billion if Mr. Buffett had not exchanged them for Dexter, which ended up worthless. “He’s so sensitive to this issue that I can’t believe he would [pay in stock for Burlington Northern] unless he had absolute confidence that it will work out well over time,” says David Carr of Oak Value Fund, which owns $25 million in Berkshire shares.

At age 79, Mr. Buffett has no plans to retire, but he wants to ensure that Berkshire’s businesses will endure for decades after he is gone. He is betting that no new technology can make rail transportation obsolete. Mr. Buffett has sometimes been wrong about which businesses will prosper forever. Over the years, he’s invested in shoes, newspapers and printed encyclopedias. But Mr. Buffett’s approach underscores a key lesson for any investor: Before you buy any business, ask how vulnerable it is to new technology or price competition.

As a result of the Burlington Northern deal, Berkshire’s Class B shares will split 50-for-1, which would knock its share price down from $3,300 to $65. That puts the shares, for the first time in years, within psychological reach of most investors (who have long balked at Berkshire’s high per-share price).

Like Burlington Northern itself, Berkshire’s shares aren’t quite a steal. Mr. Buffett is putting tens of billions of dollars into a company that he thinks has only moderate growth prospects. That implies that the market as a whole isn’t a steal, or he would have put the money elsewhere. But Mr. Buffett has built an investing bulwark — and an industrial conglomerate. Berkshire is likely to survive any storm, but whether it can continue to beat the market by such wide margins is another story.

Another Kind of Arbitrage: Ex-dividend Option

By TENNILLE TRACY in WSJ 10-10-2009

A complex options trade that pits sophisticated traders against normal investors is gaining in popularity.

While any investor can conduct the options trade, known as a "dividend spread arbitrage," the reality is that professional traders -- namely, market makers who buy and sell options for a living -- have an advantage over smaller investors.

The trade is rising in prominence at a time when U.S. securities regulators are scrutinizing certain trading practices, such as those involving lightning-fast trading systems, that may place certain investors at an unfair disadvantage.

The dividend-spread-arbitrage trade is conducted in the options of companies that are about to issue dividends and has become more common as exchanges in recent years have taken steps to limit trading fees.

Specifically, the trade takes place on the day before a company's stock goes "ex-dividend," when a company compiles a list of its shareholders for the purposes of issuing a dividend. Since a company's stock will typically drop in price after this date -- usually by the amount of the dividend -- the company's call options, which convey the right to buy the stock, also will decline in value.

Market makers who know how the event affects options try to take advantage of the situation by selling call options they don't own with the goal of buying them back later when the options are cheaper. The trade is considered controversial in part because it takes advantage of investors whose calls haven't been exercised before the ex-dividend date.

"The amount of money left on the table [is] a crying shame and part of it is because brokers don't tell their customers to exercise," said Jud Pyle, a market analyst with PEAK6 Investments.

The trade also prompts debate because retail, or individual, investors find it nearly impossible to do. Unlike market makers, individual investors aren't allowed to maintain short and long positions in the same option -- often a crucial component of the transaction. And individual investors typically lack the resources to buy and sell thousands of contracts at once, another characteristic that makes the trade worthwhile.

Anatomy of the Trade

This is how the trade often works: Market makers will buy and sell thousands of call options in a company whose stock is poised to go ex-dividend. Usually trading between themselves, they establish long and short positions in the same option. But before the session ends, the market makers will exercise the calls they bought while maintaining short positions in the calls they sold.

On July 28, for example, one day before ConocoPhillips went ex-dividend, traders appear to have bought and sold thousands of August $38 calls in the energy company. Before the session ended, the traders who conducted the arbitrage trade would most likely exercise the August $38 calls they bought and maintain short positions in August $38 calls they had sold.

That night, Options Clearing Corp. would process the day's trades. For every investor who had exercised a call option they owned, the OCC would randomly assign the contract to an investor who was short the call option. Invariably, the OCC would assign some of the options to the traders who were short. But for every option in which they were able to stay short, the traders could buy it back at a cheaper price.

In order for the trade to work, investors who own the call options -- often individual investors -- have to hold on to them through the ex-dividend date. That is because investors who exercise their call options force the OCC to assign the options to traders who are short and thereby eliminate the potential for arbitrage.

In theory, all investors who own "in the money" call options should exercise their contracts before ex-dividend dates. By doing so, they unwind out of options that are about to decline in value and take ownership of stock that is about to issue a dividend. In reality, however, several investors fail to exercise and for various reasons: they aren't monitoring ex-dividend dates or because it isn't economically feasible to do so.

While some question the fairness of the trade, although not the legality of it, others say the trade is harmless and that market makers are merely collecting profits that would otherwise be wasted. "If there's a penny on the ground and I see it, should I not pick up the penny?" said Phil Gocke, president of the options trading company Brite Sky LLC.

Exchanges' Tension

The dividend trade has become a bone of contention among the various options exchanges -- namely between those that play host to the trade and those that don't.

The OCC and the Securities and Exchange Commission have reviewed the trade and haven't imposed any restrictions on it, exchange officials said. "It's not an exchange's obligation to deem what is proper or fair," said Ed Boyle, head of NYSE Euronext's U.S. options division. "That's the job of the regulators."

The International Securities Exchange, one of the largest options exchanges in the U.S., says the trade poses a systemic risk to the industry and should be curbed. "It could become an issue and the industry needs to do something about it," said ISE Chief Executive Gary Katz. "Not because something has gone wrong but because it is time to fix a problem that nobody wants to address."

The Greenback Effect by Warren Buffett 8-19-2009

The Greenback Effect

By WARREN E. BUFFETT

Published: August 18, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1250705844-LfABFNPAbeHVZXcsKqynpg

IN nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.

The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.

To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.

To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory.

Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will increase more than one percentage point per month, climbing to about 56 percent of G.D.P. from 41 percent. Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out.

An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.

The current account deficit — dollars that we force-feed to the rest of the world and that must then be invested — will be $400 billion or so this year. Assume, in a relatively benign scenario, that all of this is directed by the recipients — China leads the list — to purchases of United States debt. Never mind that this all-Treasuries allocation is no sure thing: some countries may decide that purchasing American stocks, real estate or entire companies makes more sense than soaking up dollar-denominated bonds. Rumblings to that effect have recently increased.

Then take the second element of the scenario — borrowing from our own citizens. Assume that Americans save $500 billion, far above what they’ve saved recently but perhaps consistent with the changing national mood. Finally, assume that these citizens opt to put all their savings into United States Treasuries (partly through intermediaries like banks).

Even with these heroic assumptions, the Treasury will be obliged to find another $900 billion to finance the remainder of the $1.8 trillion of debt it is issuing. Washington’s printing presses will need to work overtime.

Slowing them down will require extraordinary political will. With government expenditures now running 185 percent of receipts, truly major changes in both taxes and outlays will be required. A revived economy can’t come close to bridging that sort of gap.

Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes. In fact, John Maynard Keynes long ago laid out a road map for political survival amid an economic disaster of just this sort: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.... The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

I want to emphasize that there is nothing evil or destructive in an increase in debt that is proportional to an increase in income or assets. As the resources of individuals, corporations and countries grow, each can handle more debt. The United States remains by far the most prosperous country on earth, and its debt-carrying capacity will grow in the future just as it has in the past.

But it was a wise man who said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.

Our immediate problem is to get our country back on its feet and flourishing — “whatever it takes” still makes sense. Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources.

Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.

Jim Rogers: Best advice I ever got

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Dear VICtors,

Do you like to have similar results as what Jim Rogers got ? Do what he said ( see the article forwarded by Soumen)

Now, are you ready to read annual report written by Warren Buffett?

7/14 and 7/28: BRK 2008 annual report http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2008ar/2008ar.pdf

Starting from Aug, we will read FORTY YEARS A SPECULATOR by FRED CARACH together. Please order it now.

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Best advice I ever got

Jim Rogers: Read everything

Age: 66

Investor and commodities guru

The best advice I ever got was on an airplane. It was in my early days on Wall Street. I was flying to Chicago, and I sat next to an older guy.

Anyway, I remember him as being an old guy, which means he may have been 40. He told me to read everything. If you get interested in a company and you read the annual report, he said, you will have done more than 98% of the people on Wall Street.

And if you read the footnotes in the annual report you will have done more than 100% of the people on Wall Street. I realized right away that if I just literally read a company's annual report and the notes -- or better yet, two or three years of reports -- that I would know much more than others. Professional investors used to sort of be dazzled.

Everyone seemed to think I was smart. I later realized that I had to do more than just that. I learned that I had to read the annual reports of those I am investing in and their competitors' annual reports, the trade journals, and everything that I could get my hands on. But I realized that most people don't bother even doing the basic homework. And if I did even more, I'd be so far ahead that I'd probably be able to find successful investments.

--Interview by Brian O'Keefe