No. of Recommendations: 29
...this board is very dependent on the input from one guy...
My suggestions would be--
(1) If someone is posting a link, PLEASE don't post only the link. Most especially if it's a time-sucking video.
Summarize it, or at least say what you think is right or wrong or thought provoking about it.
This isn't Twitter, and we don't need to reinvent it here : )
I think ensuring all posts have a bit of actual content raises the overall quality and attractiveness of the board.
(2) Provided Manlobbi does not object, maybe encourage a few more off topic posts?
Not too far off topic, and marked OT in the subject.
My thinking is that this community probably has some interesting insights on neighbouring subjects.
Other value stocks which a Berkshire aficionado might be interested in.
Starting with the usual suspects like Markel, but perhaps including the sorts of things that were sometimes discussed very thoughtfully at the old Falling Knives board.
Maybe even popular or topical stocks that do not fall into that investing category, but avoided by this group for interesting and informative reasons.
(Bitcoin isn't a Berkshire-type allocation of capital, but the *reasons* that it isn't on style can be interesting)
The occasional macro-ish issue that might be of interest: for example the recent discussions on China exposure were good, or why inflation might do a particular thing.
Different takes on successful long term investing approaches in general.
Maybe even something, occasionally, that is just plain wildly OT.
The old board's discussions on the pandemic were perhaps too numerous, but I think we probably all learned something useful at some point, and its all-pervasiveness was a pretty good excuse to go way OT.
Some stuff was wrong with hindsight but well thought out nonetheless.
Obviously we still want to keep the traditions of avoiding contentious politics or flat-out false memes.
Bottom line, the main sign of a moribund forum is insufficient content.
So we need more.
(3) Invite others you think might appreciate the place.
Send them a link to some post here that you found worth reading.
(4) If you have an insightful thought yourself, or even an interesting question, post it!
Don't rely on people posting the occasional news item about Berkshire as the only source of new threads.
Here's one:
Can somebody make suggestions on the best way to assign a value to the entities that Berkshire accounts for using the equity method?
(there are even separate sub-categories of equity method accounting that are materially different--OXY and KHC are both equity method, but treated differently I believe)
At the moment, any distribution from KHC is accounted for as a reduction in its carrying value on the balance sheet.
I honestly don't know how that reduction shows up on the income statement. Earnings, or only distributions?
Better to take it entirely out of book value, and put it back in as either market value of the shares or (my preference) a multiple of the earnings both distributed and retained, as I do with an operating subsidiary.
(With a suitable adjustment to the earnings estimate if the most recent four quarters are particularly atypical)
This is a long, complicated subject. If anyone knows the equity method accounting well enough to comment on it, I for one would certainly welcome a thread on that.
Jim
