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Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

markets.businessinsider.com

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#51
Target (TGT) is, overall, a well-run company with a straightforward business model. It would be a smart move to buy them at a discount because either they continue to expand into other markets and/or they could sold to the likes of Walmart or Amazon sometime in the future.

Improvements: They do need to move more towards an online/in-store-equivalency platform model like Walmart, maybe with a handheld scanner self-checkout and loss-prevention AI. Heck, skip the stores entirely with delivery only-sales might be a better idea to eliminate shrinkage.

I can't see WB buying any other companies on the list besides GE or 3M because it's not clear the others are diversified, defensible, undisruptable and simple enough.

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance covers insurable events, some of them may be triggered by a pandemic, and some of those might be excluded. Check your fine print. * Life insurance is probably going to take a hit. My life insurance doesn't mention pandemic or acts of god. Suicide yes. Pandemic no. * Auto insurance is probably going to be marginally more profitable as miles driven drop. * Home/Property isn't likely to be heavily affected. *…

> My life insurance doesn't mention pandemic or acts of god. Suicide yes. Pandemic no. I'd be pretty surprised if this wasn't true. Who's taking out life insurance exclusively for predictable causes of death? You don't insure those, you avoid them. "Acts of god" are most of the reason you'd want life insurance in the first place.

Exclusively? No. But I think suicide is covered on some policies after a waiting period.

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#53
post #11

They really need to tax this man, he's even on record saying how he needs to be taxed more.

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. As you say, Buffet himself is asking to be taxed more. It's not really relevant to say that he's giving it to charity here. (Although I think it's great that he is.)

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#54
post #43
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay since you opened the door to playing "call the bottom" where do you think it will be? I'll swag first. The end will be in sight when the US new case rate hits its inflection point and begins decreasing. From that you can sorta tell when things will settle down biology-wise.

So that's a couple of weeks away, according to the projections I posted yesterday. Peak deaths in the US are estimated for 15 April.

I'm still reading things in other US-centric forums (automotive, oil & gas industry) where people are remarking about "hysteria" or acknowledging current numbers but implicitly assuming that the increase in cases is zero.

So I think it's very dangerous to assume that prices are accurate if probably millions of people haven't caught up to reality yet. One thing that I read is that the current rebound might have been largely driven by automatic rebalancing of institutional investors who split between stocks and bonds.

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#55
post #31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berkshire the company is one of the US's biggest taxpayers. Buffett himself is giving most of his money to charity (the Gates foundation).

75% of Gates Foundation's money end's up in big four consulting firms, which by gates himself do a better work at deploying money than other more rational actors like local governments or communities. So yeah, prob that's not charity too... it's just a way to get the maximum available tax cut, you donate to your own or your friends charity and he or she funnels backs the money where you need it to be.

If he gives away $100 billion, and pays zero taxes, the money is still gone.

When I see this sort of comment, I always think of Seinfeld:

"Kramer: They just write it off. Jerry: Write it off of what? Kramer: They just write it off! Jerry: You don't even know what a write off is, do you? Kramer: No. Do you?"

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#56
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance doesn't normally cover pandemics.

Insurance covers insurable events, some of them may be triggered by a pandemic, and some of those might be excluded. Check your fine print. * Life insurance is probably going to take a hit. My life insurance doesn't mention pandemic or acts of god. Suicide yes. Pandemic no. * Auto insurance is probably going to be marginally more profitable as miles driven drop. * Home/Property isn't likely to be heavily affected. *…

I don't understand. If they cover dying from flu why does it matter if it's pandemic or not?

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that's a couple of weeks away, according to the projections I posted yesterday. Peak deaths in the US are estimated for 15 April.

I'm still reading things in other US-centric forums (automotive, oil & gas industry) where people are remarking about "hysteria" or acknowledging current numbers but implicitly assuming that the increase in cases is zero. So I think it's very dangerous to assume that prices are accurate if probably millions of people haven't caught up to reality yet. One thing that I read is that the current rebound might have been l…

This is an excellent point.

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#58
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance doesn't normally cover pandemics.

Insurance covers insurable events, some of them may be triggered by a pandemic, and some of those might be excluded. Check your fine print. * Life insurance is probably going to take a hit. My life insurance doesn't mention pandemic or acts of god. Suicide yes. Pandemic no. * Auto insurance is probably going to be marginally more profitable as miles driven drop. * Home/Property isn't likely to be heavily affected. *…

I don't think life insurance will take a hit. The large majority of deaths we're seeing are among the very ill, ie folks who already had a high short term chance of dying. Within a couple years the insurers would have paid out all that money anyway. And correct me if I'm wrong but most of the time you'd only have life insurance if you have dependents to look after, ie when you're 40 and not when you're 80. The cost of life insurance for an 80yo with 3 illnesses must be prohibitive.

Re: Warren Buffett has the cash to buy Tesla, Starbucks, or McDonald's

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance covers insurable events, some of them may be triggered by a pandemic, and some of those might be excluded. Check your fine print. * Life insurance is probably going to take a hit. My life insurance doesn't mention pandemic or acts of god. Suicide yes. Pandemic no. * Auto insurance is probably going to be marginally more profitable as miles driven drop. * Home/Property isn't likely to be heavily affected. *…

I don't think life insurance will take a hit. The large majority of deaths we're seeing are among the very ill, ie folks who already had a high short term chance of dying. Within a couple years the insurers would have paid out all that money anyway. And correct me if I'm wrong but most of the time you'd only have life insurance if you have dependents to look after, ie when you're 40 and not when you're 80. The cost o…

Correct. In fact based on demographic data locally (Canada), deaths from motor incidents have come down enough to offset Corona deaths. Ergo, it's cheaper to have a pandemic.
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