BunkerLINKS - #2 - May 17, 2025
You need a busload of faith to get by....
Every day, a man drinks copious amounts of coffee, reads a wide variety of materials... and broods.
Below are some things he found interesting this past week.
The Sunk Costs of Market Timing
Ben Carlson is always a must-read.
If you’re prone to high anxiety in financially volatile times, get a tattoo of the chart in the post linked above titled “What if you panic sold and missed April 9th?”.
"Liberation Day" perfectly illustrated the dangers of an individual lacking strategic foresight wielding significant market influence. It was modern day proof of the wide applicability of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
With deep apologies to the corpse of Charles Dickens…
It was the fucking around of times and the finding out of times.
Don’t let fear get the best of you. Embrace the following process for your financial plan… regardless of your age.
Develop the plan.
Execute.
Automate.
Walk away and do something productive.
Ignore the headlines.
Ives: iPhone production will remain in China and India, despite what Trump says
First, Shane Parrish is also a must-read. Invest the capital and brain cycles in reading and absorbing The Great Mental Models, Volumes One through Four. (The boxed set will be available in October. Pre-order now if you want it. Otherwise, you can order individual volumes from your favorite bookseller.)
Second, when I said above “lacking strategic foresight,” I also mean “utterly devoid of second and third-order thinking.”
…we see no chance that iPhone production starts to happen in the US in the near-term given the upside down cost model and Herculean-like supply chain logistics needed for such an initiative.
— Dan Ives
You may now replace the word “iPhone” with a nearly infinite amount of other products. One does not simply wave a wand and the manufacturing facilities with the necessary supply chain magically appear out of thin air.
Tesla Reportedly Has $800 Million Worth of Cybertrucks That Nobody Wants
Are you sensing a theme yet?
This was unplanned. Today's society is rampant with a lack of common sense that is unavoidable.
This link came via One Foot Tsumani. Paul Kafasis posits a question regarding value.
Elon’s exit from DOGE comes far too late to undo the damage to the brand. He alienated supporters of EV… who primarily lean to the political left. Those who lean to the right usually glance at a Cybertruck and snort laugh.
Again… as the kids say… FAFO!
Warren Buffett and the Berkshire Hathaway Paradox
BRK is not going to melt into oblivion after Buffett is gone, but its best days are behind it. As Buffett has acknowledged, just its size alone makes it very difficult for BRK to grow. Truth be told, even if Buffett were thirty years younger and continued to run BRK, I am not sure the results would be much different than what I think the future holds with Abel at the helm.
— Vitaliy Katsenelson
An expert in any field will have an advantage over a rookie. But neither the veteran nor the rookie can be sure what the next flip will look like. The veteran will just have a better guess. (Emphasis mine.)
— Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets
Perhaps Katnelson has expressed a better guess. Perhaps not.
Berkshire Hathaway has an insane amount of cash sitting on the sidelines. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are/were classic value investors. Greg Abel, the forthcoming new CEO, will almost certainly deploy some of the idle capital. Even if Abel invests in index funds, Berkshire Hathway would, over time, grow.
Rudimentary application of Occam’s Razor… or even elementary probability theory… is an underutilized and underrated skill.
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Publisher: Penguin Press
Publish Date: August 20, 2019
Pages: 352
Lukianoff and Haidt accurately identify three wretched ideas, explore how these ideas came into being, and prescribe three antidotes… all based on wisdom.
Once you absorb the contents of this book, you will immediately recognize the bad ideas when you see and hear them.
You’ll also gain a greater understanding of the flawed thinking underlying many recent conflicts in society today.
As is often the case, mainstream media outlets across the spectrum miss the point… often intentionally… in their quest to sell cereal.
New York
I’m headed to New York next month for the first time in over a decade. I’m looking forward to seeing an old friend, new friends… and hopefully taking a long walk around Manhattan while listening to the work of the late Lou Reed.
I’m not as cynical as Mr. Reed in the song below.
But I agree with his declaration.
Until next time…