What does an M.B.A. do for you that a doctorate in philosophy can’t do better? ……. M.B.A.s have taken obfuscatory jargon—otherwise known as bullshit—to a level that would have made even the Scholastics blanch. – Matthew Stewart, “The Management Myth”,…
Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the…
I just came across a shocking post from Jeff Mathews on Berkshire’s equity portfolio: “This Just In: Berkshire Equity Portfolio Back To Its Cost Basis”, Saturday February 28. In that post, Mathews says that Berkshire’s equity portfolio, which had a…
An article I wrote, “How to Prosper in a Bear Market”, is available at SmartManDaily.com.
Turmoil in the housing market has led to fears that home prices will drop precipitously….. But the projected losses have been wildly exaggerated. Most Americans have not experienced any significant declines in the value of their homes – nor are…
I’ve come across some really good pieces the last couple of days that I want to share: “Generalists can have some advantages, including being able to ‘focus on the true, single hinge issue’ of a company’, says Lisa Shalett [former…
I want to recommend to everybody John Mackey’s excellent commencement speech delivered at Bentley College on Saturday May 17, 2008, recently posted to his Whole Foods blog. Mackey, the Founder and CEO of Whole Foods (WFMI), was a college dropout:…
Bill Miller: The New York Times today did a feature article on Legg Mason’s Bill Miller, who beat the S&P 500 for 15 straight years from 1991-2005 before faltering the last few years: “Humbler, After A Streak of Magic”. On Bill…
How has Toyota stayed ahead of the pack? The answer has a lot to do with another distinctive element of Toyota’s approach: defining innovation as an incremental process, in which the goal is not to make huge, sudden leaps but,…
Despite the challenges, the company’s solid fundamentals make the stock especially attractive for long-term investors. The shares are trading at a historic low multiple of about 12.5 times estimated fiscal 2009 earnings…. In more normal times, the stock trades at…