Monday, March 2, 2020

Links

"Our approach is really to try and learn vicariously. But there’s a lot of mistakes that I’ve repeated, I can tell you that. The biggest one, probably — or the biggest category over time — is being reluctant to pay up a little for a business I knew was really outstanding, or to continue to buy it at higher prices when I knew it was outstanding. The cost of that has been many, many billions. And I’ll probably keep making that mistake. The mistakes are made when there are businesses you can understand and they’re attractive and you don’t do something about it. I don’t worry at all about the mistakes that come about because when I met Bill Gates, I didn’t buy Microsoft or something. That’s not my game. Most of our mistakes have been mistakes of omission rather than commission." --Warren Buffett (1997)

The Hollywood Drama That Cost a BlackRock Fund $75 Million - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

U.S. Airlines Face Test as Epidemic Spreads ($) (LINK)

We all need to change how we live our lives to fight this generation of pandemics - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Corona Panic - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017 article) [H/T @rationalwalk] (LINK)
Related book: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
1997 article from Malcolm Gladwell: "The Dead Zone" (LINK)
Seven bodies buried in the Arctic tundra might solve the riddle of the worst flu pandemic in history—and might help us prevent it from happening again.
Absolute Return Letter, March 2020: Five Lessons from History (2/5) (LINK)

Innovations in payments (BIS Quarterly Review) (LINK)

Stripe Teardown: How The $35B Payments Company Plans To Supercharge Online Retail [H/T @david_perell] (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Passive Agro: Michael Green on the looming threat from passive indexing, shorting XIV and what value guys can do (LINK)

Hidden Forces Podcast: Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World | Peter Zeihan (LINK)
Related book: Disunited Nations
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum Podcast: EP10 Strangelove Whisperings (LINK)

Origin Stories Podcast: 41: Tribes Old and New (LINK)

The Five Revolutions in Cancer Treatment (LINK)

Jack Welch, Legendary CEO of General Electric, Dies at Age 84 (LINK)