"If the business changes in a material way, you’d better change your business model. Or somebody else will. And then you’ll even have more changes facing you.... Capitalism is creative destruction. And sometimes, you’re on the short end of that." --Warren Buffett (2009)
"Some of our businesses have a shared-hardship model, where they don’t layoff, at least not yet. And the businesses with that model tend to be very strongly placed economically. So I guess it shows that Benjamin Franklin was right, when he said, 'It's hard for an empty sack to stand upright.' So we’re all over the map on that, and so is all of industry. But I do think an ideal model would be a business so strong that it could operate in the shared-hardship mode instead of the layoffs." --Charlie Munger (2009)
"Yeah, some are doing that, where you give up hours. But a lot of operations don’t lend themselves to that very well, either. So...in other cases, you basically have to close down whole plants. That’s just the nature of it. You really can’t operate every plant at 50 percent and have it work as effectively as shutting down the least-productive plants." --Warren Buffett (2009)
"In a world where you sometimes have to amputate a limb to stay alive, you can’t expect that every business can stay exactly as it is." --Charlie Munger (2009)
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Klarman Made $1 Billion Hedging Markets. He Still Lost Money (LINK) [If anyone happens to have a copy of a Baupost quarterly update letter during this time, and is willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated (valueinvestingworld@gmail.com).]
The first 4 video replays of Grant Williams' 2020 Hmmminar Series are available online (LINK) [Marc Cohodes is the latest one from last night, and the next one is scheduled for tonight, with John Hussman.]
Invest Like the Best Podcast: Sarah Tavel - Consumer & Marketplace Investing (LINK)
The Daily Podcast: A Kids’ Guide to Coronavirus (LINK)
The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): #104 - COVID-19 for kids with Olivia Attia (LINK)
Recode Decode Podcast: Niall Ferguson: How viruses (and fake news stories) spread, and how America screwed up its coronavirus response (LINK)
TED Connects: Why sleep matters now more than ever | Matt Walker (video) (LINK)
The Gene | Part 1: Dawn of the Modern Age of Genetics | PBS (video) (LINK) [A Ken Burns documentary, inspired by Siddhartha Mukherjee's book The Gene.]
The Shelves Are Empty, the Test Swabs Are Gone - by Michael Lewis (LINK)
Some of Warren Buffett’s comments on inflation over the years (LINK)
Book of the day (PDF): Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations - by Jens O. Parsson