My only argument is that Warren Buffet probably knows best, and all of his money is in Berkshire. Past performance is an indicator of future performance, just not the only indicator. It's like saying that Tiger Woods might become a bad golfer. It's possible, but doubtful because of his past performance. Same with WB.

As for margin, it's not that complicated. It's a secured loan with 10% interest. At any given time I have a fraction of a share on margin (averaging 50% of a share, of course). Because Berkshire has such huge cash reserves, it would be virtually impossible for the stock price to hit 50% and thus trigger a margin call.

I will checkout those two firms you mentioned, but for now I'm happy with Berkshire.

Stupid and arrogant, but a fantastic experience which I'm proud to have had. Sometimes you need to push outside of our comfort bubble and try something truly difficult.

You're also right that my attitude will keep me out of the NSS. I have no desire to explore easier caves.

Yes... Private registration is included with all domains.

A few things - At most I have one share on margin, at as I build up cash in the account I have just a tiny bit on margin.

He has pledged 5% of his shares yearly to Bill Gates' foundation.

It's not a perfect investment, but it's as close as possible.

I think that it will cause a temporarily dip in Berkshire's price. I will probably buy many shares on margin at that point. He has secretly named a successor and appears to be very confident that Berkshire will continue to succeed.

Not at all. He is super cautious and very well diversified. He also has a large percentage of the money in cash (or equivalent fixed return zero risk investments).

Basically, if the richest investor in the world has his money in a certain set of stocks, I'm happy to admit that he knows best, and exactly mirror his choices.

Buying on margin is basically buying on credit. It's a loan secured by your stocks that you're holding in that account. You should probably read more before doing it heavily, but that's the gist of it.

Tynan

"I already know ONE of you who is totally going to agree with her and write about it in the comments."

*ahem*

Awesome... really glad to hear that you're trying it out. I would seriously recommend that you get those books that I mentioned in the Vegan Overnight post. I found it very difficult to switch to vegan until I read them and got the proper motivation.

Understand that I used to eat at McDonalds so much that they gave me all my food for free because people would go with me. I would eat tons of bread, and eat whole pizzas myself.

Tynan

I completely disagree. Find me any other restaurant where you can get a drink, soup, and salad in addition to all the food you can eat for $12 including tax. You also don't have to tip at casa, but you do have to bus your own table, so if that bothers you, you can take that out of the equation.