Ben, partner since 2017 (Sarnia, Ontario)
Rest in Peace, Charlie Munger
‘Take a simple idea and take it seriously’: CharlieMunger in his own words.
Charlie Munger, who has died aged 99, was instrumental in
helping Warren Buffett turn Berkshire Hathaway into an investment powerhouse.
Munger laid down the principles on which the pair built
Berkshire, Buffett has said, helping him refine a philosophy that was initially
shaped by value investing pioneer Benjamin Graham.
“The blueprint he gave me was simple: ‘Forget what you know
about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful
businesses at fair prices’,” Buffett, 93, said.
Over a career spanning more than 70 years — most of which
spent alongside the Sage of Omaha — Munger became famous for his sharp wit
about investing and life delivered during Berkshire’s annual shareholders
meetings. Some of Munger’s best-known “zingers”
“Capitalism without failure is like religion without hell.”
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.”
“Every time you hear EBITDA, just substitute it with
bullshit.”
“There is more dementia about finance than there is about
sex.”
“To say accounting for derivatives in America is a sewer is an insult to sewage.”
This week in charts
Household debt
Housing and Immigration
Source: Statistics Canada
Economy
Unicorns
China
ESG
2022 and 2023 YTD Returns
Source: Goldman Sachs FICC & Equities, Custom Baskets, Bloomberg, as of 30-Nov-2023. Past performance is not indicative of forward returns
Canada's main oil-producing province Alberta on Tuesday said it would provide a 12% grant on eligible capital costs associated with building new carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects to help industry cut emissions that cause climate change.
The incentive from Alberta, which the provincial government has been working on since January, comes on top of a federal government CCUS tax credit announced last year and is designed to spur investment in the costly technology.
Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean said CCUS is the "only viable option" to cut emissions of hard-to-abate industries, such as oil and gas, cement and petrochemicals.
"Not only will this technology help preserve our position as a major bitumen producer, but our whole economy will depend on CCUS for large volumes of reduced emissions reductions," Jean told a news conference.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the incentive program was expected to help attract C$35 billion ($25.80 billion) in capital investment and cost the province between C$3.5 billion and C$5.3 billion.
Chemical maker Dow said federal and provincial government CCUS incentives contributed to its board's decision on Tuesday to approve a C$6.5 billion investment in its existing Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, facility.
The Path2Zero project includes building a new ethylene cracker and increasing polyethylene capacity by 2 million metric tonnes per annum, and will use CCUS to help meet net-zero emissions.
More than twenty new CCUS projects have been proposed in Alberta, including a C$16.5 billion project put forward by the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of Canada's six biggest oil sands producers.
Half Of All Skills Will Be Outdated Within Two Years, Study Suggests
Executives believe nearly half of the skills that exist in today’s workforce won’t be relevant just two years from now, thanks to artificial intelligence. And a lot of that includes their own skills. This startling proclamation came out of a recent survey of 800 executives and 800 employees released by edX, an online education platform.
The executives estimate that nearly half (49%) of the skills that exist in their workforce today won’t be relevant in 2025. The same number, 47%, believe their workforces are unprepared for the future workplace. Identifying skills shortages is not a surprising result to come out of an educational platform provider, but the short timespan is an eye-opener.
Executives in the survey estimate that within the next five years, their organizations will eliminate over half (56%) of entry-level knowledge worker roles because of AI. What’s more, 79% of executives predict that entry-level knowledge worker jobs will no longer exist as AI creates an entirely new suite of roles for employees entering the workforce. On top of that, 56% say their own roles will be “completely” or “partially” replaced by AI.
However, there are industry leaders who are skeptical of such heavy-handed doom-laden predictions. "In my view, the immediate impact of AI on career goals is likely to be minimal," says Richard Jefts, executive vice president and general manager at HCL Software. "While many companies claim to be leveraging AI, the reality is that most are still in the early stages of adoption.” Expect more of a longer-term impact on careers as AI matures, he says.
While AI will redirect jobs and career prospects, its impact on jobs and tasks is murky — it’s not a simple matter of swapping out tasks with AI and you’re done. "The challenging part is that it is very difficult to predict precisely where and when that redirection will occur,” says Frederico Braga, head of digital at Debiopharm. “Almost every professional whose day to day is somehow connected with a digital activity will need to re-adjust their career goals as they — and the people around them — will begin to see changes in their daily work-related activities and processes.”
This week’s fun finds
Giving the gift of financial literacy
Several EdgePointers presented at our financial literacy “kids camp” in Montréal to help the youth capitalize on their incredibly long-time horizons.
