Circle of Competence Issue #85

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The goal of investment is to find situations where it is safe not to diversify.” - Charlie Munger

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The California housing crisis (Bloomberg)

I am undoubtedly biased in favor of real estate development in communities that need additional housing. Density is always preferable in communities that are experiencing high net migration trends in my opinion, and the lack of affordable housing can be solved in two predominant ways:

1. Politically (the traditional way), by updating zoning regulations to accommodate the needed density in urban areas where jobs are increasingly being created.

2. Technologically (the new, much needed approach), for example, with 3-D printing technology that can build concrete structures for 1/10th of the cost and in days rather than months. Check out the profile on Icon Build below for how this technology may be able to fill gaps in our massive affordable housing shortage nationwide.

My position on this is simple: rent control will not solve the affordable housing issue because it will discourage development from taking place, further limiting the supply that is desperately needed in the state. I'd love someone's thoughts on affordable housing who may see things differently.

LINKS

Investing:

Brookfield Asset Management's 3Q 2019 Investor Day Presentation ($BAM) - disclosure: LONG BAM

PWC Report: 2020 emerging trends in real estate (PWC)

JP Morgan's 4Q guide to the market research report (JPM)

How to build your own Berkshire Hathaway: lessons from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett (Author unknown)

The system is broken and the world has gone mad (Ray Dalio)

Has the world gone bad? Cullen Roche's response to Ray Dalio's piece (Cullen Roche)

Technology:

Inside the high-stakes race to build the world’s first flying taxi (New York Times)

The gross margins problem: lessons from tech-enabled startups (David Sacks)

Meet ICON Build, an Austin-based disrupting the trillion dollar construction industry with 3-D printed homes (Inc.)

The 'luck' of Amazon's Jeff Bezos (Twitter Thread)

Investing in space (Village Global)

Investing in Africa with Rzepecki (Invest like the Best)

Politics:

Tech and liberty (Ben Thompson, Stratechery)

Leninthink (Gary Saul Morson, The New Criterion)