The current economic environment, far from being a drawback, represents the ideal setting for a Steak n Shake turnaround. If the company can’t get employees working towards a common goal in the face of brutal conditions they are unlikely to thrive in good conditions.

In chemistry, if you mix items that explode in combination, you always get in trouble until you learn not to allow the mixture. So also, in the American banking system. To us, a lot of foolish, unproductive lending and many bank insolvencies are the natural consequences, given existing American banking culture, of the combination of the following two elements ...

A creditworthy company must be worth more than it can reasonably borrow under distressed conditions. A company that could borrow $250 million should have a market cap that is at least $250 million (less the tax rate on dividends) because it could simply borrow $250 million and dividend the same amount back to its owners.

The opportunity to buy a great business at an overly pessimistic price comes along rarely. American Express is one of those businesses and today irrational investors ran from the company driving the price down.

Late last year Western Sizzlin offered ITEX shareholders the opportunity to exchange 1 share of ITEX for .06623 shares of Western Sizzlin. We believe the growth of ITEX would be faster and more profitable under WEST. We think Western should open the tender again.

6 Lessons from the financial crisis.

If Morningstar can’t measure risk, how can they value it?

It appears that Morningstar blindly regurgitates JPMorgan’s unchallenged assumption that they have a “fortress” balance sheet.

Starbucks has lost its mojo. Customers are not coming back with the same frequency and new customers are proving harder to find. The world’s leading drug company unintentionally brought this on themselves when they forgot who they were.

Ignore the GAAP earnings. Let's take a look at the cash.

In our October 2007 post on VMware we estimated, very crudely, that VMWare shouldn’t be trading for more than ~$43/share. At the time VMware shares were trading at $111. Now it's time to cover!

The meeting did not go as expected. After asking for two seats on the board Smith asked the two visitors to submit a resume. Biglari retorted, “We are not here for a job”.

Walking by the JPMorgan headquarters in downtown Manhattan you might be surprised to find Jamie Dimon standing on the side of the road talking to the limo drivers. Rest assured - he’s not asking about the weather.

If you’re like me you’ve probably wondered what Warren Buffet views as best shareholder letter of all time. After doing some research, I came across a letter that so impressed Buffett that he wrote the author calling it “just about the best I’ve ever witnessed”

Updated version of the 'men with hammers' presentation.

The company everyone loves to hate is actually getting more profitable.