High Yield Reads - 5/10/14

Summary of recents posts and pieces of interest, sometimes enduring, to investors:

• Bill Mann of Motley Fool Funds - Wandering Fools: Arabian Gulf - on UAE, Dubai, Oman and more. "The United Arab Emirates and Qatar rank just below Japan and above South Korea and Norway in the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom" My favorite part "We came to Dubai because it was the easiest place to meet lots of local companies. In the region, it takes very little to persuade managers to come to Dubai -- so we spent our days talking with executives from companies from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait as well as from the UAE. The refrain for our meetings was repetitive. "Where would you like to meet? Dubai? No problem.""

• Neil Woodford is hitting the circuit with his new fund opening up. A number of value people avoided the dotcom crash, but how did he also dodge the banks in 08? Woodford: "You must never allow an income target to dictate what you own." It was hard to put together an income portfolio on 05-07 and avoid owning banks, but Woodford managed it.

• 26 Musings from Soren Kierkegaard from Shane Parrish, Farnam Street

• Old Bay Seasoning getting more popular beyond Maryland, McCormick Spice is an interesting company to follow, I will do a write up on them soon

• John Huber thoughts on the Berkshire annual meeting. My BRK posts are here and here.

• Tren Griffin on a Dozen Reasons why Berkshire's Moat will Survive. 

• Morgan Housel on Where Outperformance Comes From. Includes great Eddy Elfenbein quote - "Successful investing is one of the few endeavors  in which people are convinced it must be more complicated than it truly is."

• FT: Sad story on Jerome Kerviel in aftermath of SocGen trading scandal. Via @RichardBeddard

• I have a new post that calculates Berkshire's dividend payments from its top 8 holdings at $1.8B/year and growing. They may not like paying dividends but they like receiving them