Charlie Munger's Most Iconic Moments

I don't think there are good arguments against my position. I think the people that oppose my position are idiots. And well, you don't want to be like the motion picture executive in California. They said the funeral was so large 'cause everybody wanted to make sure he was dead. So no, I'm optimistic about life. If I can be optimistic when I'm nearly dead, surely the rest of you can handle a little inflation. People don't seem to get that point.

You have any idea why Charlie? War, and if people weren't so often wrong, we wouldn't be so rich. No, it was investment banker AED fraud. Now, not exactly novel. Yeah, I think you would understand any presentation using the word AIDA. If every time you saw that word, you just substituted the phrase earnings.

Yeah, it's not that much fun to buy a business where you really hope this sucker liquidates before it goes broke. I like cryptocurrencies a lot less than you do, and I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it's just disgusting. It's like somebody else is trading turds, and you decide I can't be left out.

You are mixing something which is wretched and irrational and has bad consequences with something that has very good consequences. But you know, if you mix raisins with turds, they're still turds. That's why they have me write the annual report. But, and yet, it's perfectly obvious, at least to me, that to say that derivative accounting in America is a sewer is an insult to sewage.

But competency is a relative concept, and what a lot of us need, including the one speaking, what I needed to get ahead was to compete against idiots. Luckily, there's a large supply. And sure, there are a lot of things in life way more important than wealth. All that said, some people do get confused.

I play golf with a man; he says, "What good is health? You can't buy money with it." A director getting $150,000 a year from a company who needs it is not an independent director. They're looking for Chihuahuas and not Great Danes. And I hope I'm not insulting any of my friends that are on comp committees.

You're insulting the dogs. Oh, and of course that's the other advice: the best way to get what you want in life is to deserve what you want. How could it be otherwise? It's not crazy enough so that the world is looking for a lot of undeserving people to reward.

Accounting, you can do things like they do in Italy when they have trouble with the mail. You know it piles up and irritates the postal employees. They just throw away a few carloads, and then everything flows smoothly. There folks, that happened in some unnamed international company, country. Yeah, Italy.

Well, there are a whole lot of things I don't think about, and one of them is companies that are losing two or three billion dollars a year and going public. Everybody wants fiscal virtue, but not quite yet. They're like that guy who felt that way about sex, who's willing to give it up, but not quite yet.

I don't like multitasking. I see these people doing three things at once, and I think, God, what a terrible boy that is, to think that! That does not mean we approve of every buyback at all though. I mean we've seen—no, no, no! I think some people just buy it to keep the stock up, and that, of course, is insane and immoral.

But apart from that, it's fine. The people who invented this crypto crappo—sometimes I call it crypto krao, and sometimes I call it, well, crypto sh—it's just ridiculous that anybody would buy this stuff. It is, it isn't even slightly stupid; it's massively stupid.

Well, I can't give you a formulaic approach because I don't use one. If you want a formula, you should go back to graduate school. They'll give you lots of formulas that won't work. And Samuel Johnson said famously, "I can give you an argument, but I can't give you an understanding."

One reminds me once I asked a man who just left a large investment bank, and I said, "How does your firm make its money?" He said, "Off the top, off the bottom, off both sides, and in the middle." The general system for money management requires people to pretend that they can do something that they can't do and to pretend to like it when they really don't.

I think that's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's very well-paid. Those of you who are about to enter business school, or who are there, I recommend you learn to do it our way. But at least until you're out of school, you have to pretend to do it their way.

I have listened to so many nonsensical cost of capital discussions that I've never heard of an intelligent one. Well, I would rather throw a viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant. Um, Charlie's big on lowering expectations. Absolutely! That's the way I got married; my wife lowered her expectations.

I like cryptocurrencies a lot less than you do. To me, it's just dementia. Professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it's just disgusting. It's like somebody else is trading turds, and you decide I can't be left out.

He volunteered. No, the board at Lers Hall did not breach its duty because we were not going to participate in the transaction if they didn't do it our way. Has anybody else got an easy question? It's not that great a business as a business casualty insurance. It's a tough game. There are temptations to be stupid, and it's like banking.

And as Samuel Johnson said famously, "I can give you an argument, but I can't give you an understanding." It's extraordinary how resistant some people are to learning anything. I think I've offended enough people, right? There's two or three in the balcony.