Interview · 2019

Charlie Munger on Investing and the Life Choices That Build Wealth (2019)

2019 20m video

Source: Yahoo Finance / YouTube · embedded from the original; we don’t host it.

If you came looking for a hot tip, Munger will disappoint you on purpose. In this Yahoo Finance segment his prescription for building wealth is almost aggressively mundane: underspend your income, invest the surplus steadily, sidestep the catastrophic mistakes, and give compounding the decades it needs to work. The edge, as always with Munger, is behavioral.

Why watch. It’s the clearest short statement of his view that character beats cleverness. Deferred gratification, patience, and the discipline to do nothing when there is nothing worth doing — these are the levers, not some proprietary insight about the next great stock. He is candid that the people who struggle financially usually do so because of temperament, not lack of information.

Pair it with the longer Daily Journal and Berkshire sessions in this archive, where he develops the same themes at length. Watch via the official Yahoo Finance YouTube upload linked above.

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Auto-generated from YouTube captions and lightly cleaned — punctuation and proper names may be off. We don’t own this; all rights belong to Yahoo Finance / YouTube. Source ↗

a business empire needs decisive leadership but also a steady hand for over 40 years Charlie Munger has been the ladder for Berkshire Hathaway as Berkshires vice-chairman the 95 year old Munger is Warren Buffett's right-hand man he's also an investing legend in his own right Munger ran a firm in the 1960s and 70s that scored returns of over 24% per year he's here to talk about how to make investment decisions and life choices that help secure prosperity and longevity I'm Andy serwer welcome to influencers and welcome to our guests vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger Charlie nice to see it to be here so you just had the Annual Meeting and I have to ask you what your favorite moments of that were what I like is that both the shareholders and the employees aperture are so extremely enthusiastic and it's not just that they've made a lot of money and have nice careers they think they're on the right side and you know they come there to hear you guys talk all day and yes like a cult it's like a cult yeah in a good way though you know good coke that's a good coke okay I mean in the stuff that they hear some of its new some of its old and a lot of it is common sense and you were talking all of those common sense right but of course when people use the word common sense what they mean is uncommon sense because the standard human condition is ignorance and stupidity they say old Joe has common sense they mean as he has uncommon sense I guess it's a bit of a misnomer then but really is so you know why is it that people can't think clearly about investing or decisions in their lives well they don't think very well about sex or gambling either no I standard human condition is a lot of Miskin and there are ways to make hay of that or yes you take advantage of other people you can improve your own life by eliminating your miss cognitions let me shift gears a little bit charlie and ask you about the US economy and what is your take on where things are right now well obviously they're booming but you know the economy sometimes booms and sometimes it doesn't and you have to live your life through both episodes and all right to do is we just keep swimming and sometimes the tide is with us and sometimes against and but we keep swimming either way are you surprised by how long this expansion has last its lasts a long time but what was really remarkable isn't it we never printed money so much and spell it so fast and bought back so much debt public and private so this is total terra incognita in economics and now I know what he knew for sure how it was gonna work so is it risky then of course it was risky but it worked and they I don't think they had much else they it would work they weren't set up to do stimulus to much controversy Democratic inertia somewhere so they had to do something and all they had left was just a print money and start buying things and that's what they did and it turned out to be a very wise response and what's even more remarkable is that both Congress and the presidency and under both parties made the same decision they all cooperated it was the last time but where is that going to leave us ultimately well that left us licking the Great Recession so try cooperation again since it works so well once how much is president Trump responsible for this current economic situation well I think he deserves some credit but a lot of it just happened economic cycle yeah and the decisions of his predators predecessors what do you think about the president's campaign to lobby the Fed to lower rates or keep rates low well I think presidents have always done this if you're a politician you know democracy of course you want people to bring money in spender and of course it's not a good idea the best example probably in the whole world is Singapore which has zero death and never prints money and spends it and it's one of the most successful places on earth I wish we were like that but there's only one Singapore well some people now say that federal debt is not a problem at all well if you believe that you believe in the Tooth Fairy because then we don't have to have any more taxes ever we'll just rent money and live happily ever after it obviously won't work so there comes a point when printing money is counterproductive are we at that point or you can no I don't think we are at that point but nobody knew where the point was going to come and we don't know now none of these people who are so pompously sure things because we all want reassurance and so they provide it but nobody really knows how much of this is too much and do you have any thoughts on Jay Powell and the job that he's done well I think a lot of it I think he's as good a choice as we could have made one consequence of this expansion or actually it precedes that it's just something that's occurred in our economy over the past 50 years really has been wealth and income inequality you know one do you see it as a problem two if so how do we address it well it's a problem of enough politicians are screaming about it that makes it a problem it if it weren't for that this one will go away by itself it happened by accident we were in desperate trouble we were on the eve of a Great Recession that could have been a Great Depression and then followed by the rise of people like Adolf Hitler and so on and so on so we hast a real catastrophe the only weapon they had with this huge scale it was to print money and spend it and they did it well of course and they grow interest rates down to zero or real interest rates well of course that lifted asset values for the people already rich nobody was trying to make the rich richer it just was an accidental byproduct of a correct governmental decision made it on a bipartisan basis and since it was a weird by-product that occurred in a weird time it will go away by itself Anouk they'll go away by itself sure so there's no reason for a lot of screaming above they're idiots it's gonna go away but so now that's not to say that we can't raise the minimum wage a little enlarge the social safety net oh we should be doing that as we prosper both parties agree on that what do you think about the proposals put forth by Alexandria Acacio Cortez and Elizabeth Warren that would sort of greatly address this problem well I don't consider those two necessarily the best prescribers in the world they're kind of likable I particularly kinda like Elizabeth Warren she's got a manner that appeals to me really but I don't agree with her attitude I don't think she's studied to Adam Smith enough and what about AOC do you have any take on her I don't think she knows who Adam Smith was I want to ask you just a few more questions about politics then we can talk about the markets and Berkshire a little bit more what about the situation that we find ourselves in with the Muller report and the way Congress the Democrats are fixating on that and the president's on the defensive what is your thoughts thinking on that I tend to avoid the whole subject just as I ignore died with me tied against and just keep swimming the both parties are so partisan now that they're blinded by their anger and I don't want to be blinded by my anger so I control it and I would recommend it to both parties I want they should all cool with it why are we so divided up charlie right now in this country well anger when you pound on one another feeds on itself that's one of the great difficulties with it's the irrational one feeds on itself so I liked the world when I was Dwight Eisenhower against Al Adlai Stevenson and more civility and Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill got along and a lot it was done my war was a bipartisan war and in the aftermath foreign policy in the United States was a bipartisan policy I like that world better I hate this extreme hatred on both sides will we ever get back to those days or get two new days where we don't have the hatred probably you live long enough well the good things happen a lot of bad things happen fair enough it's my understanding Charlie that you were instrumental in helping Warren get away from focusing on the cigar butt form of investing and looked more towards companies that I guess you could call them branded companies better businesses better businesses right yes how did you help him make that decision well it was perfectly obvious and he made so much money and the other technique it was hard for him to leave something that worked so well but it was not going to scale so he started looking for investment values and great businesses that were temporarily under pressure it changed everything for the better now we could scale up to the big time our Apple and Amazon technology companies are they bring in companies both someone told me they asked Warren if he could buy one brand this was about 40 years ago what that company what that brand would be and he said Gillette which makes sense what would that company be today coca-cola still if you take the amount of coca-cola drunk in the world and the main flavor it's one hell of a brand now it's such a different product from the stuff on the internet I don't have the same my judgment would not be as good on the Internet as it isn't coca-cola I want to get back to Apple Tim Cook was at the meeting yesterday he was indeed did you get a chance to speak with him I did can you tell us what you guys talked about it nothing we exchanged pleasantries but he's a wonderful guy and of course it's a huge record that he's building let me ask you a little bit about Kraft Heinz and that situation during the meeting yesterday we found out that the chief marketing officer was leaving the company did you know that and what does that mean for the company I knew nothing about in advance what happened there was very easy the matter is that Heinz ketchup was a stronger brands and Kraft cheese and they paid more for it so one acquisition worked brilliantly and the other worked poorly well welcome to adult life it happens to everybody you mentioned that you think that Tim Sloan could still be or should still be the CEO Wells Fargo yeah we're running the world Tim Sloan would still be the CEO of Wells Fargo well why did he leave then well he made this decision but he was being pushed hard he did it for the benefit of the company it was just so much of this partisan hatred was washing off against Wells Fargo it's understandable he was there for a long time the company had defrauded its own customers nobody was seemingly being punished for it and some people's minds listen to CEOs left under pressure I regret that is a lot of punishment so I don't think these people were failing with their anger they removed two CEOs and so and but now they went out they it's like Tim Sloan was not responsible for the crazy incentive system that created the trouble so they threw him out the way you take out the charwoman when you're ready to gambling us that was getting back to coca-cola you mentioned that it would be a bad idea if it got into cannabis I mean why not doesn't it make sense it's such a wholesome brand associated with happiness why don't we want to associate with a recreational drug that would be a terrible idea what about Boeing and the 737 max I mean they're gonna fix that would you go would you go on the plane after they said it was fixed yes of course and they will fix it well but I don't think it was really a lot excusable that they made the mistake I wouldn't ask you to ollie a little bit about that was a serious mistake you know sitting there still working on it yeah they'll fix it Boeing probably has the best safety record in the world if you take 60 years and this was a very unusual lapse there may not be another one for 60 years is that lapse symptomatic though or indicative of us developing software that's too powerful we don't understand the consequences of it no I don't think the problem was that I think it was just an absolute lapse of being a big bureaucracy you also mentioned at the meeting yesterday doing billion dollar deals overnight with very short contracts yeah we've always done that has that ever blown up on you I can't think of a single example in my whole life were keeping it simple what has worked against us we've made mistakes but they weren't because we kept it simple and that's simple it I would say that the chief advantage that Berkshire has had an accumulating a good record is that we have avoided the pompous bureaucratic systems we've tried to give power to very talented people and let them make very quick decisions I want to ask you about something that's talked about all the time with you guys which is succession and you talked about again you talked about that all the time and there's been countless barrels of ink spilled but if you're getting older how do you make the decision to step back if you may not have the mental acuity to make that decision well I think you'll be surprised at how well both war and I are capable of stepping back when we feel our powers are too far deteriorated have you talked about that sure and Lord has told people to speak up whether the time comes if we've been rational all this way you think we're not gonna try and be rational right till the bitter end is the process I mean we're sort of in the middle of the process you've been giving more and more control or authority to ajit and Greg and Todd and Ted so it's sort of a continuum a process just like that of course and by the way it's working fine it's amazing how good this next generation is so they're steeped in our non-bureaucratic ways there's these big bureaucracies they think the work is done if you get it out of your inbox and then to somebody else's inbox that is not getting it done getting it done is when it's done not when it's in somebody else's inbox you know if everybody's in a big committee meeting all the time you're worn out at the end of the day you haven't done anything our Ted and Todd making all the stock choices at this point no of course not more I'm steps in and does big things where do you think Charlie the biggest opportunities are globally right now well I don't think we have a master plan of knowing where the opportunities are we're trying to find intelligent things to do with a torrent of surplus cash and we've always had a torrent of surplus cash and we're always looking for intelligent things to do with it and if we find things that are intelligent to do we do it and if we don't find anything we let the cash build up what the hell is wrong with that not much yeah not much is right so I know that you guys have talked about England or it seems that you have because Warren talked about doing this article in the FT is basically a way of signaling potential interests given that brexit may create some opportunities is that the case what the hell do I know about brexit I don't even know how voted on it over in England I don't know much about it but will react opportunities wherever they are and we were the vicissitudes of politics as it's just what they are but it is a little bit more than a vicissitude to drop out of the European Union I mean it's a good deal this country was enormous Lee helped before all the colonies together we had internal tariffs against each little colony the United States would not be as big as it is so it's understandable what Europe wanted to get together and addition to the advantages they got from the free trade they had a long history of having wars and we all sort of one big place trading with one other it'll be safer those were very good ideas I'm not quarreling with the basic ideas on the other hand if you have unlimited immigration from one country to another that caused us lots of strains look at Germany Merkel brought in more immigration than her people she wanted she was leading a parade and she looked back and nobody was following so these very few people want unlimited immigration of a different culture it doesn't mean we made it work in America but we had a vacant continent to work on that was easy bacon rich oil minerals wonderful soil should we still be letting immigrants into this country I think we should have way more control of our borders than we do isn't that John promise right on that like the Democrats are committing suicide by being so they hate him so much that they're against him even when he's right it seems like the borders is conflated with immigration policy sometimes that right I mean and of course they are yeah and but I think we all they have some control over immigration some effective control I think the bulk of the people want to be very nice to the people that are already here including all the people from Latin America but they want more control over the inflows are you concerned about this rise of somewhat nationalistic leadership around the world like in Turkey in Brazil in China in the United States arguably well take Brazil who L would like Brazil it's a great climate in a great country but there's bring it up to a fare-thee-well you mean the new leader or just what's happened pretty what's happened generally yeah okay so does that require a strong man to take over though well I don't think I've got deep knowledge on exactly what works well and the internal politics of every other country who would have guessed that the Chinese Communists would improve their big country as much as they have in the last thirty years that's the price you well they didn't the first 20 years they had the Cultural Revolution it was crazy and now they have one of the greatest success records in the history of mankind I don't know about you but I did not predict it I didn't but what so what is the secret to China's success then they copied Singapore which is member the Communist leader said I don't care if the cat is black or why they care whether it catches mice and they copied a very wonderful famous Chinese man in Singapore and lo and behold they found the right they found the right Chinese leadership outside of China which amuses me no it was Chinese but look at the way it worked in the whole history of the world no nation that big has ever advanced that fast and they did it by having a bunch of poor people say half their income they did not use the wealth of the rich world to get ahead they use the savings of poor people I am a huge admirer of what the Chinese have accomplished and I give them did you ask me who is the one man who did the most for China it was Lim Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore they copied him are you still saying Lin about the future for China right now there's a lot of concerns about slowing growth and leverage in the system I'm quite optimistic they've been succeeding for a long time sure they have ups and downs and they make mistakes as well as good decisions but if the average amount the Chinese are getting ahead they're not moving backward what do you think the economic relationship between China and the United States looks like say two years from now well if both sides have any sense they will be better and better friends and adjust all differences you just start raving madness on either side not to make a friend or the other really powerful nation on earth I want to ask you a little bit about some Silicon Valley stuff I mean you said yesterday you were ashamed of missing on Google yeah I we could see if we look carefully at our own companies that their advertising is working way better than other advertising just we weren't paying enough attention so is it too late I don't know I don't know everything you know well we'll leave that aside but you know you look at these tech investments so they're Apple now Amazon did you know about the Amazon purchase were you involved in that decision no of course not I've never owned a share of Amazon I am a huge admirer of Basil's I think he's been sort of like Lee Kuan Yew he's a leader that's all by himself he's perfectly amazing human leader but it's always been too complicated and uncertain for my particular temperament oh it's interesting and I find all the things to do that'll work fine someone was telling me the other day that they thought that you could actually sort of think of Apple and Amazon not as technology companies so much but as big branded growth businesses which would be something that would be appealing to you oh they're both right brands and technologies it's hard to separate the effect of one from the other okay and as far as what's going on in Silicon Valley right now with IPOs unicorns going public and not having any profitability or any prospect of profitability in the near term what do you think of that situation well there are a lot of things they don't think about and one of them is companies are losing two or three billion dollars here and going public it's it's not my scene have you looked so you're not interested in uber companies like that necessarily well I'm have to be interested with that important then sweep the world wouldn't share its practice but I don't have to invest in everything I'm interested in I'm looking for things where I think I can predict what's going to happen with a high degree of accuracy and I have no feeling that I have do that with uber right I want to ask you about architecture which is something you've been interested in for a while how did you get interested in that and what is your current well I have a choice as an architect and it's I've always thought it was the queen of the Arts in other words I think architecture does more good than painting or sculpture so I think architecture is hugely important very interesting and does such an enormous good when it's done right so I'm a big admirer of the of the potentiality of the profession but I think that I think a lot of people go into architecture because they're sort of frustrated sculptors and they don't think with enough common sense or uncommon sense about what the hell are doing what are some projects that you've been involved with them oh I've built houses I've built office buildings I've built apartment but how's that I've helped charities and educational institutions build things I built science centers I do a lot of but I like it is this a creative outlet for you yes absolutely do you have some projects that you're working on right now some are core projects what are they about well I'm working on Brody UCSB University of California at Santa Barbara and it's basically housing but of several kinds I want to shift gears and ask you a little bit about repurchasing shares you said in the shareholder meeting I predict will get a little more liberal in repurchasing shares how much more aggressive will you get and do you think that's going to be a problem potentially with the Democrats well a politician is a business of howling about something trying to create a sense of outrage they're always complaining about something but and it is true that a lot of people it got so popular purchase shares that some people hurts them repurchase them even when they were too high-priced we will never do that we're only gonna buy them back if they're too cheap and but of course that ought to be done if you had a partnership of three of your crippled relatives and one of them needed some money wouldn't you buy out the broke with the company's money it's just simple morality so but I do think it's being overdone by some people and it undoubtedly is being done to prop up values which I regard it's an improper use of the share repurchasing technique should there be laws about that no there are laws and but we shouldn't be telling people what the right price is right so I want to ask you a little bit about the social safety net we were talking about and Medicare and do you support Medicare for all would that be something you'd be interested in well I'm one of the few Republicans you'll ever talk to it thinks we should have a single-payer system but not one of the type that we're trying to get if you look at the single-payer system of Singapore it costs 20% of what ours cost and that's an advanced civilization come nation and of course the people are a lot healthier well of course I'd rather spend 80% less and have the people healthier and of course I'd like to have American manufacturers not have this terrible burden of unnecessary health costs affects their competitors in the world so we have an insane medical system that grew like Topsy by accident with the help of a lot of dumb governmental intervention not all of it was dumb but so it was and the system is ridiculous if a young family has to pay a $5,000 deductible to have a baby they don't really have medical insurance it isn't just the Medicare that's wrong the whole damn system is going wrong and the amount of unnecessary tests and unnecessary prolongation of inevitable death that's going on is a national disgrace of course I don't like it have you ever thought about moving to Singapore charlie well no but I'd like to move some of Singapore's results in to the United States they have practically no deaths from opioids they have a low crime rate they have no debt of the whole country yeah no they're doing a lot right I wish to hell our politicians in both parties would spend a lot more time studying Singapore but some people say many people say it's an authoritarian government there's no there's a lack of freedom there it's a democracy it just does such a good job the people keep reelecting it that's that I like that result what the hell's wrong with the head I was with some people just a few minutes ago actually and they were kind of recounting some of your zingers do you spend time before the meeting say oh I've got like these six zingers I'm going to get out during the annual me ever think of all the people you know that I've tried to take one extra step of falling off a cliff well I'm not happy now that's just come to you yes I think the meetings worked better if they're spontaneous if we were scripting things I don't think people would like it so you and Warren don't say anything at all before you sit down zero you have no idea what's gonna happen that is correct that's fantastic so I want to ask you just a question or two about growing up and you were at the University of Michigan and you dropped out and joined the army right I certainly did and we all did in those days yes so how did that do the army influenced you well everything influences you in your past life and yes of course that includes me I never wanted to be in a big bureaucracy I was well toward the bottom I finally got to be a second lieutenant in the army I was way down on the ranks and nobody gave a damn what I thought about any subject they just gave me a little job to do when I was supposed to do it and of course I didn't like that as well as having a free rein to control my own destiny and so on so I am much better adapted to being a capitalist operator than I am to being a cog in a bureaucracy did you ever get in trouble in the army of course tell us about that well my senior officers could tell I thought they were wrong and I tried to hide it and they could still tell and so of course they who likes a junior officer you look over there and he's plainly indicating he thinks you're an idiot so that didn't work out too well it worked out all right I did my work well enough so they didn't bother me but it was it was not a milieu where I was going to succeed right so how did you figure out a lot of people look at your life and you know would want to emulate what you've done is that something that people can do look at someone like yourself and see your path I mean you're in real estate law than invest what do you even consider yourself a businessman how would you describe what you do well I don't consider myself I think my way of thinking will work for anybody of trying to be very rational and disciplined so I think that much but to flit around the various careers and going to the other fellows professional territory and trying out do him and do all kinds of things like that I think will not work for most people and so I always tell I'm always being visited by a young man who say I'm practicing law and I don't like it I'd rather be a billionaire how can I do it and I tell him well I'll tell you a story a young man goes to see Mozart and he says Mozart I want to start composing symphonies and Mozart said how old are you in the ice is 22 and he said you're too young to do symphonies my guy says yes but you were 10 years old when you were composing some of these and most of it says yes but I wasn't running around asking other people how to do it right so I think that's floating around business is something not everybody should try yeah I think if I tried it again it might not have worked as well you said just figure out my way why were you were lucky yeah I think I had some luck yes well but I think there's more to it than that I mean where were you yes the combination of luck and skill that's what all good records are right so let me just ask you a few more questions and do you eat all that peanut brittle up there right yeah is that your one peanut brittle day or do you know really yeah so the other 364 days you don't eat much of it they put it there I think they it's warna so business like he likes promoting peanut brittle the annual meeting well don't the other Berkshire brands get jealous and say once you put like a railroad train up there or something like that we got a whole exhibit hall full of other brands promoting one another at the bursar meeting you cannot claim that were under promoting I would never claim that but you know that the Koch people and the C's people get special placement up there yes they do but those are two-way C's was our first great brand and Koch is one of the great it's a great drink soft drink brand of the world so they're entitled to we have a special place to other companies asked to get put up there though well they all push themselves forward as much as we'll let them is that a yes they of course they want to be pushed up and finally charlie i want to ask you a little bit about philanthropy and you know it seems like war has been sort of a little bit more upfront above that about that with Bill Gates and The Giving Pledge and I know you're philanthropic as well what is your thinking on that how up well I wouldn't sign the Gibbon because I have already transferred so much to my children that I've already violated it so I think I'm asking I'm seeking false credit if I joined them on say I'm a big philanthropist is gonna get more than half of my wealth to charity I've already given more than half of it to my children so I can't join them it's like coming back from the dead I can't do it but doesn't that make Warren mad coming to Australia shut mad when is Warren mad about somebody else's Warren thanks to each Berkshire either way to do with his own money what are you damn pleases so let me just follow up on that what you did then what was your thinking in terms of giving them up giving away money like that though would simply itself I had a wonderful wife most wives worried that the husband that he survives will get involved with some nurse or something in his dotage and the money will go away from the children and I knew that my dead wife would have preferred to have the money go to the children so I arranged that she got her wish right so any thoughts on how the meeting is going to be different next year I mean when do you start talking about that or do you even talk about that meaning we never talked about it we just do what works as long as it works and when it stops working her indicates it's going to stop working and we'll stop did Apple say they want to have some exhibit in the convention center this year I had no discussion with them I don't have any idea what they're doing and do you see a time when Ajit and Gregg and Ted and Todd will come up there with you at some point I don't know how it will morph I don't think that what worked in one era has to be duplicated in another I don't think what we're doing would work for many people I think it was an historical accident who we didn't do it on purpose we just sort of drifted into it when it worked we fanned the flames but we didn't create it with any forethought and I think some later generation will have some different system I think there's more wise a Sri in our meeting then it would be appropriate forever no I'm the principal wiseass yeah you are Charlie Munger vice chairman of Berkshire my class wiseass all right thanks very much for joining us I'm Andy serwer you've been watching influencers we'll see you next time you

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