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November 29, 2023 at 02:47 PM
The thing many Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investors may have enjoyed almost as much as the 3,800,000% return Charlie Munger helped engineer were his quips along the way.
His label for a derivatives trading desk: “casino in drag.” Alan Greenspan was smart but “totally overdosed on Ayn Rand.” And Bitcoin was “noxious poison.”
Munger, who died Tuesday in California about a month shy of his 100th birthday, was the longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, with the pair transforming Berkshire from a failing textile mill into a $783 billion behemoth spanning industries from insurance to energy.
The duo would banter on stage at Berkshire’s shareholder event in Omaha, Nebraska, almost every year, and Munger himself drew fans annually to Los Angeles for Daily Journal Corp.’s shareholder meetings.
Munger’s blunt style and deep knowledge made for witty one-liners that often stood in stark contrast to the more folksy style of Buffett, 93.
Industry leaders including Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan and former Wells Fargo & Co. CEO Tim Sloan both called Munger “legendary.”
Munger was also “a generous philanthropist who provided unfiltered advice and refreshing opinions which positively impacted businesses worldwide,” Sloan said.
See: Charles Munger, Who Built Berkshire With Buffett, Dies at 99
Here are some of Munger’s famous sayings:
Life Lessons
With a base of avid fans who would flock to meetings that Munger would attend — he referred to them as “groupies” — the billionaire investor often opined about life lessons and answered questions about how to achieve the success he found in his.
He also doled out some tough remarks, warning in 2015 that it would be harder for consumers to maintain their standard of living.
“Somebody my age has lived through the best and easiest period that ever happened in the history of the world — the lowest death rates, the highest investment production, biggest increases in most people’s standards of living,” Munger said in 2015. “If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”
Financial Recklessness
Munger often criticized people he thought were making bad bets or gambling.
In 2011, he said the bubble in the U.S. leading up to the financial crisis was caused by a combination of “megalomania, insanity and evil” and offered some choice words for Greenspan, saying there was too little oversight during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
