Charlie Munger

[millionairemind]

W - Tks. Its a good piece. Munger is really kicking up some dirt at the banker's face.

[Cheng]

Thanks Winston for the article!

How was Basicland to adjust to this brutal new reality? This problem so stumped Basicland's politicians that they asked for advice from Benfranklin Leekwanyou Vokker, an old man who was considered so virtuous and wise that he was often called the "Good Father." Such consultations were rare. Politicians usually ignored the Good Father because he made no campaign contributions.

Very interesting, this paragraph caught my eye, wasn't expecting this.

[LenaHuat]

Charlie thinks there's more pain to come esp in the timber and commercial asset sectors.

[millionairemind]

The commercial real estate sector was supposed to be the next shoe to drop after the subprime housing imploded. 2 years on, still no sound no image.

Maybe there's a delayed ramification effect.

[LenaHuat]

Hi MM
No sound no image maybe in the local media. MM, have U read my thoughts in the 'health' thread?
Can PM me?

[iam802]

The commercial real estate sector was supposed to be the next shoe to drop after the subprime housing imploded. 2 years on, still no sound no image.

Maybe there's a delayed ramification effect.

I agree. I was shorting it back then...and still it does not goes down.

Gave up, apply hand cream.

[millionairemind]

Atlanta Awash in Empty Offices Struggles to Recover From Binge
By John Helyar and Steve Matthews - Sep 14, 2010 12:00 PM GMT+0800
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-1 ... binge.html

[LenaHuat]

Charlie said to people in economic distress to "Suck it in and Cope":-
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-20/berkshire-s-munger-says-cash-strapped-should-suck-it-in-not-get-bailout.html

And I hope he also meant reducing their girth, work it out and slog it out. I never fail to be dismayed by fat Americans. I recalled this campus driver who was so fat that he had difficulty getting into his seat via the driver's door. It was my first impressionable introduction to FAT America.

[winston]

A Billionaire's Best Advice by Alexander Green

If you had invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 in May, 1965 - when Warren Buffett took the helm of Berkshire Hathaway - and reinvested the dividends, it would be worth approximately $800,000 today.

Not bad. But if you had invested the same amount in Berkshire itself, your $10,000 would have grown to more than $64 million.

What is Buffett's secret? According to his business partner, the plainspoken Charlie Munger (who calls himself Berkshire's "assistant cult leader"), Buffett spends at least half his waking hours "just sitting on his ass and reading."

A billionaire in his own right, Munger spends much of his time the same way. Although he graduated from Harvard Law School, he describes himself as self-educated. The key to success in life, both financial and otherwise, he insists is "Elementary, Worldly Wisdom."

What is that, exactly? Munger believes we should all strive for a liberal arts education by persistent reading of science, philosophy, religion, history, and literature. This allows you to think broadly and systematically and build a latticework in your head, a mental model of reality drawn from many disciplines.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that increasingly values specialization over breadth. We study to learn how to make a living, not how to make a life. Yet the two are hardly exclusive.

At his commencement address at USC Law School in 2007, Munger declared that, "Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty... I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines.

They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you... Nothing has served me better in my long life than continuous learning."

Few of us are fortunate enough to live surrounded by worldly philosophers and financial geniuses. Moreover, newspapers and magazines are so full of fresh trivialities that the quest to become well-informed may actually prevent us from becoming educated. So we turn to books.

The goal is not to collect information but to gain understanding. How do you know you're on the right track? A good sign is when what you read forces you to stop, think, consider, and reread for clarification.

The benefits are profound. Deep reading increases your knowledge, but it also enhances your view of the world. It sharpens your critical thinking skills. And the process is unending. To become wiser, you need only be passionate to understand.

Time is limited, of course, while knowledge is limitless. To become even moderately well read may seem overwhelming. So we must become discriminating readers.

Recognize that the vast majority of books (not to mention blogs and websites) are not worth your time. And the best books - with the exception of fields like science, medicine and technology - are rarely the new ones.

If you're looking for a place to start, you could do worse that to pick up a copy of The New Lifetime Reading Plan, a generous guide to history's greatest masterpieces.

A simple perusal isn't enough, of course. You have to be an active reader, analyzing what you read, evaluating its worth, and either rejecting it or incorporating into your worldview.

It's important, too, to occasionally read authors with whom you profoundly disagree. If you don't, you'll end up simply confirming your biases. "One should recognize reality, even when one doesn't like it," says Munger. "Indeed, especially when one doesn't like it."

I have discussed mainly non-fiction here, but imaginative literature is also helpful. In A Scandal of Bohemia, a puzzled Dr. Watson asks Sherlock Holmes, "What do you imagine that it means?"

Holmes replies, "I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

It's hard to imagine a more succinct description of how a careful analysis begins.

In sum, books are the carriers of civilization, allowing us to build a broader context around our thinking. It is chiefly through these volumes that we engage with superior minds. And they provide a priceless service: the opportunity to exchange error for truth.

As Munger says, "In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter) who didn't read all the time - none, zero."

Good readers become better thinkers. Good thinkers, in turn, make better investors, better workers, better spouses, better parents, better friends, better citizens, better human beings.

So visit the university on your shelf... or your local bookseller or library. As an ancient proverb tells us, a book is a garden carried in the pocket.


Source: Daily Wealth

[behappyalways]

Munger: 'Finance needs a few prosecutions'
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2014/05 ... d=HP_River