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It would be easier to screw up American Express than Coke or Gillette, but it's an immensely strong business.

Charlie Munger

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Charlie Munger
Age: 100
Born: 1924
Born: January 1
Business Person
Financier
Investor
Lawyer
Omaha
Nebraska
Charlie Thomas Munger
Charles T. Munger
Charles Thomas Munger
Would
Coke
Screw
Screws
Express
Easier
American
Business
Strong
Immensely

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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You don't want to be like the motion picture exec who had so many people at his funeral, but they were there just make sure he was dead. Or how about the guy who, at his funeral, the priest said, Won't anyone stand up and say anything nice for the deceased? and finally someone said, Well, his brother was worse.
Charlie Munger
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There are a lot of things in life way more important than money. All that said, some people do get confused. I play golf with a man who says, What good is health? You can't buy money with it.
Charlie Munger
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If you get into the mental habit of relating what you're reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.
Charlie Munger
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If the technology hadn't changed, they [newspapers] would still be great businesses. Network TV [in its heyday], anyone could run and do well. If Tom Murphy as running it, you'd do very well, but even your idiot nephew could do well. Fortunately, carbide cutting tools [such as those made by Iscar] don't have these types of substitutes.
Charlie Munger
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Financial institutions make us nervous when they're trying to do well.
Charlie Munger
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The stupid and dishonest accountants allowed the genie of totally inappropriate accounting to descend on derivatives books. And once this has happened - people get status, etc. - it's impossible to get it back into the bottle.
Charlie Munger
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Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.
Charlie Munger
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It's in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There's no system to avoid bad markets. You can't do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go.
Charlie Munger
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If people tell you what you really don't want to hear what's unpleasant-there's an almost automatic reaction of antipathy. You have to train yourself out of it.
Charlie Munger
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We only want what success we can get despite encouraging others to share our general view about reality.
Charlie Munger
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A few public hangings will really change behavior. One of our Presidents said if he could execute three people each year for no cause, it would make it a lot easier to govern. When someone said that's not enough, he said, Oh yes it is, because I'd publish the list of people under consideration.
Charlie Munger
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[Lawyers who file class-action securities suits] is not a group you would want to marry into your family. That said, more than half the time the people being sued by the Lerach firm are guilty of outrageous conduct. The problem is, they don't mind (suing) the other half. They are an equal opportunity litigator.
Charlie Munger
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It took us months of buying all the Coke stock we could to accumulate $1 billion worth - equal to 7% of the company. It's very hard to accumulate major positions.
Charlie Munger
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Once you start doing something bad, then it's easy to take the next step - and in the end, you're a moral sewer.
Charlie Munger
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There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business.
Charlie Munger
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It's hard to predict what will happen with two brands in a market. Sometimes they will behave in a gentlemanly way, and sometimes they'll pound each other. I know of no way to predict whether they'll compete moderately or to the death. If you could figure it out, you could make a lot of money.
Charlie Munger
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We may well have a competitive advantage buying decent businesses at decent prices. But they won't be fabulous businesses and fabulous prices. There's too much competition and money out there, with many buyout specialists.
Charlie Munger
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To me, it's obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It's been obvious to me since very early in life. I don't know why it's not obvious to very many other people.
Charlie Munger
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Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.
Charlie Munger
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We have a passion for keeping things simple.
Charlie Munger