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I think there's an awful lot of twaddle and bullshit on EVA. The whole game is to turn retained earnings into more earnings. EVA has ideas about cost of capital that make no sense. Of course, if a company generates high returns on capital and can maintain this over time, it will do well. But the mental system as a whole does not work.

Charlie Munger

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Charlie Munger
Age: 100
Born: 1924
Born: January 1
Business Person
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Omaha
Nebraska
Charlie Thomas Munger
Charles T. Munger
Charles Thomas Munger
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More quotes by Charlie Munger

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Over many decades, our usual practice is that if something we like goes down, we buy more and more. Sometimes something happens, you realize you’re wrong, and you get out. But if you develop correct confidence in your judgment, buy more and take advantage of stock prices.
Charlie Munger
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What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.
Charlie Munger
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Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.
Charlie Munger
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Understanding how to be a good investor makes you a better business manager and vice versa.
Charlie Munger
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Wesco had a market capitalization of $40 million when we bought it [in the early 1970s]. It's $2 billion now. It's been a long slog to a perfectly respectable outcome - not as good as Berkshire Hathaway or Microsoft, but there's always someone in life who's done better.
Charlie Munger
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Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
Charlie Munger
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If the same family were always on the bottom, then you'd have big resentments. But if DuPonts go down and Pampered Chef up, [that's good]. That much churn makes people think the system is fairer. Buffett: We don't like churn now, but we liked it more 30-40 years ago.
Charlie Munger
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I think corporate managers should learn to be better investors because it would make them better managers.
Charlie Munger
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Tthe first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.... You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life.
Charlie Munger
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If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!
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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I bet Richard Fuld doesn't have an ounce of contrition. It's just megalomania. When it's like that, you need rules to prevent catastrophe. When banks are borrowing the government's credit rating, you need rules to prevent stupid things.
Charlie Munger
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Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.
Charlie Munger
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One of the smartest things a person can do is dampen investment expectations, especially with Berkshire. That would be mature and responsible. I like our model and we should do nicely
Charlie Munger
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We have a high moral responsibility to be rational
Charlie Munger
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One of the first big bubbles, of course, was the huge and horrible South Sea Bubble in England. And the aftermath was interesting. Many of you probably don't remember what happened after the South Sea Bubble, which caused an enormous financial contraction, and a lot of pain. They banned publicly traded stock in England for decades.
Charlie Munger
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We're the tortoise that has outrun the hare because it chose the easy predictions.
Charlie Munger
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Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.
Charlie Munger
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Darwin paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence. Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you're going to be a great thinker.
Charlie Munger
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Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.
Charlie Munger