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In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

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
Real
Equity
Going
Estates
Think
Stretch
Thinking
Hats
World
Sell
Sells
Private
Borrow
Today
Estate

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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We have a higher percentage of the intelligentsia engaged in buying and selling pieces of paper and promoting trading activity than in any past era. A lot of what I see now reminds me of Sodomand Gomorrah. You get activity feeding on itself, envy and imitation. It has happened in the past that there came bad consequences.
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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I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses' asses. I know I'll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn.
Charlie Munger
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This is a good life lesson: getting the right people into your system is the most important thing you can do.
Charlie Munger
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If you can buy the best companies, over time the pricing takes care of itself.
Charlie Munger
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Don't do cocaine. Don't race trains. And avoid AIDS situations.
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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Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay were caricatures - they were easy to spot. They were almost psychopaths. But it's much harder to spot problems at companies like Royal Dutch [Shell].
Charlie Munger
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...all man's desired geometric progressions, if a high rate of growth is chosen, at last come to grief on a finite earth. And the social system for man on earth is fair enough, eventually, that almost all massive cheating ends in disgrace.
Charlie Munger
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The general systems of money management [today] require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's very well paid.
Charlie Munger
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Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.
Charlie Munger
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While no real money came down, my family gave me a good education and a marvelous example of how people should behave, and in the end that was more valuable than money. Being surrounded by the right values from the beginning is an immense treasure. Warrenhad that. It even has a financial advantage.
Charlie Munger
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We have found in a long life that one competitor is frequently enough to ruin a business.
Charlie Munger
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It's a rare business that doesn't have a way worse future than it has a past.
Charlie Munger
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In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables - like the discount warehouses of Costco.
Charlie Munger
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At Berkshire Hathaway we do not like to compete against Chinese manufacturers.
Charlie Munger
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The SEC does way more good than harm - the last thing I would do is get rid of the SEC...if accounting were thoroughly fixed, a lot of other sins would go away. We're paying a huge price for deterioration of accounting.
Charlie Munger
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Kellogg's and Campbell's moats have also shrunk due to the increased buying power of supermarkets and companies like Wal-Mart. The muscle power of Wal-Mart and Costco has increased dramatically.
Charlie Munger
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You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying, 'Here are three things.' You have to derive it yourself to ingrain it in your head for the rest of your life.
Charlie Munger
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Well in the history of the See's Candy Company they always say, I never did it before, and I'm never going to do it again. And we cashier them. It would be evil not to, because terrible behavior spreads.
Charlie Munger