Munger to Goldbugs: ‘You’re Jerks’ (U Michigan 2010)
By Barry Ritholtz - January 13th, 2011, 12:18PM
Munger said he likes good stocks instead of government bonds and he “doesn’t have the slightest interest” in investing in gold, a hot commodity.
“I like working and understanding what works and what doesn’t in human systems,” he said. “To me, that’s not optional. That’s a moral obligation. If you’re capable of understanding the world, you have a moral obligation to become rational. I don’t see how you become rational hoarding gold. Even if it works, you’re a jerk.”
Here is the full 2 hour interview with Becky Quick:
Hat tip MarketBeat
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January 13th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Don’t tell me, let me guess, he is big on US stocks. Look, India is buying oil from Iran with GOLD. As long as there are jerkis like him, gold is not in a bubble.
January 13th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
He is wrong in that when the risk of all yielding assets is high enough as many feel it is now then gold is a superior asset allocation. As an asset allocator you are doing your part by voting on the margin to not support further inefficient use of resources. You have voted that currently restraint is in order. Normally this is done with cash or government bonds but both assets currently do little to help restrain capital flow. Note also that in addition by investing in a mostly useless metal you have avoided pushing prices up in other more essential commodities such as food and energy.
January 13th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
And we should thank God for the bank bailouts.
January 13th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
In a certain sense he’s correct…
IF you have a system which encourages beneficial allocation of a social body’s energies… In other words if the system actually encourages good, old-fashioned Adam Smith INVESTMENT instead of gambling with a government backstop… and if we had a healthy instead of metastasized financial sector.
Since we don’t…
He’s a few neurons short of a complete neural network. (SENILE?)
Decision Technologies: Currencies and the Social Contract
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/07/decision-technologies-currencies-and.html
(He doesn’t or doesn’t WANT to recognize the fundamental problems in our current credit-creation mechanisms… He THINKS current money technology is working just fine.)
January 13th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
CulturalEngineer Says: begins to hit upon it..
let Munger&Co.(BRK.A) unfasten themselves from the Treasury’s teat, first, then his ‘opinion’ may be worth weighing..
January 13th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Mr. Kettle-Munger to the white courtesy phone, please. Mr. Kettle-Munger…
It’s a Mr. Pot calling…
January 14th, 2011 at 12:06 am
He must have forgotten that the human financial system failed. It then became the moral obligation of the government to save the system from its own implosion. That moral hazard would be institutionalized as a result must be what he now understands. Actually he probably worked very hard to ensure that.
January 14th, 2011 at 6:23 am
Mr. Munger has a point. If the dollar tanks, and gold sky-rockets, the question then becomes “how much gold per loaf of bread?” This is tricky, even without the cost of security figured in.
I keep hearing Mme.de Farge croaking. It is time to change my hearing aid.
January 25th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Wow. Nice idiot comments.
Munger is richer x10 than ANYONE who’s ever been a “gold bug”. Yet you think there is nothing to it? Why listen to what he says when we can listen to Roubini, Faber, Rogers, Rosenberg (all p-o-o-r compared to CM).
High-yield bonds have returned over 100% since Mar 09, stocks about 100%. Many single bonds are up 200% or more. Many single stocks are up 300% or more. Then best of either are up more than 1,000%.
Yet you guys seem to think – “the human financial system failed” and that there is some relevance to the question, “how much gold per loaf of bread?” Are you communicating from another planet?
Munger seems to think there is more relevance to the question — “What investment is the next Apple?” (Which btw… has CRUSHED investing in gold. And the answer… its Apple.)