ANDY SERWER: I’m here with Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Charlie, great to see you.
CHARLIE MUNGER: Nice to be here.
ANDY SERWER: I want to continue with some of the questions that people were asking you at the annual meeting and start maybe with China, and trade and tariffs. And you said that even Trump can be right on some of this stuff.
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes, when people get mad enough at one politician, they get to thinking everything he says and does is wrong, and that’s never the case.
ANDY SERWER: What, what, go ahead and continue. I’m sorry.
CHARLIE MUNGER: And all I said was that you don’t want to be such an absolute purist for free trade. I’m almost a purist, but not quite, but I wouldn’t want the entire steel industry in the United States to move offshore. There’s some place where you could draw a line without ruining the world.
ANDY SERWER: What should our trade policy be then? I mean, yes China can be unfair, is unfair, but how should we pursue this?
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, attitudes entirely different from our president’s. I’m glad that we ran a big trade deficit with China. That enabled them to rapidly get out of poverty and obscurity. I welcome the Chinese to the group of advanced nations, which I think we enabled considerably by our willingness to trade with them as they moved ever upward in terms of complexity of enterprise.
So I like what’s happened. I don’t regard it as unfair and bad. I’m not saying that it would be unthinkable to have some tariffs somewhere, but basically I’m a free trader and I am particularly a free trader in dealing with China. And I like the fact that free trade with China has enabled China to expand so much, and they got out of poverty.
They had hundreds of millions of people in rural poverty and they made huge, in the whole history of the world, no big nation has ever advanced faster than China. And this free trade helped them do it. And I like it.
ANDY SERWER: But aren’t they unfair to us? Just to follow up on, you know, intellectual property.
CHARLIE MUNGER: I’m sure there are places where somebody in China has some advantage over somebody in the United States that you and I might not like perfectly, but that will always happen. But basically, the Chinese broke the Berkshire Hathaway shoe business in Maine. It disappeared basically because their shoes were very good and cheaper.
I’m not mad at China over that and Berkshire has prospered. It’s not so good for Maine, but we can’t help it. There’s no way to make an advanced civilization never hurt anybody as it evolves.
ANDY SERWER: There’s a lot of talk about an elephant that Berkshire is on the hunt for a big acquisition. Could that elephant be in China.? And if it was, could you even buy it given the relationship between the two countries right now?
CHARLIE MUNGER: I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll be buying any great Chinese companies. The Chinese are very proud of their companies and they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished. What I consider quite likely is that we will be invited to buy part of some great Chinese company. And just because they like the good company. And I think that is very likely to happen some time, and we would welcome it. We own minority positions in a lot of companies. We own a minority position in BYD.
ANDY SERWER: Let me ask you, then, about BYD and Chinese cars. When will Chinese cars be allowed in the United States and what’s holding it up, is it bureaucracy?
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well the auto market is very competitive and very fully occupied. And of course, nobody in the United States wants to lose our last two big domestic suppliers, manufacturers of autos. Well three if you want to count Ferrari Chrysler. And so it’s hard for somebody new to come in the American market big. And China has such a big market of its own. My guess is they’ll stay busy in their own part of the world for a long time.
ANDY SERWER: So that’s not a priority for BYD?
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well BYD’s biggest advantage is in the electric cars. Where they’re so close to the cutting edge of battery technology. And so they’d be crazy not to emphasize the hybrid electric cars over the gasoline cars. Not that they’ll go out of the gasoline market, but I think they will be biggest in the hybrid and electric cars.
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Ending starvation is great. Now China just needs to release its citizens from slavery.
I´d want to know what he thinks about the people trying to use bitcoin as a means to break free from the only financial system they currently have acess to, and instead have the option to try the bitcoin as an alternative, and decentralized system.
My guess is he might say that he much prefers the world as we have it and hopes it improves as opossed to using the bitcoin that might cause too much chaos in the system.
I do respect he disagrees with it on the basis he thinks its immoral, but he is also aware he does not know that much about it. I just wished someone equally wise and experienced to him that had a more favorable view about the Bitcoin had a chat with him.
He seems pretty emotional about crypto for someone who is supposed to be composed and logical for a living. “Bitcoin is almost as bad as harvesting baby brains” is pretty charged no matter how you look at it. We may have not needed a gold substitute, and the implementation of crypto still needs some work, but I don’t see anything immoral about mom and pop business not having to pay banks and credit card companies for every transaction made in their store. Saying it has no intrinsic value is also pretty moot, as gold and paper cash have none either. Everything else he said was great, but I think crypto is going to destabilize banks/financial institutions, so he’s definitely biased.
Crypto doesn’t really provide any value that digital fiat currency doesn’t already provide but its poor price stability makes it a bad currency. Even if it all turns out well, investing in crypto doesn’t make sense, if anything it’s speculation. There’s no reason the value per unit of a crypto currency should start to rise as its used as a currency, quite the opposite. Who would spend currency if it gains in value?
@Fox Illegal drug markets do not accept traditional currency they only accept crypto. The overwhelming percentage of buyers are small time drug dealers and people buying for personal use. Most of these people will repurchase crypto regardless of what the market price is to restock on drugs. Until countries start making recreational drugs legally available for purchase online, crypto will continue to fill a void that traditional currency cant. Even then a tax free black market fueled by crypto will likely continue.
it’s a very low bar to compare your political system to an ancient empire. jesus. you have to wonder what element of luck is involved in this man’s wealth. i also wish his idea of bitcoin were challenged better. the host could have asked if he dislikes that is offers a different option for people who want to avoid the banking system. is that not free trade?
Sorry folks, but culture matters and different cultures – not least outside of the west – look after their own interests first and foremost and so should we!
Absolutely incorrect. Enabling a Communist Government to grow on the back of Capitalism is wrong and stupid. Our interests are not solely based on economics. Clearly Munger is unable to see beyond the impact of a dollar.
I agree with you. We were all blind by CCP including this wise man.
oh man i’m starting to like this guy.
Educated
I disagree with Muner regarding his view on Bitcoins as having no desirable social purpose. Fiat currency is also an artificially created virtual currency after all; the real value of Bitcoin lies that it’s a cooked-up currency that doesn’t have a central power behind it. He’s missing out on the decentralization aspect. If bitcoins are successful, then that could lead to the end of central banks and reserves-which could be a welcome step forward.
Charlie has a direct economical incentive to belittle Bitcoin since Berkshire Hathaway is heavily invested in banks (and Bitcoin removes the need for banks). Often these things are not disclaimed, but means his statements needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Otherwise, great interview.
Charlie is lost. A communist country that uses its people as slave labor, forced technology transfer and stolen intellectual property. “Free trade” that has cratered our manufacturing base and midwestern cities and towns well supplied with Chinese fentanyl. Glad you made your billions but China is the largest threat to global security on the planet. Oh and thanks for the virus too.
He made these comments pre-virus, but its still interesting to consider his viewpoint. If you add up everything China has produced for us at super low cost, which enabled us to have our digital revolution and decades of stock market gains, and everything our companies have sold to Chinese consumers and companies over the decades, it’s probably still in our net interest financially even if we are running deficits on the surface. Although, this virus thing certainly stresses or possibly destroys that whole “net benefit” idea. Especially if there are more economic or biowarfare things from coming from China in the future. I think Munger was just looking at the “really, REALLY big picture”
It’s a little ridiculous to highlight the acquisition of Apple stock as an achievement of the young generation. Everyone is invested in Apple, Amazon, Google and the other FAANG stocks. He could be talking about Stoneco instead. Oh no, this is as yet unproven.
No Charlie, immoral is when the US government prints out money and calls it EQ, when I or anyone else does it, it’s called counterfeit. Just because you don’t understand Bitcoin, there are people who are willing to pay for it, because unlike fiat money, it can’t be stolen as easily. Why is a printed fake picture of Honus Wagner on a tiny piece of cardboard worth 4 million dollars? Because people want it and are willing to pay for it, therefore it has value. For someone who is a billionaire in the stock market, you don’t understand basic concepts that relate in the same fashion to Bitcoin.
“FOOLISH horsemularkey, I’m old and don’t understand it.” IMMORAL? Wow. Comparing it to selling baby heads is why i commented. That’s foolish. Hyperbole much, Munger?
And also remember, your team had to be persuaded to buy Apple… so , forgive me when i say, you’re out of your element in tech.
Anyone who wants to know why Donald Tump was elected should listen carefully to this fool’s diatribe beginning at 1:00. If you don’t want to bother, let me summarize it for you.:
“I’m glad we have lost entire industries to China because it made them richer. Yes, we lost our shoe business in Maine….but those were just Americans. It’s far more important to advance prosperity in China than the U.S. They steal our intellectual property, you say? Really? How about that. Doesn’t bother me.”
Sickening. This man became a billionaire in the U.S. and has no regard whatsoever for American workers. Oh sure, he wants to give them all free government healthcare. But jobs? Especially manufacturing jobs? Who cares? None of his friends make shoes or build cars. Let China do it all.
He doesn’t understand bitcoin/cryptocurrencies very well but I understand why he says those things with the knowledge he has. It is immoral to speculate with assets that have no real value. But cryptocurrencies have A LOT of value which he doesn’t know about.
It is ridiculous though how negative he is about something he clearly has very little knowledge about.
Didn’t realize I was involved in something so dark as baby brain trading. I guess ill go back to the moral world of being charged 9% currency conversion fee’s or $30 bank wire fee’s.
Cryptocurrency is successful mostly thanks to criminal activites. People buy child p*rn and even child m*rder videos through it. He was so on point with what he said, you clearly didn’t get the message. If you invest in Cryptocurrency, you support the system!
“I believe in a free market as much as anybody.”
Then goes on to say he wants single payer healthcar🤔🤔
Smart mother.
Hope he is alive when the fed fails and he loses everything… People like this are filthy rich because of the fed… The dumb sheep need to wake up and educate themselves and declare war on the system that keeps letting this go on…
He’s right and wrong about Bitcoin. Bitcoin as a pyramid scam is immoral. Bitcoin as a distributed, secure, block ledger for storing information, contracts, etc., is revolutionary. It’s clear there’s much Charlie and Warren don’t understand. Apple is a great investment, but so are Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon and many others which Berkshire doesn’t invest in.
Munger has an enormous stake in the Chinese economy, which is to say he’s enormously invested in the Chinese Communist Party, the two being one in the same.
Trump is the greatest POTUS of the last 100 years
Elon Musk is a beast hes from South Africa and yet he’s a thoroughbred American 🇺🇸
No, elon musk is a true capitalist… america is crony capitalism and political corruption.
@David Clark Capitalism is a beautiful thing
Elon is actually just a programmer. But he may be a good organizer and does now have the backing of NASA and thus US government.
Such a wise man, he is.
“counter productive to hate so much” ~ beautiful words
When you have a munger, you also need a buffet.
Munger is dropping BOMBS on this interviewer. That last note about politicians is heavy!!!!
Sounds kind of stupid in the coronavirus world…
Hes right bitcoin is dumb. Its digitized nothing and is worth nothing. Its value is caused by public perception fueled by a very substantial amount of lost coins. What if the bitcoin concept was based on folding@home and the more tokens you had were symbolic on your contribution to the development of medical science??? surely that would be worth more that a blockchain algorithm that doesn’t actually do anything?? Will it unveil the secret to the universe when it reaches the end of its thread or will it just end? Make up your own damn mind!
Wisdom 📚
China didn’t get out of poverty…I bet more than 95% of their population is still in poverty
charlie is wrong. he missed amazon and google. what makes him qualified to make an opinion on bitcoin then?
Over 70 years of experience observing people talk about things they don’t understand but think they do…?
Switzerland doesn’t have a socialised healthcare system and it’s working wonderfully. The real issue is actually too much government involvement (such as certificates of need and numerus closus).
👍💯😊
All of these guys are class acts !
hmm he doesnt get bitcoin because he’s satisfied with craditcards/paypal and not worried about fiat currency. if he wasnt he would see whats behind bitcoin
Just like gangster recognize gangster, brilliant recognize brilliant.
When market crashed, bit coin also crashed. That’s a big red flag for me. If bit coin works like how it should, bit coin should of went up not down with the market.
Mungers the only republican I respect.
Sobering final comments.
this guy looks like the villain from hannibal
Is Charlie Munger a single payer advocate????? He might be my new favorite investor
He was wrong about bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. He’s not that great of a prophetic investors.
wise dude indeed!
What in the world baby brains and bitcoin interesting comparison maybe more than we will ever know was revealed in that awkward moment
It’s counter productive to hate so much – Charlie ‘wise-ass’ Munger is a wise man
What would you do if you’re heavily invested into banks and insurances? He’s 95 for a reason, let the next generation speak now and stop the trillion-dollar printing from the FED. That’s truly immoral imo
I appreciate his last comments on politics, it takes the back and forth from both sides to create and maintain our country. Look around, other country have just one side…and that leads to dire consequenses.
That hate is the larger problem, it allows the wrong seeds to grow.
a dinosaur talking about meteors about to destroy him
Mr. Munger, the CCP is running China, it’s not China. They will lie, cheat and steal the property of others. This is not advanced, this is not civilized advancement. They would enslave the American worker too or allow America to become impoverished and destroy our tax base.
Cool, thanks.
Utopia is a secure, decentralized ecosystem that utilizes unique peer-to-peer network architecture.
dont buy into the bitcoin BS. its a worthless digital game that has no intrinsic value.
Charlie is the one who is going to take over at Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffet kicks the bucket.
when a guy calls a technology immoral, then you know he doesnt have a clue. point taken: tech never is about morality.
It’s a long time since I last saw “Yahoo” on the internet
Yagoo Finance is a solid source for financial matters.
Munger has a face that could end world Hunger cause hes one U M F.
Chinese people devour oceans from life, and futher multiple all over the world…depleting the soils..
Yahoo! still exists?!?!?!
He hates bitcoin cuz he missed the investment opportunity of a lifetime!!!
He hates Bitcoin because he misses the point of Bitcoin. It’s not just a payments mechanism and a feat of computer engineering. If he understood properly what Bitcoin represented he and Berkshire would likely be all in!
Best interview i have watched so far
Interviews are way more entertaining than any other forms of youtube videos ye
What a legend
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C, kB
Charlie: .. And that by definition is value investing.
*pauses for 5 seconds*
Host: ..Okay so *cut off*
Charlie: Value investing is always what you expect it to be.
*pauses 5 seconds and sniffs*
<.< Host : My mo*cut off* Charlie: Value fucking investing *inhale*
johns overhead door
jimmy lamothe somewhat sore
jean brothers back door
“Wiseassery” 😂😂🤣🤣 Oh Charlie! Zinging as always!
I heard Charlie’s staking HEX.
another critic of bitcoin that simultaneously doesn’t understand its purpose. “we’ve got debit cards.”
he should have just said he doesn’t understand it so he doesn’t buy it, which would have been a perfectly acceptable response given his age, you can’t call something immoral you don’t understand. These guys are from a different era, they still think banks should be keeping their financial monopoly in the economy
@tim dean the immoral comment made me laugh.. as if the financial world is suddenly motivated purely by ethics
@Pedal Science reminds you of POLITICS!!!
It is great that the Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty but to reward the CCP and their Human Rights violations by doing business with them is immoral.
This is wisdom, pure wisdom
He is too old to understand tech, elon is a brilliant business man but not a brilliant tech guy, he didnt invent anything, bitcoin is a brilliant invention, by a brilliant person, the only immoral person is elon cheating the world with fake green earth saving car that makes people feel good about themselves.
I would ask him a couple of follow-up questions about bitcoin.
1. When bitcoin becomes less volatile, will you change your mind? I can definitely see the bitcoin trend, it becomes less volatile year after year, I bet in 20-50 years bitcoin will be as stable as gold.
2. What’s immoral in a currency/asset that controlled by nobody, cannot be seized, has no borders, has deflation nature? Don’t you understand the value that bitcoin brings?
I know why he so against bitcoin, because in his financial world there is no place for such thing as bitcoin, because it might disrupt everything he has built his wealth on.
Mao jJewish communist Asian ties to Israel. China is exploiting Africa for Israel interests. China’s success is at the expense of Americans to benefit Israel and China communists
Charlie is an idiot if not embracing crypto
He like status quo of peasants get crumbs
Didn’t invest in Amazon early. Didn’t invest in Apple early, Didn’t invest in Tesla early. Sounds very wise.
And Bitcoin is rising too,
BTC is from 2010!! 🤔😏🤑☠️
I also enjoyed this interview from Charlie. Much better than so much of his material which involves giving flippant and obscurantist answers to sensible questions. This, by contrast, is really excellent and a rewarding watch.
Crypto is all about decentralization. Where banks aren’t the sheer authority in finance.
you barely can see with one eye man
go for a patcheye for good
China got out of poverty of the backs of the American worker, thanks to our corrupt politicians giving sweetheart trade deals to US corporations by tearing down barriers which allowed them to offshore US manufacturing jobs, paying Chinese workers pennies on the dollar. Then allowing them to re-import those same (albeit now shody)goods back into the US. The only brilliance involved is how the politicians along with their corporate elite handlers blindsided the American people without any repercussions….
One thing i dont like about him that they (with Buffet) support China more than the US economy for obvious reasons $$$. And sponsored Hillary against Trump knowing that Trump will weaken China’s economy. And now they are complaining about it of course. Tough luck charlie 😉 AMERICA FIRST.
16:00 is for bitcoin
Charlie to China “you’re welcome !”
He likes Trump’s record and chooses not to say it directly.
Yes, Elon Musk is brilliant – no question about it.
Hard to see unfairness in China when you have monetary stakes in China 😆😆😆😆
When comparing bitcoin with gold he told the other part of the story. Theres quite a few virtues in bitcoin, one of them being to leave billioners disbelievers behind its bullrun.
Elon Musk will bring tons of gold from space, then we are going to use it for wire and Mungers granddaughters are going to clean our sh@t lol.
And now a year latter people are running from California and the great health care system that has bankrupt coming fast
They need someone with balls to interview Charlie…you can tell the reporter highly respects him but within that high regard is massive intimidation…
They made more mistakes by putting people in forbearance 2020 when people only inquired and didn’t sign up.
Shifty shifty shifty!
The pharmaceutical bubble is coming… watch for this bubble. It will change the way we look at healthcare.
Genius
Such a wise man. ❤️
20:00 to the end changed my mindset probably my thinking about life
He is trying to have it both ways! Hypocritical
I mean, if it wasn’t for the consistent attempts at espionage and selectively choosing when to honor agreements and the evolving nature of their borders, China would be alright. Of course, some appreciation for our part in their advancement would go a long way.
Ole boy Charlie said, “Owwwww…. Bitcoin bit me!”
But America wants to buy Arm now?
“Wise assery…” Lol!!