Where you have complexity, by nature you can have fraud and mistakes. You'll have more of that than in a company that… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
With so much money riding on reported numbers, human nature is to manipulate them. And with so many doing it, you get… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
Mankind invented a system to cope with the fact that we are so intrinsically lousy at manipulating numbers. It's called the graph. — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
If you're going to buy something which compounds for 30 years at 15% per annum and you pay one 35% tax at… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
The number one idea is to view a stock as an ownership of the business and to judge the staying quality of… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
Economists get very uncomfortable when you talk about virtue and vice. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of columns with numbers.… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
Almost all good businesses engage in 'pain today, gain tomorrow' activities. — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
If you want good behavior, don't pay on a commission basis. Our judges aren't paid so much a case. We keep them pretty well… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
I think time and time again, in reality, psychological notions and economic notions interplay, and the man who doesn't understand both is a damned… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another and… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
The tax code gives you an enormous advantage if you can find some things you can just sit with. — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
The great lesson in microeconomics is to discriminate between when technology is going to help you and when it's going to kill you. And… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
Some years ago one oil company bought a fertilizer company, and every other major oil company practically ran out and bought a fertilizer company.… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
They [Mc Donalds] take people and give them a first job, which enables them to get a second job. They do a very good… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
We believe that almost all really good investment records will involve relatively little diversification. The basic idea that it was hard to find good… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image
It is way less certain to be a wonderful business in the future. The threat is alternative mediums of information. Every newspaper is scrambling… — Charlie Munger Copy Share Image