That’s true whether you’re Benjamin Franklin or Joe klutz. Do you think that digital economy has reached a tipping point such that this time is different and that conventional valuation measures for these types of companies are dead, or does this environment remind you of 1999? And, I was always aware of that and so I’ve accepted these damned annual meetings. He noted that “shareholders should not expect any significant appreciation above that level anytime soon.” Shares of Daily Journal Corporation closed at $404 on Dec. 31, a price “reached amid (1) much speculative frenzy and (2) much forced buying by index funds,” Munger wrote. Opinion Larry Summers has recently been quoted as being worried that we’re having too much stimulus. Gerry, being a sound thinker, you know, did the very unpleasant work of shrinking it appropriately without bothering me or Rick. I came to law school having learned the method of learning and nothing has served me better in my long life than continuous learning. The undersigned hereby appoints Charles T. Munger, J.P. Guerin and Gerald L. Salzman as proxyholders, each with the power to appoint his substitute; hereby authorizes them or any of them to represent and vote as designated below all the shares of common stock of Daily Journal Corporation held of record by the undersigned on December 20, 2019 at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be … This is cheap compared to Tesla currently valued at over 1100 times P/E and 24 times sales. Read more: GOLDMAN SACHS: These 22 stocks still haven't recovered to pre-pandemic levels - and are set to explode amid higher earnings in 2021 as the economy recovers. Charlie Munger: I think everybody is willing to hold stocks at higher price-earnings multiples when interest rates are as low as they are now. That turned out to be a wonderful idea and that’s one of the reasons we made all this money. Absolute insanity. I think it’s much easier to find five than it is to find a hundred. Charlie Munger: Modern monetary theory means that people are less worried about an inflationary disaster like Weimar Germany from government printing of money and spending it. I don’t think we have made a lot of horrible mistakes. It wasn’t some malevolence of the rich that caused it. Have you considered amending this quote or lowering your standards? I was good at having low expectations and that helped me. Questions: Many major businesses and high net worth individuals have been leaving California. It’s such a simple idea. Subscribe to the latest deeply reported research about companies, readings, and other lessons you won’t find elsewhere. Could you please elaborate on the subject and could you consider giving a talk on this particular subject? Charlie Munger: Well, it helps to be able to leave the IQ test early with the highest score. And by the way, I think it’s hard to teach. The bad news is it’s not clear who’s gonna win all the business or how much money is going to be made. At times in my life, I have put myself to a standard that I think has helped me: I think I’m not really equipped to comment on this subject until I can state the arguments against my conclusion better than the people on the other side. One of the interesting things about the Daily Journal is that we made all that money in the foreclosure boom. We paid two and a half million for it. In other words, it’s your money. Please send questions by February 15, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time to the following email address: [email protected]. And in biology, what happens is the individuals all die, and eventually, so do all the species. But the accountants are duly elected. So, of course, I admire him. Question: Last year, almost every ecommerce, internet, and internet adjacent stock was up 100 plus percent. Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, is also the chairman of Daily Journal Corporation, a newspaper publisher and software developer. Charlie Munger: Well, I think all stocks can fluctuate. If you try and reduce the poverty too much, it’s counterproductive. Question: Has your opinion on cryptocurrencies remained the same? Gerry and I have been together, how many years Gerry? Questions: Many observers see market behavior that reminds them of the Dot Com bubble: wild speculation, endless SPACs, and IPOs soaring on their first day of trading. is just delivering them to us. He was not a dictator. But I won’t be following him. Gerry’s lived a long time too and I think we both have been lucky. You are on record as a zealous fan of the Chinese work ethic and Confucian value system. The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. Q&A sesssion with Charlie Munger July 1st, 2011. If you do that all the time; if you’re looking for disconfirming evidence and putting yourself on a grill, that’s a good way to help remove ignorance. DAILY JOURNAL CORPORATION. His method for doing it was so simple. But, of course, if we got a chance to do it again, we would do it better. And I don’t think you’ll find me engaged in the massive rezonings in the future. At the Daily Journal Corporation’s annual meeting in Los Angeles on Feb 12, 2020, Charlie spoke at great length. Of course, it’s hard to know what the future holds when in a complex system where you can’t predict a lot of things. Charlie Munger: Well, it’s not easy to handle accumulated money in the current environment when these stocks are so high and partials of real estate of certain kinds are also very inflated. We are subject to the orders and directions of those counties which, before, really didn’t impact anything. That is true and makes sense. It was a background that helped everybody. They’re in a place that’s gotten more valuable. Without the method of learning, you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. So, it’s a serious problem. The best venture capital operation probably in the whole world is Sequoia’s and they are very good at this early stage investing. However, could you be more specific? And, of course, it works way better than our medical system. A lot of the people who are doing this remote work—a lot are going to work three days a week in the office and two days a week at home. Question: In 1999, the year the Daily Journal bought Sustain Technologies, the traditional business employed 355 full-time employees and 61 part-time employees. I think civilization would do better without it. And so, we can’t promise we’re going to succeed. If anybody can fix it, he can. What prevents the wide use of helpful psychological insight is the fact that psychology gets really useful when you integrate it with all other knowledge. I feel the same way about those choices. At the age of 97, Charlie Munger was—not surprisingly—sharp as a tack. As a result of holding those two positions, we have a lower cost than anybody else and we make more money than practically everybody else. When you’ve got something good, it’s working, and you’ve spent a lot of energy getting there, it’s probably best to sit on your ass and enjoy the ride. Apartments have come through better. And some types of real estate in recent years has been particularly difficult. You used examples of Lee Kuan Yew’s good judgment in choosing someone with brains over certain physical attributes in your past interview. The hydrocarbons are also needed as chemical feedstocks. But, a very wise man said on an earlier occasion: The trouble with banking is that we have more banks than we have bankers. Question: Do you believe the market is going through a long-term value slump similar to 1999, or do you believe technology has caused a permanent change in how companies should be valued? On balance, we hold in certain of these position when, normally, we wouldn’t buy a new position. The Daily Journal front page article dated Monday, March 15, 2021, has good news for the City of Kankakee. See our Terms, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer. This will be Washington Federal’s 153rd consecutive quarterly cash dividend. It’s been amazing that one little company starting up not that many decades ago could become as big as Costco did as fast as Costco did. Along with my analysts Alex Griese and Kevin DeCamp, I attended Munger's Daily Journal annual meeting in Los Angeles last February (see our notes here).But this year the meeting will be livestreamed starting at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, February 24 on Yahoo Finance's website.Here's Julia La Roche's article about it: Yahoo Finance to stream Daily Journal annual meeting … I just see more and more of the rich people leaving. And he was just so good. On the other hand, the buses in Los Angeles work on natural gas. How do you recognize a potential downfall in a company you hold/invest in? There’s an old German proverb I’ve always liked. Is it digital wallets like PayPal, Square, or Apple Pay? [As for] marketable securities, we prefer owning common stocks to holding cash under current conditions and it’s kind of an accident that we have so much in marketable securities. Charlie Munger: 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting Transcript. China’s economic record among the big nations is the best that ever existed in the history of the world. A lot of the good rules of life are like that. Imagine a bunch of Chinese communists turning a whole lot of Chinese and the billionaires in a big hurry. I said to Rick, we’re going to make Gerry the head of the Daily Journal. But show me a psychology department that knows how to do that. What could investors do to cope better with periodical frenzy? BYD stock did nothing for the first five years we held it. And so I don’t think it’s necessarily crazy that good companies sell at way higher multiples than they used to. Some people think that value investing is you chase companies that have a lot of cash and they’re in a lousy business or something. But, of course, I think there will be more automation in transportation of all kinds in the future. We love it anyway. On December 18, 2020—the record date—there were 1,380,746 shares of common stock of the company outstanding. February 26, 2021. Generally speaking, people assume that we’re a normal software company like Microsoft or something. What an extraordinary mind of great investor Charlie Munger. Who gets rich faster by class is going to vary over time and I don’t think anybody should be too concerned by it. They’re just very simple. Take Gerry. The kind of executives who have a Buffett-like mindset and never get in trouble are a minority group, not a majority group. So, no I don’t think it’s the responsibility of management to assure where the stock sells. How would they think about current opportunities with low rates and low inflation? Generally, what people do is they have financial reserves so they have some options if trouble comes, and they adapt the way Gerry has to require downsizings or require upsizings. We hope they’ll continue doing magnificently well. That’s interesting—who in the hell is voting against the accountants? Close. The stock has gained so much this year and last year. I don’t even know how much more difficult—or how much more dangerous—it would be to deal with hydrogen than it is to deal with gasoline which is also a dangerous substance. Question: What do you hope the future of the Daily Journal Corporation looks like in a decade? We’re all pretty forgiving of ourselves too which is probably a good thing. Of course, it’s hard to negotiate in such a field. What do you look for in a leader? He’d been a receiver for a bank. At the age of 97, Charlie Munger was—not surprisingly—sharp as a tack. How do you think about the hydrogen opportunity for transportation and how does it compare to the electric opportunity, specifically thinking about trucks versus cars. Wesco Financial was officially merged into Berkshire Hathaway in 2011. And that’s the right way to do it. Once again, Charlie didn’t disappoint with his thoughtful wisdom, insights, and now precious time with us all. They don’t work that hard at figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I don’t think that hydrocarbons are going. Question: The highly configurable JTI product may help e-suites integrate deeply into new jurisdictions as agencies and citizens become familiar with the courthouse software. Because if you do that, I’m a moral leper. I’m afraid that’s the way we all have to leave our swords. They had to because the traditional business newspaper business is shrinking. Daily Journal Corporation publishes newspapers and Websites covering California and Arizona, and produces various specialized information services. So it’s very difficult. Charlie Munger: We will not be following Tesla into bitcoin. Thanks u/Arceus122. What do you think the long-term consequences will be? I think management should tell it like it is at all times and not be a big promoter of its own stock. So, it’s a very interesting competitive field. They just copied Adam Smith and left out the free speech and it worked fine for them. And, of course, when things get extreme you have things like that short squeeze. It reminds me of the key phrase and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in which he says: My sword I leave to him who can wear it. Charlie Munger: Well, it’s natural for people to think their own civilization and their own nation are better than everybody else. Charlie Munger: Well, Lee Kuan Yew had the best record as a nation builder. He said it was the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable. We are very excited to look forward to enabling the courts to function as we know that they want to and will in the future. Charlie Munger: Well, I can’t top Lee Kuan Yew’s example. We have different tax considerations. He loved to kid people. But there’s no rule that life has to be easy on the mental side. Charlie Munger: I have seen an episode or two of the Queen’s Gambit. That makes the whole thing very awkward. In the shareholder letter, Munger noted that after many years as a "cash cow," the newspaper business broke even, posting revenue of $14.695 million, down 14% from the prior year. Of course, it’s going to be difficult. He had excellent judgment. When I was young, I rezoned some properties very successfully. Kipling once wrote a poem called The Women (The Ladies) and the concluding line was to the effect that you should learn about women from him instead of doing it yourself, because, he says, I know you won’t follow my advice. He was that smart. I think that that will probably continue. He lived in a particular town. Charlie Munger: I don’t think I have a lot of wonderful advice about starting a business but what you’ve learned in the pandemic is that we can do with a lot less travel and a lot more Zooming. Charlie Munger: I think Warren and I are better at buying mature industries than we are at backing startups like Sequoia. Charlie Munger: I can’t think of a… We paid high prices for some little companies in the course of trying to enter the court software business. While there were only 410 shareholders of record of Daily Journal's common stock as of Dec. 15, according to its annual report, Munger attracts a sizable and engaged audience each year, including non-shareholders, to hear his wisdom and maxims about business, investing, and life. These are very difficult questions and most people assume that it’s simple. The mantra he said over and over again is very simple. We’re going to bust our ass to try and do a good job. The votes in favor of that are 995,356 against 120. I’ve been around for a long time and my policy has always been to just write them out. What happens is that every human being tends to believe way more than he should in what he’s worked hard to find out or where he’s announced publicly that he already believes. I never buy any and neither does Daily Journal. I was very lucky. And I think that’s what shareholders do. I don’t think I can teach you how to retroactively get a new accident yourself. Bitcoin at 50,000 or Tesla’s fully diluted enterprise value of 1 trillion. Always intelligent. You know, it’s just, it’s incredible what’s happened in terms of the destruction. And, what about passive investing? Of course, that made him very leery of dumb loans. How would you advise these institutions to manage their endowments over the coming decades? I regard this as insanity. And, of course, what I’m saying is that if I were teaching business I would start the way Harvard Business School did a long time ago. It was absolutely incredible. What do you think of all of the SPACs and the promoters pushing them? But he was 90 years of age. Question: Do you believe global warming is an existential threat to humankind? However, is there a price too high that the company’s future profits simply cannot justify? FOR ANNUAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS. Charlie Munger: Well, I never owned a share of General Electric because I didn’t like the culture. I admire him that much. Gerry, don’t you think we’re doing pretty well? Do you agree with the premise and if so how would you address inequality? The 97-year-old investor also touched on Daily Journal's stock portfolio, which counts Bank of America and Wells Fargo among its holdings. So, I think for some folks, early-stage investing is best, and for other folks, what I’ve done in my life is best. And he made a very favorable impression. We admire the company and like its position. The Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting will be live-streamed on Yahoo!Finance today at 1:00 pm Eastern time and should last approximately two hours.If past meetings are any guide, discussion of Daily Journal itself will be limited and most of the meeting will involve a Q&A session in which Charlie Munger will address a wide variety of topics. It’s not generally noticed by the public but clearinghouses clear all these trades. I’m way more comfortable owning two or three stocks which I think I know something about and where I think I have an advantage. In his early education, he was the second-ranked student in the school. Classified advertising is down significantly. And we’ve had marvelous people here to help us do it through very difficult times and one of them is Gerry Salzman. Has the quality of the publication suffered as the employment levels have decreased? So, you have to be a little closer to the employees’ needs, desires, babysitting, and all those activities that were kind of taken for granted in the past. And it’s rather interesting. So far the evidence would be that maybe the monetary modern monetary theory is right. Charlie Munger: Well, that’s a very good question. Nothing is particularly obvious for everybody to do the same thing. 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