http://latticeworkinvesting.com/2018/02/19/charlie-munger-full-transcript-of-daily-journal-annual-meeting-2018/
Charlie Munger: Full Transcript of Daily Journal Annual Meeting 2018
Question 37: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. And we’re seeing this mania in Bitcoin, that is often akin to the Tulip mania, and I’d like to see your views on how you and Warren navigated through these waters in your several decades of investing. And what it says about the human condition that we tend to keep constantly falling for these things despite what history teaches us otherwise.
Charlie: Well you’re of course right to suspect that I regard the Bitcoin craze as totally asinine. To create some manufactured currency…A different payment system could happen like WeChat in China. It’s a better payment system than the one we have in America. So something like that could happen. But Bitcoin where they’re creating an alternative to gold…and then make a big speculative vehicle?…I never considered for one second having anything to do with it. I detested it the moment it was raised, and the more popular it got, the more I hated it. On the other hand, I expect the world to do insane things from time to time. Everybody wants easy money. And of course the people who are peddling things and taking money off the top for promoting the investment, they like it too. And so these crazies just keep coming and coming and coming. But who would want their children buying things like Bitcoin? I just hope to God that doesn’t happen to my family. It’s just disgusting that people would be taken in by something like this. It’s crazy. I’m not saying that some different payment system might not be a good thing like WeChat. That could come and be constructive. But Bitcoin is noxious poison. Partly they love it because the computer science is quite intriguing to people with mathematical brains. It’s quite a feat what they’ve done as a matter of pure computer science. But, you know, I’m sure you can get terribly good at torture if you spend a lot of time at it. (laughter) It’s not a good development. And the government of China which is stepping on it pretty hard is right and our government’s more lax approach to it is wrong. The right answer to stuff like that is to step on it hard, and it’s the government’s job.