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Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

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Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#51

Post by bloomberg2020 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

This quote from Munger is what I find most interesting: > I do think, sooner or later, we’ll have an economy back, which will be a moderate economy. It’s quite possible that never again—not again in a long time—will we have a level of employment again like we just lost. We may never get that back for all practical purposes. I don’t know. There are roughly 2 ways this could go if what he says actually happens. One is…

We don’t have to work that hard for a comfortable life, and the gaudy material life the west has is not owed by laws of science or man. It’s taken as we can see by the bailout machinations

We don’t need grocery stores full of customized flavored drinks.

Fill them with raw ingredients and let people distract themselves inventing customization at home

Same with clothing stores. But we let a minority buy their way in, making us do the real creative work to prop them up

We extended government into our lives by creating corps and HR and letting the Corp owners then collude on the HR rules to our detriment in a society that claims to loath big government

And this community tacitly agrees with it by founding companies!

Americans go on about big government interference but that’s exactly what you defend by creating a market for one size fits all rules to filter into our lives at scale

Local communities can police themselves. We don’t need to curve our agency to what will get us a job

We need to get away from traditional values like “if I’m going to buy in, I expect a return on investment.”

Ok but many of us out here never invited you to play. Yet their demands of being rich are protected by all?

How’s that any different than them saying they shouldn’t have to spend money if they don’t want to?

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#52

Post by whatok »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #17
pmiller2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They announced their intention to offer bonds in late March, well after it was generally known that the government intended to step in.

I don't believe it was until early April when the full force of support was evident. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22822869

The recent Fed announcements mostly served to reopen the high yield primary market and the investment grade markets were wide open well before that; especially for a strong issuer like BRK.

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#53

Post by jsanford9292 »

jacquesm wrote: post #7
pmiller2 wrote: post #4

This quote from Munger is what I find most interesting: > I do think, sooner or later, we’ll have an economy back, which will be a moderate economy. It’s quite possible that never again—not again in a long time—will we have a level of employment again like we just lost. We may never get that back for all practical purposes. I don’t know. There are roughly 2 ways this could go if what he says actually happens. One is…

The whole idea that 'being social' equates to 'socialism', the bogeyman edition is what will stop for instance the United States from adopting a more social agenda. Free - or at least affordable - public healthcare, public transportation, internet access and access to things like clean water should be a basic standard of living for any country that does not want to be labelled 'third world'. Instead, that whole agend…

I think we focus too much on the "should"s and not enough on the mechanisms that make things like public healthcare, public transpo, etc. a reality. Obviously these standards of living cost money. Great. Which is why we have taxes. Great. And in order to have tax revenue, we need productive companies/citizens. Great. So we need to focus on keeping tax revenue high enough to afford healthcare for all including those who can't work or decide not to work. This means keeping the tax rate high enough (Democrats tend to emphasize this). This also means keeping the taxable base high (Republicans tend to emphasize this). These two things are a balance because if taxes are too high, the taxable base (companies/citizens) moves elsewhere. We've seen this at a country/company level and a state/citizen level recently. And if taxes are too low, we cannot afford to provide essential services. Saying that we "should" have this or that without consideration of the delicate balance of how we pay for it seems shortsighted to me. And I know people here are smart, so let's consider the full breadth of the topic and not oversimplify.

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#54

Post by kelnos »

ctdonath wrote: post #9
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea that 'being social' equates to 'socialism', the bogeyman edition is what will stop for instance the United States from adopting a more social agenda. Free - or at least affordable - public healthcare, public transportation, internet access and access to things like clean water should be a basic standard of living for any country that does not want to be labelled 'third world'. Instead, that whole agend…

The USA is effectively 50 countries with different demographics, geography, culture, and needs. Trying to impose any “one size fits all” solution won’t work because it’s not appropriate for a significant number of them.

The problem with this thinking is that the states are, for all practical purposes, not able to freely experiment with the things they need to. I agree that there is often no one-size-fits-all solution, but states can't always implement solutions that fit their needs, not because they aren't capable, but because of federal restrictions.

For example, the CA legislature was thinking about a single-payer healthcare bill for CA. Unfortunately, they can't do it on their own: they need special dispensation from the US Congress (and possibly the executive branch? I don't recall the details exactly) to use Medicare dollars in a way contrary to federal rules. That's unlikely to happen in the current political climate.

A cause of this deadlock is that federal taxes aren't optional. Even if CA wants to handle something for itself, it can't just tell all CA residents to stop paying that particular tax to the federal government. The state does get federal money, but it comes with strings attached. Yes, CA's taxes are already some of the highest in the nation, but I'd be fine with a (big) CA tax hike for statewide universal health care if it also meant that my federal taxes would be lower (and CA would be responsible for raising more of its budget on its own, being cut off from federal healthcare-related money). But that's just not how things work.

(Overall, I think this is a good thing: me paying into the nationwide Medicare pool means that states that would otherwise be going through budget shortfalls don't suffer. But it's ridiculous that the federal government is telling my state government what it can and can't do with what's effectively its own money, while I'm subsidizing healthcare for people in other states.)

As sort of a meta-point, the USA is maybe more like 10 or 15 different countries. Sure, there's a lot of difference in needs, values, and attitudes between someone living in Wyoming vs. Baltimore, but the people who live in DC, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Chicago have a lot in common. As do people living in Wyoming and Montana. They're not the same, but they likely have enough in common for single solutions to many problems to apply equally, or equally enough. I'm encouraged by states in the same geographic area coordinating their COVID-19 response; it shows that states with similar needs can (and should!) band together to tackle common issues where the solutions are likely to be similar.

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#55

Post by iNate2000 »

rabboRubble wrote: post #24
pmiller2 wrote: post #3

https://archive.is/eAFo7

curious FF / Safari through up security warnings for archive.is and archive.today. going at them from a roundabout way gives me a CloudFlare DNS error page. this's been going on the last week or so. wonder what the problem is?

I didn't see anything on iPhone Safari.

Are you working remote on a company VPN?

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#56

Post by kelnos »

misun78 wrote: post #38
ctdonath wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is effectively 50 countries with different demographics, geography, culture, and needs. Trying to impose any “one size fits all” solution won’t work because it’s not appropriate for a significant number of them.

The issue with something like “free” healthcare is that proposed policies like Medicare for all only really talks about the demand side of the equation. It purports to expand the coverage without mentioning how we can pay doctors more so there is more of them, incentivize the private sector to produce (and profit from) top-notch drug treatments, reduce personnel and bureaucratic inefficiencies (which mind you implies…

> It purports to expand the coverage without mentioning how we can pay doctors more so there is more of them

That part of it is actually not complicated: once you dismantle the private health insurance industry, you eliminate billions of dollars of waste and inefficiency that can now go toward actual care. Not saying that there won't be inefficiencies in a government-administrated system, but we actually already know what that looks like (Medicare).

Increasing the number of doctors is another issue, as private industry trade groups effectively set a cap on the number of doctors by limiting the number of teaching hospitals and medical school programs, and how many students they're allowed to take. (It's basically a doctor salary protection racket; limit the supply of doctors and the existing ones will make more money.)

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#57

Post by pmiller2 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #33
kick wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is a single country with what's effectively two demographics, and one-and-a-half breeds of politician. "50 countries with different demographics geography culture and needs!" is a complete fabrication. Wyoming doesn't even have a million people in it; implying Wyoming is a country is like implying a go-kart is a jet.

Malta has less than a million people. Is it not a country?

Well, that depends on what you mean by "country," I suppose. If your definition is "independent, sovereign state," then, of course it is. But, so is the Vatican, with its population of ~800 and land area of 0.17 square miles. For perspective, San Francisco has a land area of ~47 square miles.

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#58

Post by bumby »

pmiller2 wrote: post #49
bumby wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think culture is population dependent. Baltimore and Wyoming have roughly the same population but very different cultural attitudes, beliefs, ways of life etc. Its hard to make a case they should have the same policies and expect the same results

It's not so much population per se as the urban/rural divide. Baltimore is a city (arguably a megalopolis of Baltimore + Washington DC + Northern Virginia and nearby areas of Maryland). Wyoming, OTOH, is the 10th largest state geographically, the least populous, and literally has more cows than people [0, 1]. If I had to guess, I would say there probably hasn't been a significant number of cows in Baltimore in over 2…

I don’t necessarily disagree, my comment was largely based in response to the OP seeming to think population was major discriminator.

Even at the city level, I think its is too broad of a generalization. Berkeley and Baltimore have roughly the same population density but very distinct cultures

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#59

Post by kelnos »

chrisco255 wrote: post #39
minikites wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is "access to clean water" (or frankly, anything on the list) not appropriate?

In rural communities, you're most often getting your water from a well. I grew up in an area like this, with a pumped well and septic system. There was no need for public water infrastructure because the density did not necessitate it, and the natural aquifer more than provided for those needs.

That's fine. Those people have "access to clean water". Any guarantee of such needs to take into account the various ways people obtain clean water, and make sure one exists. It might just be someone noting, "nice, they have a functioning well with plenty of capacity, good to go". If they don't then the government should fix that, either by running a public water system to that location, or drilling a well.

If that's "socialism", then I'm all for it. The idea that we shouldn't ensure that everyone has access to clean water in this age is ludicrous, and, frankly, reprehensible.

Re: Charlie Munger: ‘The Phone Is Not Ringing Off the Hook’

#60

Post by asjw »

kick wrote: post #20
ctdonath wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is effectively 50 countries with different demographics, geography, culture, and needs. Trying to impose any “one size fits all” solution won’t work because it’s not appropriate for a significant number of them.

The USA is a single country with what's effectively two demographics, and one-and-a-half breeds of politician. "50 countries with different demographics geography culture and needs!" is a complete fabrication. Wyoming doesn't even have a million people in it; implying Wyoming is a country is like implying a go-kart is a jet.

Luxembourg has a population of 600 thousands people

Lichtenstein has 38 thousands citizens

There are 164 countries in the World with less than one million citizens and 159 with one million or more

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populat...

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