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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’

#71

Post by bravo22 »

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #64
bravo22 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'ism' is about control, not about benefit. Philosophically I agree that we need a better system the benefits everyone, and I agree with the gist of your comment. However saying we need socialism skips over the most important part of it -- the mechanism to achieve that. That's the hard part that we haven't quite figured out and need to discuss. The current narrative assumes that simply funnelling the money through…

How hard is this honestly... Socialism -- Worker ownership of the means of production. Socialism is not "when the government is big" or "when the government does things". A big federal government is not socialism. Norway is not socialism. Heath care is not socialism. Unions are not socialism. China is not socialism (charitably it's a state-captialist government with the goal of achieving socialism, realistically it's…

Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue.

If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism.

The reason government comes into play in socialism is because you still need decision makers and decision makers concentrate power. You have a democracy today that is basically turning into an oligarchy, and the belief is that by some magic if we transferred control of "means of production" to workers this would change.

Ok, divide Amazon's shares across its workers. What have you changed? Who comes up with the list of options for them to choose from? What happens to their stock aka "control" once they leave the company? There are a million tiny details which when you work through show you why it is not workable and at best you end up back here today.

The fundamental problem we are dealing with is allocation of resources, and the masses not being sufficiently informed to make decisions. Until you solve that problem every system you put in place corrupts, some worse than others and some with few mechanisms for correction and recovery.

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

#72

Post by nlfwhulsdhouv »

bravo22 wrote: post #71
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is this honestly... Socialism -- Worker ownership of the means of production. Socialism is not "when the government is big" or "when the government does things". A big federal government is not socialism. Norway is not socialism. Heath care is not socialism. Unions are not socialism. China is not socialism (charitably it's a state-captialist government with the goal of achieving socialism, realistically it's…

Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue. If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism. The reason government comes into play in socialism is because you still need decision makers and decision makers concentrate power. You have a democracy today that is ba…

> Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue.

Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big government is it associates it with decades of red-scare propaganda and makes all discussion impossible.

> If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism.

Not really, if the workers have ownership over the company and the capital, then they "own the means of production".

> The fundamental problem we are dealing with is allocation of resources, and the masses not being sufficiently informed to make decisions. Until you solve that problem every system you put in place corrupts, some worse than others and some with few mechanisms for correction and recovery.

Sure, resource allocation is hard, but "lets just let the rich/monarchs/the lizard people decide" is a cop-out.

For what it's worth, you should probably engage with some 'real' socialist literature beyond just sound bites from Twitter. Many of these questions are considered. Richard Wolff might be an interesting starting point.

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

#73

Post by ethagknight »

jsanford9292 wrote: post #25

Value investing has been replaced by government support. Big companies like airlines are not allowed to "get cheap" anymore. From Berkshire Hathaway alone, there are hundreds of billions of dollars of private money waiting to step in during times like these. Instead, we will "bail out" aggressively managed companies and encourage all big companies to be more aggressive going forwards. Because they have a government b…

Keep in mind, this is a totally unprecedented government mandated shut down to the economy, not the result of overly aggressive fiscal management.

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

#74

Post by rckoepke »

pmiller2 wrote: post #3

https://archive.is/eAFo7

Is there any workaround to view this? I get 403.

Edit: Nevermind, the workaround is to set default DNS to something other than cloudflare. Oddly I didn't expect that I was on 1.1.1.1 as I'm on Ubuntu but dual boot Win10, with windows already set to 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 and default Xfinity DHCP on linux (never got around to setting it on linux). Now I'm wondering whether xfinity DHCP or Ubuntu sets 1.1.1.1, and whether thats actually going directly to cloudflare or passing through xfinity DNS on the way to cloudflare. Some digging ahead.

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

#75

Post by CapriciousCptl »

algo_trader wrote: post #70
CapriciousCptl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Yen-denominated debt-- mostly useful to Berkshire so they can make Yen-denominated investments without currency risk. It's at less than 1% a year, which costs virtually nothing given the options it opens up for Berkshire. And you'll note that that debt makes up less than 1% of its total cash position, it's really just there so Berkshire can buy something quickly in Yen if an opportunity shows up.

oh man. nothing you have said make any kind of sense. if they have yen-denominated debt, then they have added currency risk if it is 1% of their cash position, they can just use some cash and buy yens and have those yens available. if they have hedged the bond currency risk, then they might as well have hedged it after buying yens in the open market if it's 1% interest, it is still probably more than the interest the…

You're coming at this from a "hedging" perspective-- Instead, think in terms of what the bond gives him-- a lot of Yen. That's opportunities to invest. The increased "risk" in this sense is miniscule-- since the cost of the oppurtunity is less than 1% Yen a year, even a 200% rise in Yen/USD only actually costs Berkshire 2%.

And, my bet is Buffett knows of some companies he could deploy that Yen in right now to cover the interest anyway. He's just lying in wait for better oppurtunities.

Now, there could be some other thing going on-- but taxes-wise in general U.S. companies issue US-denominated bonds to repatriate funds so I'm sure where you're going with that. My bet would be if it's not just for the opportunity, it may for their re-insurance reserves.

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

#76

Post by hogFeast »

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #65
hogFeast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries with larger safety nets have basically similar levels of absolute poverty to the US (it is kind of tricky because most of those countries in the former are also far far smaller, and have very different population density/growth/migration patterns). And btw...yes, in other countries if you lose your job you can lose your house...this is true everywhere (and the US already has a public health system that is 5…

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

#77

Post by bravo22 »

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #72
bravo22 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue. If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism. The reason government comes into play in socialism is because you still need decision makers and decision makers concentrate power. You have a democracy today that is ba…

> Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue. Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big…

> Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big government is it associates it with decades of red-scare propaganda and makes all discussion impossible.

I didn't say that at all. You can review my comments. But the point is that socialism doesn't distribute power, it concentrates it because "society" is never in control of anything. They'll elect representatives and they will be in charge. It is something that would work, provided human nature didn't exist.

> Not really, if the workers have ownership over the company and the capital, then they "own the means of production".

Shareholders have control over capital and have ownership.

> Sure, resource allocation is hard, but "lets just let the rich/monarchs/the lizard people decide" is a cop-out.

That's not what anyone is saying and that's not what is happening today.

There may be some who have a philosophical difference about "many" being in charge versus a "few". But just because I believe that in plurality of power it doesn't mean I believe socialism is the best way to get there.

I am not going by Twitter here. I have read a lot on the subject. Most of what I see uses socialism as a shorthand for "common good" and capitalism as shorthand for "greed". It is incorrect.

As an analogy, imagine if we're taking about ethics and morality and how to have a better and just world. If this was 100 years ago in the west, "Christianity" would be shorthand for morality and "Atheism" synonymous with evil, greed, and depravity. We've moved beyond that today and realized that neither of those will necessarily lead to a more moral or just world, and that ethics and morality are nuanced topics with a lot of details to be worked out. Simply being Christian doesn't make you one or the other, although hard to prove that to an average American in 1895. Furthermore, of the two, one is more static, dogmatic, and leads to corruption. I view the socialism and capitalism debate in the same vein.

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

#78

Post by whatok »

CapriciousCptl wrote: post #75
algo_trader wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh man. nothing you have said make any kind of sense. if they have yen-denominated debt, then they have added currency risk if it is 1% of their cash position, they can just use some cash and buy yens and have those yens available. if they have hedged the bond currency risk, then they might as well have hedged it after buying yens in the open market if it's 1% interest, it is still probably more than the interest the…

You're coming at this from a "hedging" perspective-- Instead, think in terms of what the bond gives him-- a lot of Yen. That's opportunities to invest. The increased "risk" in this sense is miniscule-- since the cost of the oppurtunity is less than 1% Yen a year, even a 200% rise in Yen/USD only actually costs Berkshire 2%. And, my bet is Buffett knows of some companies he could deploy that Yen in right now to cover…

This doesn't make any sense. Issuers don't need to pre-fund acquisitions before making offers so BRK wouldn't need any JPY before acting and in the event of an acquisition closing, they would easily be able to issuer in any currency on earth. Don't know the name well at all but BRK issued in JPY last year as well so I'm guessing they have some recurring JPY liabilities.

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

#80

Post by nlfwhulsdhouv »

bravo22 wrote: post #77
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue. Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big…

> Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big government is it associates it with decades of red-scare propaganda and makes all discussion impossible. I didn't say that at all. You can review my comments. But the…

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