Thursday, September 11, 2014

Charlie Munger at the Daily Journal Annual meeting.

I went to the Daily Journal Meeting, on September 10. Charlie Munger was great, as always. The room was full. Charlie welcomed us with a comment that this was the largest meeting of the Daily Journal ever (they did not even have enough chairs!)

"Welcome to a few shareholders and a lot of groupies"

I will write up my full notes, but here are some choice quotes and paraphrases from the master!

He compared the Journal's old auditors, who held up the annual report by months, to a doctor he had (I assume as a child). The man was a surgeon skilled in fixing hernias, so he kept feeling around Charlies groin, when all Charlie had was a nose bleed.

Speaking of the old auditors, CM said that "We get along with people we admire...[but] I'm old and I can't disguise that there are people I don't like"

"...it was the audit from hell...which was red meat to the commissioned sales force of our competitors..." (The government software business that the Daily Journal has.)

"...the auditors were not malevolent...but it was like elephants [marching] through a barnyard..."

(Variation on Warren's oft repeated comment about 7 foot fences), "We don't try to jump 7 foot fences, we step across puddles to reach for gold.

Answering Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal on the difficulties for investors today versus earlier times, [In US markets with a small enough investment base] the shrewd will always [be able to] figure something out, that will never go away.

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