It's a good thing I'm not civilized.
Posted on 05/05/2012 9:07:27 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Warren Buffett's right-hand man doesn't like gold as his boss does, Charles Munger told CNBC Friday on the eve of Berkshire Hathway's annual meeting.
"Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939," the Berkshire vice chairman said, "but I think civilized people don’t buy gold, they invest in productive businesses."
Munger, 88, said he loves Berkshire Hathaway's [BRK.A Loading... () ] portfolio of such businesses, which includes, among many others, the Burlington Northern railroad, specialty chemicals firm Lubrizol and Geico insurance.
"We just have a wonderful portfolio in business, if you average them out," Munger said. "By and large they're doing productive, useful work. It’s not outsmarting the computer systems in the trading markets."
For the most part, he agrees with Buffett's "simple" investment strategy, which he said is "pretty agnostic." "We’ve always been opportunistic" in investing, he said.
Munger said that unlike Buffett, who announced he is fighting early-stage prostate cancer, he doesn't even bother to get his PSA levels checked.
But he understands the concerns about succession at Berkshire. While Buffett's successor has not been publicly named, Munger said he has "never been more comfortable about succession or duration of [Berkshire's] culture than ... right now. Our new investment people show enormous promise."
I was working in a country where, in response to the collapse of the currency, they closed the banks for about a month as I remember, and the contents of your accounts were frozen for a year or so. Until people got paid again, and the banks reopened, they had to essentially survive on the contents of their pantries and whatever cash they had on hand. If you had dollars and access to an overseas account you didn’t suffer at all, of course, except for the fact that there were no ATMs for a couple of weeks.
Neighbors helped neighbors, and while it was tough, people basically endured and got through.
So its not crazy to know that, if the dollar collapses, you may have to live out of your pantry for a month, because I’ve seen it happen. Its not crazy to keep some cash in the house, enough for maybe a month, and its not crazy to have a little cash in some form other than the dollar, like silver, or Swiss Francs, or Yen, or whatever.
I wouldn’t keep your whole life savings in krugerrands, but its not dumb to have a stash in dollars and another not in dollars, enough to ride through the collapse and reorganization of the banks. A month is not unreasonable once you’ve seen it happen someplace, you know it can happen anyplace.
For the first time in 20 years, according to the IMF, central bankers showed themselves as net buyers of gold. Central banks bought more than 400 tons of gold.
Perhaps, sir, they read the tea leaves and INTELLIGENT people buy worth! In Ronald Reagan's entire term, I bought no gold because I had confidence in our economic system. Now I am buying gold on the dips AS WELL as investing in good companies that do not PANDER to politicians. BRK does not impress me with recent performances.
Agree with post 21. Emergencies happen and a family should have a plan before it strikes them. Our government is printing paper money faster than Scott makes toilet paper. Riots as bad as in Greece could happen here.
Gold and some other items as trade goods could get your family through a very bad time. Don’t let your vehicle’s gas tank get below half full, have some foods that last in your pantry, have safe water on hand and something to protect your family from looters, if necessary. Gold, silver, ammo, booze and guns never seem to have a shelf life expiration date, good to store in one’s home.
FALSE DICHOTOMY ALERT
You don’t have to invest all one-way or another. You can have productive investments, but also keep gold as a reasonable hedge against inflation.
where do you buy your gold?
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