원문 보기
inflation is a very serious subject you can argue it's the way democracies die Charlie Munger seems very worried about an upcoming inflation crisis but what exactly is going to cause this let's have a look we were in Desperate trouble we were on the eve of a Great Recession that could have been a great depression and Then followed by the rise of people like Adolf Hitler and so on and so on the real question is have we seen something like this in the past so that we could maybe prepare for what's coming is it something investors need to be worried about specifically when it comes to growth stocks right now well I think the safe and some shouldn't for an investor is that or the next 100 years the currency is going to zero that's my working hypothesis if the dollar is going to become worthless what is going to be the next Global Currency what brought in Hitler was the combination of the Weimar inflation where they utterly destroyed the savings of the middle class in Germany followed by the Great Depression it was a one-two punch and Hitler came in Crazy demagogue with 40 percent of the votes and pretty soon we had a dictator hell-bent for World War well some people now say that federal debt is not a problem at all well if you believe that you believe in the tooth fairy because then we don't have to have any more taxes ever we'll just spread money and live happily ever after it obviously won't work so there comes a point when printing money is counterproductive are we at that point or you can no I don't think we are at that point most importantly does the government have something under their sleeves to get us through the recession going back to inflation specifically though Charlie do you think the Federal Reserve is doing the right thing now or not in a modern democracy in the age of Keynes you're going to get big government reaction the reaction this time was bigger than it's ever been before in the history of the United States they just threw money at the problem and they were probably right to fear what was going to happen and to be quite liberal and throwing money at it but they probably overdid it a little they threw so much money so fast that it's hard for the restaurants to get people to do the work but I don't criticize it it's hard to make these decisions under pressure you think there will be a high economic price to pay as the FED attempts to bring inflation back under control we've done something pretty extreme and we don't know how bad the troubles will be and whether we're going to be like Japan or or something a lot worse what makes life interesting is we don't know it's going to work out I think we do know we're flirting with serious trouble inflation is a very serious subject you can argue it's the way democracies die when democracy dies in Latin America inflation is a big part of it so it's a huge Danger once you've got a populist that learns it can vote itself money if you overdo it too much you ruin your civilization a lot and so of course it's a big long-range danger if you look at the Roman Republic even after they went to a Empire with an absolute ruler they inflated the currency steadily for hundreds of years and eventually the whole damn Roman Empire have collapsed so it's the biggest long runs danger we have probably apart from nuclear war what about the lack of volatility that we've seen in the markets that's also kind of as central banks got into the game and increased liquidity well of course it's with all this massive Central Bank interference I think that was necessary to do as I admire the the politicians who did it and the technocrats including the Federal Reserve people and I think it was absolutely required and the danger they were avoiding was worse some of the troubles they caused but it was very peculiar and it did have the accidental effect of bailing out the rich in order to help the poor and nobody was doing that because they loved the rich they just didn't have any other tool in the kit and they had to do something so the inequality that came from that it wasn't malevolence yeah it was an accident and it probably won't happen again and it's not a permanent conspiracy against the poor it was a it was an accident that we had the huge recession caused partly by Massive stupidity in finance and venality and then when we ran out of tools and had to do something really peculiar that we've never done before that was a wise thing to do given the amount of trouble we were in you got to remember the trouble has been allowed to run we might have had a revisitation of the kind of troubles that brought Hitler into power so we were facing real difficulties and both parties and our technocrats got together for the last time I think worked us out of it it was a very admirable thing that you can all be proud I've been proud of nothing in politics since there are all sorts of political proposals out there right now to try and solve that inequality that was created everything from a 70 tax on the highest brackets to a wealth tax to taxing stock BuyBacks or even preventing them do you think any of them I think they have to destroy some inequalities probably going to go away by itself why well I think there was a I think we hit a peak of inequality because the authorities had no alternative but to print a lot of money of course that bailed out asset values and but that was a fluke and they can't they can't really do more of it they've played that game once as much as they really can so I don't think people were worried about inequality I should worry too much about a lot more of it from a lot more interest rate lowering let me shift gears a little bit Charlie and ask you about the U.S economy and um what is your take on where things are right now well obviously they're booming but you know the economy sometimes booms and sometimes it doesn't and you have to live your life through both episodes and our attitude is we just keep swimming and sometimes the tide is with us and sometimes against and but we keep swimming either way are you surprised by how long this expansion has lasted it's lasted a long time but what was really remarkable isn't that we never printed money so much and spelled it so fast and brought back so much debt public and private so this is total Terror incognita in economics and now I know what he knew for sure how it was going to work so is it risky then of course it was risky but it worked and I I don't think they had much else that would work they weren't set up to do stimulus too much controversy Democratic inertia is the very sky so they had to do something and all they had left was just to print money and start buying things and that's what they did and it turned out to be A very wise response and it was even more remarkable is that both Congress and the presidency and under both parties made the same decision they all cooperated it was the last time but where is that going to leave us ultimately well it left us licking the Great Recession so maybe we'll attract cooperation again since it worked so well once how much is President Trump responsible for this current economic situation well I think he deserves a some credit but a lot of it just happened economic cycle yeah and the decisions of his predecessors um what do you think about the president's campaign to Lobby the FED to lower rates or keep rates low well I think presidents have always done this if you're a politician democracy of course you want people to bring money and spend it and of course it's not a good idea the best example probably in the whole world is Singapore which has zero death and never prints money and spends it and is one of the most successful places on Earth I wish we were like that but there's only one Singapore well some people now say that federal debt is not a problem at all well if you believe that you believe in the tooth fairy because then we don't have to have any more taxes ever we'll just rent money and live happily ever after it obviously won't work so there comes a point when printing money is counterproductive are we at that point or you can no I don't think we are at that point but nobody knew where the point was going to come and we don't know now none of these people who are so pompously sure of things because we all want reassurance and so they provide it but nobody really knows how much of this is too much and do you have any thoughts on Jay Powell and the job that he's done I think he's as good a choice as we could have made one consequence of this expansion or actually it precedes that it's just something that's occurred in our economy over the past 50 years really has been wealth and income inequality yeah one do you see it as a problem two if so how do we address it well it's a problem of enough politicians are screaming about it that makes it a problem if it weren't for that this one will go away by itself it happened by accident we were in Desperate trouble we were on the eve of a Great Recession that could have been a great depression and Then followed by the rise of people like Adolf Hitler and so on and so on so we haste a real catastrophe the only weapon they had was to print money and spend it and they did it and they drove interest rates down to zero or real interest rates well of course that lifted asset values for the people who are already rich nobody was trying to make the rich richer it just was an accidental byproduct of a correct governmental decision made on a bipartisan basis and since it was a weird byproduct that occurred you know where it would go away by itself a new course it would go away by itself sure so there's no reason for people that are screaming about other idiots it's going to go away by itself that's not to say that we can't raise the minimum wage a little and enlarge the social safety net level we should be doing that as we Prosper both parties agree on that what are your current thoughts on the inflationary environment and please compare and contrast it to the 1970s when volcker after the 70s took the primary to 20 percent and the government was paying 15 on its government bonds that was a horrible recession lasted a long time caused a lot of Agony and I certainly hope we're never we're not going there again I think the conditions that allowed volcker to do that without an interference from about politicians were very unusual 2020 hindsight it was a good thing that he did it I would not predict that our modern politicians will be as willing to permit a new Volker to get that tough with the economy and bring on that kind of a recession so I think the new troubles are likely to be different from the old troubles the troubles that come to us could be worse than what Volker was dealing with and harder to fix like what think of all the Latin American countries that print too much money they get strong men and so forth that's what Plato said happened in the early Greek city-state democracies one person one vote a lot of equality and you get demagogues and the Democrats gogs lather of the population I'm pretty soon you don't have your democracy anymore I don't think that was a crazy idea on Plato's part I think that accurately described what happened in Greece way back then and it's happened again and again again in Latin America we don't want to go there at least I don't conventional economic theory argues that excessive monetary and fiscal stimulus over the last two years has triggered the highest inflation in 40 years do you broadly agree with this thesis and more importantly do you think there will be a high economic price to pay as the FED attempts to bring inflation back under control we've done something pretty extreme and we don't know how bad the troubles will be and whether we're going to be like Japan or or something a lot worse what makes life interesting is we don't know it's going to work out I think we do know we're flirting with Sarah is trouble I think we also know that some of our earlier fears were were overblown Japan is still existing as a Civilized Nation in spite of unbelievable excess by all former standards in terms of money printing think of how seductive it is you have a bunch of interest-bearing debts and you pay them off with checking accounts which you're no longer paying interest think of how seductive that is for a bunch of legislators you get rid of the interest payments and you use the money supply goes up it seems like heaven and of course when things get that seductive they're likely to be overused do you think it's likely that we will experience a major increase in interest rates in the upcoming decades like for example in the period between 1950 and 1980.
well that of course is a very intelligent question and a very difficult question when you print money on the scale what modern nations are printing it Japan the United States Europe Etc we're getting into new territory in terms of size the Japanese brought back not only a lot of their own debt but a lot of the Common Stocks so the Federal Reserve System you can't imagine how much money printing Japan has done they haven't had all that much inflation and they it's still a very admirable civilization Japan is one of the more admirable civilizations in the whole world and in spite of all this very extreme government money printing they've done and they haven't had terrible consequences now they've had 25 years of stasis with living standards not improving very much I don't think that came from their Mercury economic policies I think that came from the rise of tough competition for their export Powerhouse from China and Korea it's weird what's happening and nobody knows for sure how it's going to work out I think it's encouraging that Japan can spread as much money as it has and remain as civilized and calmeth and and admirable as it has and so I hope to God the United States has similar happy outcome there's never anything quite like what we're doing now and we do know from what's happened in other nations if you transplant too much money it eventually causes terrible trouble and we are closer to terrible trouble than we've been in the past but it may still be a long way off I certainly hope so
Comments 0