저자: 워런버핏 · 외국인
요약 보기
이 영상은 버핏과 멍거가 Q&A에 답하는 형식으로, 주식 투자 입문 경험, 미국 고등교육 비용, 중국의 경제 발전, 다우존스(월스트리트저널) 사업 기회에 대해 이야기한다. 투자 입문: 버핏은 어린 시절부터 투자에 열정을 가졌고, 벤저민 그레이엄의 『현명한 투자자』를 만나 명확한 원칙을 얻었다고 말한다. 멍거는 투자가 이해 가능한 수준으로 복잡하면서도 감정적 안정이 필요한 게임이라고 설명한다. 버크셔 운영: 멍거는 단순히 주식을 골라 보유하는 수동적 투자만으로는 충분한 삶이 아니며, 버크셔를 운영하는 것이 훨씬 더 만족스럽다고 말한다. 고등교육 비용: 멍거는 대학 등록금이 계속 오르는 현상을 비판하며, 고학력자의 높은 소득이 대학 교육 효과인지 사전 능력 차이인지 불분명하다고 본다. 경기침체 때 대학들이 인력을 감축해 효율화된 사례도 언급한다. 두 사람 모두 기존 제도를 바꾸기는 어렵다고 보며, 소송 등 강한 외부 압력이 있어야 변화가 생길 수 있다고 말한다. 중국 경제: 멍거는 중국 경제에 매우 낙관적이며, 반부패 정책과 리콴유식 공무원 처우 개선을 높이 평가한다. 버핏은 40여 년간의 중국 발전을 기적에 가깝다고 평가하고, 미국과 중국이 상대의 장점을 보며 협력해야 한다고 말한다. 다우존스: 버핏은 1960~70년대 다우존스가 금융정보 시장에서 막대한 잠재력을 가졌지만 소유 구조와 경영진의 상상력 부족으로 기회를 살리지 못했다고 설명한다. 블룸버그 등장 전에 독점적 위치에 있었음에도 그 가치를 실현하지 못했다고 본다. 멍거는 톰 머피 같은 경영자라면 더 나은 결과를 냈을 수 있다고 덧붙인다. 주요 메시지: 이 영상에는 특정 종목이나 자산의 향후 1~3개월 가격 방향에 대한 직접적 예측은 없으며, 주로 장기적 관점의 투자 철학과 거시·제도적 견해가 중심이다.
다듬은 글
What would you say was the most important reason for your early success with small amounts of capital? And based on today's experience, what could you change to improve your strategy with these small funds? Yes. Well, I had a great teacher. I had exceptional focus and the right emotional qualities that helped me become an investor.
I liked this game. That is, if we put it this way, it is complex enough to be interesting, but not so complex as to go beyond the possibilities of understanding it. And that's exactly what this game is. These are not the complex issues that Henry Singleton solved. It's actually a pretty easy game, although it does require some emotional stability.
I took on it, you know, with all my heart. I studied all the manuals and stuff, but I enjoyed it. And like I said, I started between the ages of seven and about 19. I had the same enthusiasm, but there was no guiding principle. And then I came across The Intelligent Investor and Ben Graham, and at that moment I was able to channel all my energy and enthusiasm, because now I had a philosophy that made a lot of sense, a lot of sense, and that I could apply.
So the game became even more interesting. But in reality, it wasn't any more complicated than that. Charlie. Well, I have nothing to add. I really think it's an easy game if someone has the right temperament and continues to play it because they enjoy it and it's interesting to them. I have a problem that is less related to Warren.
I don't like to be too much of an example to people who want to get rich by being crafty and passively buying and holding securities. I don't think that's a full life. If you make a fortune by being smarter than others and buying pieces of paper, I don't consider that an adequate contribution in exchange for what you take.
So I like it when you invest money for a fund, a pension fund, or your relatives, but I've never thought that just being clever about choosing stocks and passively holding them is enough for life. Yes. Running Berkshire was much, much more interesting than, in my case, the Buffett Partnership or just an investment fund .
I mean, you would be a lesser person if you were running this partnership. That would be a crazy way to live life. Yes. I mean, Berkshire is incredibly more satisfying. So if you are good at investing just your own money, I hope you move on to something bigger. Warren, Charlie, the higher education system has expanded to include almost anyone who would like to get a university education.
This demand has led to rising college tuition costs. As a senior in high school, I am looking at prestigious institutions like UPenn, Villanova, NYU, Fordham, and Boston University. On the other hand, my parents are shocked by the prices. All of these educational institutions have a face value of over $60,000.
Some students, as shown in an article on business.com, can pay over $70,000, as is the case with NYU. How will the average American family be able to afford this in the future? And, more importantly, how do you both feel about it? Charlie. Well, the average American family does this by choosing less expensive institutions and receiving huge subsidies from expensive universities.
If we only provided higher education to those who could write checks for $60 or $70 thousand a year, we wouldn't have as many students. So most people pay less or get subsidies, but I think the big problem is that education keeps getting more expensive, more expensive, more expensive, and they say that people with higher education achieve more.
It's a good deal, but maybe they're achieving more because they were better before they even went to college and they never tell you that. This is a ridiculous argument. and so I think this is one of the most ridiculous statistics they publish. I mean, to argue that higher education costs X because people who go to college earn significantly more than those who don't .
You're talking about two different worlds, and attributing all the difference to one variable—the fact that they went to college—as opposed to the difference between people who want to study and have the ability to get into college. This is complete madness, and about 70% of people believe it. So this raises some doubts about whether one can rely on one's fellow human beings.
So I think most people just have to put up with the system as it is. There is a big tendency to raise prices to a level that can be collected, and people simply rationalize that the service is worth it. And I think a lot of this happened in education. Of course, higher education often teaches a lot of things that are not very useful to those who study them.
And of course, all these people would never learn anything from anything. So it's just a waste of your time. And that's exactly how it works. So I think there's a lot wrong here. What I noticed interestingly was that when the Great Recession hit, every successful university in America had a terrible overstaffing problem , and they were all acting just like 3G.
All of them, faced with a lack of money, laid off many people. The end result: when it was all over, they started working better without these people. So this kind of optimization is n't so bad. I don't think there's a college in America that wants to go back to its old ways. You hit the spot, it's a real problem— looking at these prices, but it's like any other problem in life .
You just have to find your best option and live with it. We can't change Villanova or Fordham. They will do what they think is right, and as long as it works, they will continue to raise prices. And it will continue to work. Yes. And that's roughly how the system works. When things get really bad, the rebellion finally begins.
In my Los Angeles area, a minor car accident has become too expensive for everyone because of the huge amount of fraud by chiropractors, some plaintiffs' attorneys, and so on. Eventually, minor accidents became so costly that there was concern about whether a person living in a poor neighborhood could afford to commute to work.
And the auto insurance companies thought, "Oh my God, prices are going up like this. " "They'll pass laws creating state auto insurance or something." So, the result is that they started suing every plaintiff's lawyer. And that fixed the situation. Perhaps something similar will happen in higher education.
But without a serious incentive, I think higher education will just continue to increase… On that optimistic note. We will move on to station two. Thank you. Thank you for answering my question. My name is Brendan Chin. I am from Taipei, Taiwan. My question: China is going through a series of structural changes.
When you take the pulse of the Chinese economy, what do you see and what advice would you give? Thank you. Charlie is an expert on China. I think China will do very well for a while. Yes, I'm a big fan of what's happening in China. In fact, I just ordered a bust of Lee Kuan Yew, the recently deceased Prime Minister of Singapore, because I believe he made a huge contribution to the development of first Singapore and then China.
One of the things that Lee Kuan Yew did in Singapore was to crack down on corruption, including the release of some of his close friends. And China is doing the same. I think this is the smartest thing I've seen in a major country in a long time. And I think it's hard to set a proper example if the top political leaders are kleptocrats.
You know, you don't want to be run by a den of thieves. You need responsible people. Lee Kuan Yew paid civil servants much better salaries, hired very capable people, and created a better system. Of course, China is actively following suit, and that's a great thing. So, I'm very optimistic about what's happening in China, and I think it's likely to work.
They even shot a few people, which is really eye-catching. Here we start to get practical advice. What has happened in China over the past 40 years seems to me simply miraculous. I would never have believed that a country, especially one of this size, could go through such a journey so quickly. And it has never happened before in the history of the world that a country of this scale has achieved such results.
When I was a little boy, 80% of China's population was illiterate and mired in poverty and agriculture. In addition, they went through terrible wars. And look at them now. This is one of the most remarkable achievements in human history. And several people made extraordinary contributions to this, including that Singaporean politician of Chinese descent.
I give credit to the Communist Party for emulating Lee Kuan Yew. Berkshire is doing the same thing—it's just copying the right people. In 1790, there were 4 million people in the United States. In China, there were 290 million. They were as smart as we are. They worked just as hard. Similar climate, similar soil, and for almost 200 years, the United States, with those 4 million people, has achieved 25% of the world's GDP, while China has not really advanced anywhere.
And then those same people 40 years later—they don't work harder now than they did 40 years ago. They have n't gotten any smarter in 40 years, in terms of basic intelligence. And just look what has been achieved. I mean, it shows human potential when you find a system that unlocks it. We found a system that unlocked human potential a few hundred years ago, and they found such a system 40 or 50 years ago.
And you know, when you see an example like that, it definitely has a powerful impact on what happens in the future. And it's simply amazing that people could go centuries without making any progress in their lives, and then have explosive development. It just blows my mind when I see it: these are the same people, but they found a way to reach their potential, and I congratulate them for that.
And, as Charlie said earlier, China and the United States will be superpowers for the foreseeable future . And I think it's really good for us that the Chinese have found a way to unleash their potential. And I believe that for two countries with nuclear weapons in such a world, it is extremely important to learn to see the advantages in each other, not the disadvantages.
like this. We will have many disagreements with the Chinese, as they will with us, but we must remember that, in the end , we are both better off when the other side prospers. This is just my own opinion. Uh, my name is John Boxto. I'm from South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. My question was about an interview you, Mr.
Buffett, gave a few years ago. Uh, you made a very interesting point. It was about the old Wall Street Journal, if you will, the one that existed before it was bought by News Corp. In the interview, you mentioned that the Wall Street Journal had very significant competitive advantages at some point in the past , but many of them remained largely unrealized.
I would like to know if you could elaborate on this: what those benefits were, how they remained unrealized, etc. Thank you. Yes. Dow Jones, which owned the Wall Street Journal, you know, in the '60s and '70s , entering an era of enormous dissemination of financial information and its increasing value.
You know, they essentially owned this area. They had a news feed and a magazine that, you know, everyone who was interested in finances in the country associated themselves with. And they started with what you could call an incredibly promising industry—finance, you know, for the next 30 or 40 years.
I've already forgotten a few of the projects they invested in, but they bought a chain of small newspapers. I remember one time they just didn't understand what was going to happen. Here comes Michael Bloomberg and takes all the financial information . They had that advantage, but they didn't really see the different directions they could take that would likely turn the company into a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
They had a situation where the company was owned by one family, and a lawyer essentially controlled its actions. They felt good, they received dividends, but there was no one among them with an imagination about what could be done in the financial sphere. So , with such starting positions, they were a reliable name.
They were in every brokerage firm in the country thanks to their news teletype. I was at Walter Annenberg's house once, and he had a Dow Jones teletype machine there . It was just a news teletype, and there couldn't have been a better place for them. They couldn't have started from a stronger position.
They had a very good balance. But they just let the world leave them behind. Now Rupert is turning it into another newspaper. It is actually competing or about to compete with the New York Times. It's a game he enjoys, and it creates a very interesting competitive situation . Charlie, well, they ended up getting six or seven billion dollars.
They may have squandered their opportunities, but they did not destroy their fortune. If only Tom Murphy had these cards. Oh, yes. That would be hundreds of billions, right? Well, I don't know. I'm not sure if we had these cards. Well, I'm not entirely sure about Murph. There were many opportunities there.
I think even Murph is more like us than Bill Gates. I don't know where this leads, but Well, but I think it's hard to invent new, completely new ways of doing things, etc. I think Bill would have had great success with Dow Jones too. Yes, maybe he could do better than me. Yes, I would like to agree with that in hindsight.
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