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멍거는 최근 고인플레이션을 우려하며 과도한 통화·재정 부양이 심각한 문제를 낳을 수 있다고 봄. 다만 일본은 대규모 돈 풀기에도 인플레이션이 낮았고 문명적으로 안정적이었다고 언급하며 결과가 불확실하다고 강조. 일본 사례 해설: 1989년 닛케이225 고점 38,916 이후 버블 붕괴로 장기 침체. 일본은 통화 공급 증가에도 대부분 인플레이션이 2% 미만이었음. 멍거는 경제 예측의 불확실성을 강조하며 돈 찍기는 불장난과 같다고 봄. 1920년대 독일 초인플레이션 사례: 전쟁 부채 상환을 위한 화폐 발행으로 임금이 하루 두 번 지급될 정도로 가치가 폭락, 사회 불안과 제2차 세계대전 원인 중 하나로 거론. 미국의 향후 경로는 일본과 독일 사이 스펙트럼 어딘가에 있을 것으로 봄. 1970~80년대 스태그플레이션 및 볼커 연준 의장의 금리 인상(기준금리 약 20%) 사례: 두 차례 침체를 감수하며 인플레이션을 잡았음. 현재 정치 환경에서는 같은 수준의 긴축을 용인하기 어려워 새로운 문제는 과거와 다른 형태일 것으로 봄. 투자 전략: 현금 보유는 인플레이션으로 가치가 잠식되고, 매도 시 세금·수수료 마찰비용이 발생하며, 폭락을 기다리는 타이밍 전략은 위험. 멍거는 이해하는 소수의 우량 기업에 집중 투자하는 'least bad' 대안을 제시. 진행자 본인도 7~8개 종목 집중 포트폴리오와 미국 중서부 임대부동산 투자를 병행한다고 밝힘. 결론: 인플레이션은 심각한 위험이지만 결과는 불확실하며, 투자자는 덜 나쁜 선택지인 소수 우량주 장기 보유를 고려해야 함.
다듬은 글
what makes life interesting is we don't know how it's going to work out i think we do know we're flirting with serious trouble inflation is at such high levels right now that those of us under the age of 40 have never even lived through a period of such high inflation before in fact the most recent inflation data in the united states showed inflation hit a staggering 7.5 percent we are all seeing higher prices for everything from groceries rent home prices energy prices and even the cost to purchase a vehicle while this may be the first time most of us have lived through substantial inflation at almost 100 years old charlie munger knows a thing or two about inflation because well he's lived through it before so that's why i got my attention when i heard charlie speak on the topic of inflation in a recent interview make sure to hang around till the end of the video to hear charlie's advice about how you can avoid the damage inflation causes whether you are a new investor or a professional investor like myself we can all learn a thing or two from charlie now let's listen to what he has to say 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 i guess um the reasons for it um i agree with it we've done something we've done something pretty extreme and we don't know how bad the troubles will be whether we're going to be like japan or or something a lot worse and 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 bought 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 and they haven't had all that much inflation and they it's still a very admirable civilization in fact you you could argue that 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 macroeconomic policies i think that came from the rise of tough competition for their export powerhouse from china and korea but at any rate 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 calm as and and admirable as it has and so i hope to god the united states is similar happy outcome if you didn't know or couldn't tell by the clip charlie is a student of history he studies history in order to shape his thinking about how to better understand what's happening in the world currently i think it's extremely interesting here how when munger is asked about his thoughts on inflation particularly in the united states he brought up japan as an example now for those of us that aren't familiar with japan and its history it's worth noting that there is a period of time where many smart people thought japan would become the world's dominant economy and pass the united states in fact japan's recovery from the devastation of world war ii was so impressive that it is referred to as the japanese economic miracle hang in there with me we are getting to why this is relevant japan's overheated economy money printing and large amounts of debt led to one of the greatest stock market bubbles of all time not just in japan but in the history of capitalism in late 1989 the nikkei 225 think of it as the japanese version of the s p 500 hit a high of 38 9116 now over 30 years later the nikkei 225 is just under 27 000.
the burst of this bubble led to a stagnant japanese economy for years obviously japan's money printing led to problems but notably one problem that the money printing didn't lead to was inflation japan's money supply has increased significantly over the years logically economic theory would suggest that this would lead to inflation and pretty significant inflation at that however that has not been the case take a look at this chart of japan's inflation rate over the past 25 years it has almost always been below 2 and in many years has actually been negative very different from the high rates of inflation one would think would have been a result of japan's economic policies the reason charlie munger brings up japan is that when it comes to economics no one truly knows what's going to happen i like to think of charlie's business partner warren buffett to further explain this specifically when he compared the economy to a math equation most people want to view the economy like a simple equation with only a couple of variables they think that if x happens then y must happen however in reality making economic predictions is not that simple instead of a simple equation with only a few variables the economy should be viewed as a complex equation with hundreds or even thousands of variables and these variables are always changing and evolving so it is extremely difficult to see how the economy will be impacted by one single action while we don't know exactly what's going to happen in the future as charlie will go on to explain printing money is like playing with fire and there's a chance it won't end well what makes life interesting is we don't know how it's going to work out i think we do know we're flirting with serious 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 access by all former standards in terms of money printing with there's no we've there's never been anything quite like what we're doing now and we do know from what's happened in other nations if you if you try and print too much money it eventually causes terrible trouble and we are closer to terrible trouble than an example munger frequently cites in his interviews and lectures is germany during the 1920s long story short germany was in large amounts of debt due to world war one in order to pay back this debt and its other government obligations the government simply printed more money believe it or not inflation got so bad that workers were paid twice each day because prices rose so fast that the workers wages were virtually worthless by lunch time as you can probably imagine this led to significant instability and social unrest within the country many historians actually look back at this hyperinflationary period as one of the root causes of the second world war i think the best way to think about what will happen to the united states due to this money printing is to view it on a spectrum with japan on one end and 1920s germany on the other end now as monger mentioned earlier in this video it's really hard to say what exactly will be the result of all this money printing on the one end you have japan that relatively speaking was rather unimpacted by the amount of excessive money printing on the quality of life of its citizens but on the other hand you have germany during the 1920s where the results of money printing were absolutely disastrous charlie and frankly all of us are hoping the ultimate impact on the united states will look a lot more like japan ultimately though only time will tell but something that we probably don't want to see a repeat of is the 1970s and early 1980s where inflation was routinely at or around 10 annually even topping out at around percent in nineteen eighty when we when volcker after the seventies took the primary to twenty percent and the government was paying fifteen percent on its government bonds that was a horrible recession lasted a long time caught with 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 and i think it in 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 volcker 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 this is related these are all you may wish you had a vocal you may wish you had you had a vocal style recession instead of what you're going to get the troubles that come to us could be worse than what volker was dealing with and harder to fix paul volcker was the chair of the federal reserve from 1979 to 1987 and is widely credited with helping end the high levels of inflation seen in the united states during the 1970s and early 1980s you see during this time period america was suffering from what is referred to as stagflation stagflation is the combination of three things that no economy wants high inflation but also slow economic growth and high unemployment inflation is tough by itself but when you add on a stagnant economy and a large number of people who are unemployed it gets even worse in order to combat this very nasty inflation paul volcker raised rates pretty dramatically and as a result that did not make him a very popular person at the time as it led to the serious recession that charlie referred to in fact it led to not only one recession but two recessions in a relatively short period of time which economists refer to as a double dip recession in order to quote break the back of inflation volcker dramatically slowed the rate of growth in the u.s money supply to bring price inflation to heal this provoked an immediate but relatively short recession through the first half of 1980.
through the second half of 1980 and into 1981 the economy began to recover real gdp rose but unemployment and inflation both remained stubbornly high at around 7.5 percent and 10 respectively through this period with inflation again accelerating in late 1981 volcker maintained its tight money slash high interest rate policy and the economy re-entered recession unemployment rose to 10.8 percent by the end of 1982.
during this time volcker faced increasingly sharp criticism and even threats of impeachment from the u.s congress and the treasury secretary at the time the reason why this is relevant today is because as i'm sure you can imagine recessions are not good for politicians that want to get re-elected however many economists would argue that recessions are part of a normal economy it took a lot of political willpower in order for volcker to take these necessary steps without political interference charlie questions the ability of the federal reserve to be able to take similar steps if necessary in today's political climate now with that background i want to address the most important question of this video given this inflationary environment how should we as investors be investing in order to build wealth it may be that you have to choose the least bad of your a bunch of options that frequently happens in human decision making and the mongers have berkshire stock costco stock chinese stock sioux lilu a little bit of daily journal stock and a bunch of apartment houses do i think that's perfect no do i think it's okay yes i think the great lesson from the mongers is you don't need all this damn diversification that's plenty of you're lucky if you've got four good assets i think the finance professors and the sell the idea that perfect diversification is professional investment if you're trying to do better than average you're lucky if you have four things to buy and to ask for 20 is really asking for egg in your beer it's it's very few people get can have enough brains to get 20 good investments us as investors right now have to pick between the least bad alternatives this current investment environment is not made any easier by the fact that stock prices well not at all-time highs due to the recent sell-off are still relatively close to all-time highs additionally asset values for real estate small businesses and other investments have also skyrocketed given that everything is so darn expensive people may be tempted to sell out of everything and wait for the crash they believe is coming to bring down stock prices and then jump back in and take advantage of the crash to buy at the low prices however i think it's worth pointing out a few issues with that strategy the first is what is referred to as friction costs associated with selling an example of this would be the taxes you would have to pay when you sell an investment let's say you bought a stock years ago and now you have made one hundred thousand dollars on that investment if you sell that stock you have to pay taxes on that one hundred thousand dollar profit you made that means that the stock would have to fall by more in value than the amount of taxes you paid just to break even on trying to time the market additionally if the asset you're looking to sell is less liquid like an investment property not only will you have to pay taxes on your profits but you also have to pay commissions and fees such as real estate agent commissions the next issue with trying to time the market and this is especially relevant given what's happening now is that when you're holding large amounts of cash that's not invested inflation is eating away at the value of the money you are holding each year every dollar that you are holding becomes worth less and less due to inflation and then finally maybe that crash never even comes maybe the stock market and other asset values just hover at these high levels for years while you pay taxes and other frictional costs associated with selling out of your investments and are being negatively impacted by inflation due to all the cash we're holding now in charlie's opinion we should take the least bad alternative that means investing in a few high quality businesses that you understand and hold that concentrated portfolio for the long term this is what charlie is doing with his family's investment in berkshire hathaway and costco as well as owning some apartment buildings personally i am employing a similar strategy as charlie my stock portfolio is relatively concentrated with seven to eight holdings additionally i am investing in rental properties both in the new york city suburbs where i live but i'm really focusing my real estate portfolio on rental properties in the midwest united states if you want to see what stocks i personally hold in my portfolio as well as access to the tools i use to analyze stocks you can access that through my patreon through the link in my description feel free to check it out because the tools are focused on helping improve your investing skills so there you have it let me know what you guys think about what charlie has to say on inflation in the comments below i always love hearing what you guys have to say as always thank you so much for watching make sure to give this video a like and subscribe to the investor center because it is my goal to make you a better investor by studying the world's 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