if you take the modern world where people are trying to teach you how to come in and trade actively in stocks well I regard that as roughly equivalent to trying to induce a bunch of young people to start off on heroin it is really stupid and when you're already rich to make your money by encouraging people to get rich by trading and then there are people on the TV another wonderful place and they say I have this book that will teach you how to make 300% a year and all you have to do is pay
for shipping and I will mail it to you How likely is that a person who had suddenly found a way to make 300% a year would be trying to sell books on the internet to you and it's ridiculous and yet I've just described modern Commerce and the people that do this all day think they're useful citizens the advertising agents and vent the lingo and so in insurance they say but they mislead you on purpose and and I get tired of it and I I don't think it's right that we deliberately mislead people as much as
we do let me tell you another story that I think is an interesting one about the Modern Life but this goes back to a different time and this man has this wonderful horse and it's just a marvelous horse got an easy gate and goodlooking and everything it just works wonderfully but also occasionally just gets so he's dangerous and vicious and causes enormous damage and trouble and breaks arms and legs for there's Rider and so on and he goes to the vet and say what can I do about this horse the vet says that's a very
easy problem and I'm glad to help you says what should I do and the man says the next time you're horse is behaving well sell it well think of how immoral that is and haven't I just described what private Equity has to do when private Equity has to sell something that's really Troublesome they hire an investment banker and what does the investment banker do he makes a projection you can't I I have never seen such expertise in my whole life as this created in making projections in Investment Banking there is no business so lousy it
can't get a wonderful projection and but is that a great way to make a living to have phony projections and use it to make money out of people you look right into the eyes of I would say no and by and large Warren and I we never tried to make money out of dumb say out of stupidity of our dumb buyers we tried to make money by buying and if we were selling horseshit we didn't want to pretend it was a cure for arthritis and and and and I think it's better to go through life
our way instead of theirs and I I I think it's always been this way I there's always been chanary think of the carnivals of the Carney operator think how much trickier there is in a Carney operation and people just seek out the weaknesses of their fellow man and take advantage and you have to get wise enough so you you avoid them all and you can't avoid them if they're in your family I have no solution to that one but but where are you here have a fair Choice there just so many people that should be
avoided my father had this best friend and client and he also had this other client who is a big blow hard and and he was always working for the big blow hard and he wasn't ever working for his wonderful clown whom I admired and I said why do you do this and he said Charlie you idiot he says the big blow heart is is an endless source of legal troubles he's all always in trouble overreaching and misbehaving and so forth where is this grant mcfaden treats everybody right the employees the customers everything he gets involved
with some psychotic he walks over there and makes an Grace immediately so a man like that doesn't need a lawyer and my father was trying to teach me something and it really worked I spent my whole life trying to be like Grant mcfaden and I want to tell you it works it really works Peter coffin is always telling me if the crooks only knew how much money you could make by being honest they' all behave differently it's Warren has a wonderful saying I like he say you take the high road it's never crowded and it's
work take the Daily Journal Corporation we made quite a few millions of dollars out of the Foreclosure boom because we published legal notices and we dominated the publication of foreclosure notices in the worst real estate depression in the history of modern times and we could have raised our prices at the time and made more tens of millions of dollars but we didn't do it you know when your fellow citizens are losing their damn houses in the worst recession Charlie Munger billionaire raises prices if it would look lousy on the front page of the the paper
for people around on the St should you do it and the answer is no of course not particularly when you're Warren always said it's a probably always a mistake to marry for money and it's really stupid if you're already rich and and it's really stupid when you're already rich to get a reputation of being a total no good Nick Rick Garen always loved the story about the guy who had been a total misg Grant all his life and he died in Minister said now is the time in the funeral ceremony when somebody says something nice
about the deceased and nobody came forward and nobody came forward nobody came forward finally one guy stood up and he said well he said his brother was worse well you can laugh but there are people like that when Harry con died here the the saying was everybody went to the funeral to make sure he was dead and and so it's there are a few simple truths that really work and and when it gets to this difficult business The Daily Journal is in I would say it is a real pleasure to be serving these courts and
agencies they need the automation other people are trying to take advantage of them in ways that we aren't and we're struggling against the odds a little tiny company and and we're taking a lot of territory that's slowo but the prospects are are good and of course the nice thing about reading riches it doesn't matter if it's a Lo oh
