Well, the first rule is that you canβt really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang βem back. If the facts donβt hang together on a latticework of theory, you donβt have them in a usable form. Youβve got to have mental models in your head. And youβve got to array your experience, both vicarious and direct, on this latticework of models.
I'm a great admirer of the Trump change of mind about China and making an ally out of China instead of screaming about their trade.
A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.
Who would want one's children growing up buying things like bitcoin? I hope to God my family doesn't buy it. It's noxious poison.
When someone takes their existing business and tries to transform it into something else - they fail. In technology that is often the case. Look at Kodak: it was the dominant imaging company in the world. They did fabulously during the great depression, but then wiped out the shareholders because of technological change.
Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading.
I believe Costco does more for civilization than the Rockefeller Foundation. I think it's a better place. You get a bunch of very intelligent people sitting around trying to do good, I immediately get kind of suspicious and squirm in my seat.
The perfect example of Darwinism is what technology has done to businesses.
Alternatives to gold and currency and to make a big speculative vehicle - I never considered for one second having anything to do with it. I detested it the minute it had been raised.
I think people who multitask pay a huge price. They think they're being extra productive, and I think when you multitask so much you don't have time to think about anything deeply, you are giving the world an advantage you shouldn't do, and practically everybody is drifting into that mistake.
Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.
Wells Fargo had a glitch - the truth of the matter is they made a business judgement that was wrong. I don't think anything is fundamentally wrong.
They made a mistake. And it was an easy mistake to make. I don't regard setting incentives aggressively as a mistake. I think the mistake was, when the bad news came, they didn't recognize it directly. I don't think that impairs the future of Wells Fargo. They'll be better for it.
Economics profession, they've been - they've been confident in various formulas, but economics is not physics. The same formula that works in one decade doesn't work in the next. Economics is a difficult subject.
Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.
If you're glued together right and honorable, you will succeed. Get in there and get rid of stupidities and avoid bad people. Try teaching that to your grandchildren. The best way is by example. Fix yourself.
A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
If you can get really good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.
People are trying to be smart - all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it's harder than most people think.
It is one thing to think gold has some marvelous store of value because man has no way of inventing more gold or getting it very easily, so it has the advantage of rarity. Believe me, man is capable of somehow creating more bitcoin... They tell you there are rules and they can't do it. Don't believe them.
