Charlie Munger spoke to the Wall Street Journal
The world is awaiting word from Warren Buffett about what Berkshire Hathaway is doing. A buying signal from the world's greatest investor would go a long ways.
He's kept mum for the past month and that continues but his top deputy -- Charlie Munger -- spoke to the WSJ in comments just published.
Here are some highlights:
Doesn't sound like they're being agressive:
"Well, I would say basically we're like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon that's ever happened comes," Mr. Munger told me. "We just want to get through the typhoon, and we'd rather come out of it with a whole lot of liquidity. We're not playing, 'Oh goody, goody, everything's going to hell, let's plunge 100% of the reserves [into buying businesses].'"
They want to keep the company safe:
"Warren wants to keep Berkshire safe for people who have 90% of their net worth invested in it. We're always going to be on the safe side. That doesn't mean we couldn't do something pretty aggressive or seize some opportunity. But basically we will be fairly conservative. And we'll emerge on the other side very strong."
The phones at Berkshire aren't ringing, instead they're calling the government:
"No, they aren't," said Mr. Munger. "The typical reaction is that people are frozen. Take the airlines. They don't know what the hell's doing. They're all negotiating with the government, but they're not calling Warren. They're frozen. They've never seen anything like it. Their playbook does not have this as a possibility."
Charlies is 96 years old but he's never seen anything like this:
"This thing is different. Everybody talks as if they know what's going to happen, and nobody knows what's going to happen."..."Of course we're having a recession," said Mr. Munger. "The only question is how big it's going to be and how long it's going to last. I think we do know that this will pass. But how much damage, and how much recession, and how long it will last, nobody knows."
He's worried about the money printing:
"I don't think we'll have a long-lasting Great Depression. I think government will be so active that we won't have one like that. But we may have a different kind of a mess. All this money-printing may start bothering us."
