Crypto is a ‘venereal disease’ and US-China tensions are ‘massively stupid’, says Buffett business partner Munger
- Charlie Munger said he was proud to have avoided cryptocurrency, calling it ‘beneath contempt’ for enabling ‘extortions and kidnappings tax evasion’
- A long-time China bull, Munger said the US and China should not have allowed tensions to escalate
Munger, 98, spoke while fielding nearly two hours of questions at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp, the Los Angeles newspaper publisher and provider of software to courthouses that he chairs.
“We wish that China and the United States got along better,” he said. “Think about how massively stupid both China and the United States have been to allow the existing tensions to rise … They should like us and we should like them.”
He showed no such mercy for cryptocurrency, saying he wished it had been banned from the start.
“I’m proud of the fact that I avoided it. It’s like some venereal disease,” Munger said.
“I just regard it as beneath contempt. Some people think it’s modernity, and they welcome a currency that’s so useful in extortions and kidnappings tax evasion.”
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Is cryptocurrency too risky for China?
He said he thought incorrectly a half-century ago that would also be true for newspapers, and lamented their being displaced by media telling people on both sides of the political spectrum only what they want to hear.
“This is no substitute for Walter Cronkite and all those great newspapers of yesteryear,” Munger said, referring to the legendary CBS News anchor.
Berkshire sold its own newspaper portfolio in 2020 to Lee Enterprises Inc.
Yahoo Finance broadcast the Daily Journal meeting.
