In his own words
Munger on Ethics
17 sourced quotes. All themes
“They are way too liberal in providing the kind of accounting the financial promoters want. They've sold out, and they do not even realize that they've sold out.”
“You can't save everybody. That would have created unlimited revulsion in the body politic. I probably would have let Lehman go, too.”
His explanation for why letting Lehman Brothers fail was not, in his view, a mistake.
“We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don't think you should come anywhere near that line.”
“Just because it's a free market doesn't mean it's honorable.”
From Whitney Tilson's notes of the 2005 Wesco meeting.
“Valeant, of course, was a sewer. Those who created it deserve all the opprobrium that they got.”
“Rationality is a moral duty. It's a moral failure to be unreasonable when you have the capacity to be reasonable.”
“The cash register did more for human morality than the Congregational Church.”
“The ideal is not to just make all the money that can be legally be made without causing too much legal trouble. The idea is bigger than that. It's that we celebrate wealth only when it's been fairly won and wisely used.”
A deep cut — distinct from the family-motto aphorism 'a fortune fairly won and wisely used' he credited to a great-grandfather.
“I don't think capitalism requires that you make all the money that you can. I think there are times when you should be satisfied with less based on just ideas of decency.”
“I don't think you get a lot of credit in life for not committing adultery with the Virgin Mary.”
On Wall Street ethics — you get no credit for merely doing the bare legal minimum.
“It's just god-awful that something like that would draw investment from civilized men and decent citizens. It's deeply wrong. We don't want to make our money selling things that are bad for people.”
On Robinhood and payment-for-order-flow (2021).
“It's a deep moral depravity if some widow comes to you with $500,000 and you charge her one point a year when you could put her in the indexes — but you need the one point. So people just charge some widow a considerable fee for worthless advice.”
On advisers who charge a fee for advice worse than a free index fund.
“You don't have to remember your lies, which gets complicated if you keep lying all of the time. In fact, it gets so complicated that you're sure to fall off and you'll be recognized as a liar.”
His practical case for honesty — you never have to remember the truth.
“You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.”
“The current members of Congress that want to retain the former abusive accounting, which are probably a majority of the House of Representatives, are way worse than the people who wanted to round pi to an even number. Those people were stupid. These people are mostly not stupid, but dishonorable. I mean, they know it's wrong, and they want to do it anyway.”
On members of Congress defending abusive stock-option accounting.
“Of course they have an advantage. Cleverly obtained. Of course it does the rest of the civilization no good at all. It's the functional equivalent of letting rats into a grainery.”
On high-frequency trading (after Michael Lewis's 'Flash Boys').
“Why is the high road the best way in investment banking? It's not very crowded.”
From Tilson's notes; the 'high road / less crowded' idea he elsewhere credits to Buffett.