Buffett business partner Munger laments U.S.-China tensions, calls crypto 'venereal disease'

Lee Enterprises

16/02/2022 22:07

By Jonathan Stempel
    Feb 16 (Reuters) - Charlie Munger, the longtime business
partner of Warren Buffett, on Wednesday said it is "massively
stupid" for tensions to escalate between the United States and
China, and separately said cryptocurrency should have been
banned, calling it "beneath contempt."
    Munger, 98, spoke while fielding nearly two hours of
questions at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp  DJCO.O ,
the Los Angeles newspaper publisher and provider of software to
courthouses that he chairs.
    He is better known as vice chairman of Buffett's
conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc  BRKa.N  since 1978.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2MO0DS
    Munger is a longtime bull on China, spearheading Berkshire's
investment in electric car maker BYD Co  002594.SZ  and recently
doubling Daily Journal's stake in e-commerce company Alibaba
Group Holding Ltd  BABA.N .
    But asked about political pressures from China, he said
recent deterioration in U.S.-China relations wasn't justified by
their different systems of government, or because one country
does some things better than the other.
    "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  and  tax evasion."
    Munger also predicted that Berkshire holding Apple Inc
 AAPL.O , Google parent Alphabet Inc  GOOGL.O  and Microsoft
Corp  MSFT.O  will be "really strong" 50 years from now.
    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  LEE.N .
    Yahoo Finance broadcast the Daily Journal meeting.

 (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Diane
Craft)
 ((jon.stempel@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646 223 6317; Reuters
Messaging: jon.stempel.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))