JohnB23

Charlie Munger's Lollapalooza Effect and This Credit Fiasco

Charlie's book, "Poor Charlie's Almanack" is excellent, a must read if you follow Munger. He has a revised "Misjudgement" speech in there.

What I take away from him is his problem solving ability. He gives you a very powerful checklist to go through.

It's amazing...a few years ago, all these guys were straining and killing themselves trying to explain the real estate bubble, yet its just a simple set of factors that takes a minute to explain..

People are naturally over confident. The bubble is aided by social proof, you see everyone else buying real estate and getting rich. It's aided by authority. Yale does a study and shows real estate will continue to go up...well if Yale says it, it must be true!

It's aided by incentives, brokers paid by commission, and loan officers. They dont care if it eventually goes down, they want their money right now. Aided again by jealousy, envy. The broker down the street made $200 k, I've got to make that.

And then just basic conditioning. You get conditioned to think that housing goes up forever. It's all self reinforcing. Then on the way down, theres simple denial. No one wants to look bad. Over confidence. And ultimately fear, and then a bottom.

Just go through the factors on the checklist. Very, very powerful for business and non business problems.