Another Oligarch Preaches to the Peasants – Charlie Munger Says “Prepare for Harder World”

Guest Post by Michael Krieger 

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While several exceptionally wealthy and successful people have admirably come out and spoken passionately of the broken nature of financial markets and the political system, as well as the threat this poses to society in general (think Paul Tudor Jones and Nick Hanauer), there have been several examples of oligarchs coming out and conversely demonstrating their complete disconnect from reality, as well as a disdain for the masses within a framework of incredible arrogance.

I’ve commented on such figures in the past, with the two most popular posts on the subject being:

A Billionaire Lectures Serfs in Davos – Claims “America’s Lifestyle Expectations are Far Too High”

An Open Letter to Sam Zell: Why Your Statements are Delusional and Dangerous

The latest example comes from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand man, who tends to demonstrate an incredible capacity for verbal diarrhea. Recall his commentary on gold: “gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939.”  

Moving along, Mr. Munger provided some typically insensitive commentary at an event yesterday in Los Angeles. Bloomberg reports that:

(Bloomberg) — Charles Munger, who became a billionaire while helping Warren Buffett build Berkshire Hathaway Inc., predicted it’s going to get tougher for consumers to maintain their standard of living in coming decades. 

“We should all be prepared for adjusting to a world that is harder,” Munger, 91, said Wednesday at an event in Los Angeles, in response to a question about the increase in the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet since the 2008 financial crisis. “You can count on the purchasing power of money to go down over time. And you can almost count that you’ll have more trouble in the next 50 years than the last.”

“Somebody my age has lived through the best and easiest period that ever happened in the history of the world — the lowest death rates, the highest investment production, biggest increases in most people’s standards of living,” Munger said. “If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”

There’s a staggering amount of offensiveness in such few words. First off, he says that: “We should all be prepared for adjusting to a world that is harder.” Who is included in the word “all” here. Certainly not his fellow oligarchs, who already bailed themselves out in incredible fashion and have been spending the years since protecting themselves from the horrible future they’ve created. No, he is speaking to the masses, the plebs, the serfs, the peasants, the ruled. He is telling them tough luck, just try to avoid cannibalism in the future. Meanwhile, if you get close to my castle I’ll have you shot down like a dog.

He then shows his cards once again with the statement: If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”

50 years of life? What about those us who haven’t had the pleasure of being alive so long. What about the millennials, the teenagers, and the babies being born right now? He couldn’t give a shit, which is exactly why he and his buddies went out of their way to protect the wealthy, older generations with their bailouts in 2008/09. Conveniently, this is the exact demographic he belongs to.

His comments are particularity striking when you take them in context of yesterday’s article from the Wall Street Journal: Executive Pensions Are Swelling at Top Companies. If you think these guys are going to be dealing with the “hard times” ahead like everyone else, think again.

From the WSJ:

Top U.S. executives get paid a lot to do their jobs. Now many are also getting a big boost in what they will be paid after they stop working.

Executive pensions are swelling at such companies as General Electric Co., United Technologies Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. While a significant chunk of the increase is the result of arcane pension accounting around issues like low interest rates and longer lifespans, the rest reflects very real improvements in the executives’ retirement prospects.

New mortality tables released last fall by the American Society of Actuaries extended life expectancies by about two years. That, as well as low year-end interest rates, helped push pension gains higher than many companies had expected. The result is much higher current values for plans with terms like guaranteed annual payouts, which are no longer offered to most rank-and-file workers.

Note that these guaranteed annual payouts are no longer offered to most rank-and-file workers. There are peasants and there are oligarchs. The peasants are the ones Munger speaks to.

 GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt’s compensation rose 88% last year to $37.3 million. Meanwhile, excluding $18.4 million in pension gains, his pay actually fell slightly to $18.9 million.

In all, Mr. Immelt’s pension is valued at about $4.8 million a year for life. The company puts its current value at about $70 million, up from around $52 million a year ago.

At Lockheed Martin Corp., CEO Marillyn Hewson’s total pay rose 34% to $33.7 million last year, with $15.8 million of that stemming from pension gains. An extra column in the proxy statement’s compensation table strips out those gains, showing her pay up about 13% to $17.9 million.

Executive pensions generally don’t consume the attention that pensions for the rank and file do. For years, as costs of traditional pension plans have risen amid low interest rates and longer lifespans, big companies have been closing them to new employees or even freezing benefits in place, often continuing with only a 401(k) plan for all but the oldest workers.

Last June, Lockheed Martin told its nonunion employees that it would stop reflecting salary increases in their pension benefits starting next year, and that the benefits would stop growing with additional years of work starting in 2020.

Just in case you needed further evidence of how all “public” policy, especially the actions of the Federal Reserve, are specifically designed to enrich the 0.01% at the expense of everyone else, let’s take a look at some excerpts from a CNBC article published today: Fed Policies Have Cost Savers $470 Billion:

The Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy after the financial crisis ended up costing savers nearly half a trillion dollars in interest income, according to report released Thursday.

Since the central bank dropped interest rates to near zero at the end of 2008, savers have labored under plain-vanilla bank accounts and money market funds that have yielded close to nothing. Critics have long said the Fed’s quantitative easing efforts have boosted asset prices, particularly in the stock market, but exacted severe costs across other parts of the economy.

If QE really helps everyone, then why has income inequality exploded? The answer, of course, is that QE picked winners and losers. Naturally, the winners have been the oligarchs, and the losers have been everyone else.

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Thanks for playing.

For related articles, see:

As the Middle Class Evaporates, Global Oligarchs Plan Their Escape from the Impoverished Pleb Masses

Just Another Tale from the Oligarch Recovery – $100 Million Homes Being Built on Spec

The Pitchforks are Coming…– A Dire Warning from a Member of the 0.01%

A Billionaire Lectures Serfs in Davos – Claims “America’s Lifestyle Expectations are Far Too High”

An Open Letter to Sam Zell: Why Your Statements are Delusional and Dangerous

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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Simon Jester
Simon Jester

91 years old? I guess one consolation is that the actuarial tables are snapping at his heels…

These evil oligarchs will not escape the disaster they have created unscathed. The funny thing is that most of these assholes are supremely wealthy on paper or by the stocks which they hold, all of which is fleeting. Undoubtedly some of these guys have physical gold and silver stashed away, but at best it is likely to be only a fraction of their wealth, and it can be taken from them by others or their bodyguards. Most of these evil bastards will not die natural deaths unless one considers hemp rope to be natural…

bb

Simon ,you had better get ready for a harder life with a much lower standard of living . No more welfare or entitlements for people like you.Just so you know we are bringing back the chain gang for subversives like you.You should start practicing now and be ready for poverty. I think learning to eat dog food would be a good starting point for you.Go one week Without electricity or running water. Just dog food.

Dutchman
Dutchman

What a piece of shit. Hope he dies a painful death.

Simon Jester
Simon Jester

Dutchman,

That can be arranged! I kind of like how Ghenghis Khan dealt with the wealthy leader of Baghdad, who refused to spend his personal fortune in the defense of his city against the Mongol armies. He was locked in a room with nothing to eat, surrounded by scraps of paper with the names of various foods written on them…

bb,

To be called a subversive by you has made my week! If I am not on one of the police state lists of dangerous subversives and radicals, then I am going to have to buy a tv and watch Kardashians until I die of overexposure to stupidity. Dog food is not much of a challenge; have you ever heard of lutefisk? I don’t think you could force a dog to eat that putrid mess! I always make sure to smear chunks of it in the ventilation ducts of DMV offices or in through the windows of unattended cop cars…

Stucky

Simon Jester

Add Limburger cheese to your arsenal. The stink of that actually attaches to every molecule it touches, and lasts a long time.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

The serf will always be able to afford rope….and trees…well they’re free .

indialantic
indialantic

Hey, Charlie! You’re a bit chubby. Think steamed vegetables once a day, buddy.

Love & Kisses,

Indy

Dutchman
Dutchman

@Simon: “have you ever heard of lutefisk”

That’s Norwegian jello! (fish jello)

Dutchman
Dutchman

Stock Market Rigging is no longer a ‘conspiracy theory’

There’s another kind of market rigging that is also going on. This is being done by companies themselves. Since corporate profits and revenues aren’t growing enough to justify current high stock prices, companies have been aggressively buying back massive quantities of their own shares.

By doing this, companies reduce the number of their shares owned by the public. This accounting trick boosts the calculation of profit-per-shares because the numerator of the equation (earnings) remains the same while the denominator (outstanding shares) is reduced.

http://nypost.com/2015/03/25/us-stock-market-is-just-way-too-riggin-easy/

Desertrat
Desertrat

“Charles Munger…predicted it’s going to get tougher for consumers to maintain their standard of living in coming decades.”

Seems like that’s what many of us have been saying (implicitly or otherwise) right here, for quite a while. The Bill Bonner/Doug Casey crowd have been pretty much implying the same thing.

When $40/hr jobs are replaced by $10/hr jobs, I’d bet real money that those consumers won’t maintain the previous standard of living. Went the monthly EBT card buys two weeks’ worth of stuff, Oops!

Llpoh
Llpoh

Classic example of folks attacking the messenger.

Anyone dispute his message? Really? Anything he said that was inaccurate or dfferent than what is said here every day?

Munger is a self-made man. Hard-working, thrifty, smart. He helped make millionaires out of countless average Joes. Damn, what an evil cunt. How dare he be successful by practicing the virtues of hard work, education, thrift, and long term investment.

How dare he not be an indebted poverty stricken lazy-ass, illiterate moron like the rest of the US people! He must be evil, I tell you.

Sure, he now has enormous power and influence. And he and Buffet have behaved poorly in recent years.

His success did not just fall into his lap – he worked a lifetime to achieve what he has, and now is a major philanthropist.

Since when did a person become evil due to being successful?

Oh, right, since less able and less successful folks look for someone else to blame for their shortcomings.

mike in ga
mike in ga

Ditto, Llpoh.

Buncha resentful whiners here but I will guarantee you not one of these whiners would give it back if they happened to buy MS stock in 1989 or BRK in 1980 or won the Powerball lottery. Not one. It’s too easy to resent others’ success and decry the accoutrements of wealth but most every person who comes into great wealth that is UNEARNED seems to go hog wild with spending, pious platitudes be damned.

It’s easy to tell others what you wouldn’t do IF you had money. It’s quite another to act on your “principles” when money is no object. Most people never get the chance.

Simon Jester
Simon Jester

Llpoh, mike in ga,

The resentment is because these assholes make the weather and then cry when it starts raining. How many of us can go up to DC whenever we feel like it and get a sympathetic audience with any public official at anytime? The success of Mr Munger has very little to do with capitalism and far more to do with cronyism, insider knowledge, political manipulation, offshoring, and the ability to shield his wealth from taxes by using that same wealth to hire teams of accountants and tax professionals to hide and shield his wealth from the taxman. For you and for these pricks it is a case of “I got mine, and you look funny without yours”. So you got your hidey hole in Australia now? Good for you. The rest of us who have been fucked in the ass repeatedly for the past 100 years by the likes of you, while creating the foundation of your wealth until we no longer serve your purpose, will fight these bastards while you scurry off to your hidey-hole to wait until it is safe to emerge and sink your fangs into us once again to suck us dry. Not everyone has the aptitude or the desire to be a business owner or CEO, but most of us can give a good, honest days work in exchange for fair wages for our labor. You say that most of us are indebted poverty stricken lazy-ass, illiterate morons because we are not wealthy? Well you can go to hell with all your great wealth, and when one of us indebted poverty stricken lazy-ass, illiterate morons slips a rope over your neck it will be nothing personal; as a class, every one of you with that attitude needs to go.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Simon – you ignorant piece of shit.

Go look up Munger’s history. He earned what he has. He started with nothing. He behaved poorly in recent years, but what he has he fucking earned.

You dispute that the US is full of the type I described? Undoubtably you are one of those fucking losers.

Most of you – you being the lazy ass illiterate parasitic motherfuckers such as yourself – cannot give a good honest days work, and those that can owe the opportunity or such to people such as Munger, and me. You are incapable of feeding yourself save for the drive and talent of others.

No one has he right to a job. No one. That you are incapable of generating work for yourself off your own talent and drive, and then resent those who can and do, is pathetic. DOn’t have the drive or aptitude – too fucking bad for you. Lazy does not eat.

Come on down with your rope, you ignorant asswipe. I will jam it up your ass for you.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Simon asswipe – the likes of you helped me not. However, the reverse is not true.

Suck you dry? Bullshit. Helped me? Bullshit.

I created the foundation of my wealth via hard work, education, thrift, drive, and good sense. I provided jobs, and I saved companies. What have you done? Oh, right, nothing. Except to fuck yourself due to lack of skill and drive.

You fucked yourself. Too bad for you. Envy is a terrible thing.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Unfucking believable that dickheads are so envious. Munger is smart, and he did it the hard way. And for the most part it in no way reflects what Simon Jerkoff says. That is total bullshit. He is 91, and has worked hard for over seventy years. He is not a buyer and seller – he is a buyer and holder. He largely invested in US companies. He took a very small salary, and Berkshire does not distribute dividends. Yep, he sure lives the high life.

People really are to ignorant for words.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Simon must be related to Clammy. Always someone else’s fault. Let’s hang all the folks with the drive and aptitude!to be employers!

Yep, that will create a lot of high paying jobs, sure enough.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Berkshire investment portfolio:

Impressive stuff. Does not resemble Simon’s charictature in my opinion.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Berkshire_Hathaway

Tator2
Tator2

I am with Llpoh on this one.

I came to realize in the 90s “we” were living in a period of time like no other. If you chose to work hard and smart, live below your means and buy only what you need not what you want you can become wealthy. The under 40s of today will have a much harder time than I did because of their place in the cycle of empires/superpower rise and fall. America is on the decline. It pecked in early 1970s and its decline is marked by the cancellation of the Apollo missions. America quit expanding. We all know trouble is ahead just as The Fourth Turning forecasts and once the dust settles a new period of prosperity will begin.

Did the 1% cause it? No. Many are corrupt SOBs that profited at the expense of others, but they did not cause it. Human nature as expressed by all of us did. There is nothing new in what is happening. It has happened before and it will happen again.

I have told many, I was born in the sweet spot of history (1954).

Desertrat
Desertrat

Hard for me to give a dam about oligarchs. Every now and then I sit and figure whether or not they ever took anything from me. Nope, nuthin’.

They didn’t keep me from deer hunting or from diving a race car. Caught a lot of fish. Flew a little spam-can airplane. I took Ol’ Mama dancin’. Drank a good bit of good whiskey and cold beer. Ate steak and lobster. Sang songs, told jokes, laughed a lot. Enjoyed a bunch of sunrises and sunsets.

None of them have anything I want or anything I need. All in all, their world’s not my world–and I’m happy as a hog in a feed bin with what I have. What I don’t have is envy–or any need to whine.

Gotta admit that every now and then one of them says something that makes good sense. Ol’ Munger’s pretty much spot-on, this go-round.

Stucky

To all you low-life fuckers not smart enough to be a CEO;

I have a sure fire method whereby you can make thousands of dollars. Spend a couple hundred bucks and design a website called — “Billionaires Are People Too” — with a Paypal button. Llpoh would probably donate $10,000 immediately.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Stuck – trying to figure whose side of the corral you are on. The low life fuckers comment suits Simon Jerkoff, but I almost think you are funnin’ me a bit.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Tator, Mike, DR are smart folks. Those supporting Jerkoff can blow me.

Stucky

During the unprecedented bailouts of the banks and financial institutions that drove us to the gates of ruin, while Americans around the country either lost their homes, their retirement savings, or their jobs, Warren Buffett’s cantankerous sidekick Charlie Munger flat-out taunted them.

“Suck it in and cope,” he told a crowd at the University of Michigan.

“Hit the economy with enough misery and enough disruption, destroy the currency, and God knows what happens. So I think when you have troubles like that you shouldn’t be bitching about a little bailout. You should have been thinking it should have been bigger.”

Munger suggested if we didn’t bail out these companies, we’d suffer the same fate as 1920s Germany and usher in a leader like Adolf Hitler. What’s more, that’s not the only boneheaded Hitler reference he’s made…

If you recall, last year Munger had the gall to slander gold investors with this knee-slapping Holocaust reference: “Gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but civilized people don’t buy gold — they invest in productive businesses.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say “civilized” people don’t equate precious metals investing to the wholesale slaughter of a population, but that’s just my opinion.

Not to mention that buying gold now is uncivilized …. but buying silver in 1998 was somehow totally respectable when Berkshire owned nearly 130 million ounces of it. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Stucky

Llpoh

I’m not taking any sides.

Although the Munger-is-a-great-guy theory is difficult to grasp. Hard to like a guy who supported the bank bailouts. especially when his company benefited from it. How is he any different than the rest of the scum? Because he once was a poorfuk? ha! He’s in finance for fucksake … whereby one guy winning most often means another guy loses.

Also, it’s a tad bit weary to once again hear about what fuckin’ losers those who disagree with you are, and how goddamned wonderful, great, and well-off you are. We all know the story well enough at this point. No need to keep banging that drum.

Dave Doe
Dave Doe

I think what people resent is the implicit “Let them Eat Cake” mentality, not the success of the people saying it. Eating the Rich isn’t going to fix the system but that doesn’t mean the system hasn’t got problems.

Look at the overall macro economics around wealth distribution and most folks agree there is a problem.

Debate is really about what you do to fix it and whose going to lead us there. Not the current political system or people who are narcissistic to only care about their own success.

So, the warnings about pitchforks and social unrest seem justified.

I think it was Churchill that said something to the effect that the United States would eventually do the right thing – but only after trying everything else first.

llpoh
llpoh

Stuck – the narrative did not start off that way. Jerkiff proposed hanging Munger and I. Not nice.

Stucky

Llpoh

Well, damn, I did NOT see where he said YOU should be hung. Ho Lee Fuk. Yeah … that is definitely not nice. Jeebus. I’m keeping my nose out at this point. Proceed as you see fit.

Econman

Hang Munger with llpoh’s entrails.

Anyone who makes excuses for rich fucks destroying a once great manufacturing powerhouse is another part of the problem.

starfcker
starfcker

Llpoh, many don’t know of the old school integrity and long term genius that was BH. As you mention yourself, that has changed radically since 2008. Buffett and munger are being judged now on what they’ve become in the last 7 years. Scum. 7 years of treason does erase 50 years of being model businessmen. Standing in front of munger, though I get your point, is a bad idea.

starfcker
starfcker

I can give you a couple of similar examples. Walmart under sam walton, was all about america. Their slogan for decades was, buy american. The filth that runs that company now is cut from a different cloth than sam was. How about john mccain? Does his days serving in vietnam really excuse the slimeball he became in the senate?

starfcker
starfcker

There is a bright line between the leftist eat the rich wannabee freeloading trash, and legitimate criticism and loathing of the traitors who economically destroyed the country. I have friends who operate in china, they have left me in the dust financially, and I’m rich. They don’t understand the damage they’ve done, and the inevitable future of their assets (nationalization by the chinese)

Llpoh
Llpoh

Economan – just how did Munger destroy manufacturing? Come on, tell us. Take a look at the list of companies owned by BH and get back to me. You got nothing but wild platitudes. Ignoramuses like you do not need to be hung, you hang yourselves. And then look for someone to blame for the gurgling noises you are making.

Munger was not responsible for the debt of the country – he abhors debt. He values education – contrary to most US citizens. He values hard work. Etc. So the things that are killing the US he stands against.

As Star said, he has not covered himself in glory of late. But he personally has received no advantage – his salary remains $100k and BH does not pay dividends.

Star – BH certainly took advantage of the opportunity re GM and a few others.

Llpoh
Llpoh

There are few folks I like around here anymore. The long termers are dear to my heart, but the newbies are of no value to me. They are envious of those doing the lifting, and blame successful folks for their own failings.

The wishing of death on me really is disgusting.

Llpoh
Llpoh

And that the wish is applauded is even more disappointing. I have no affinity for such people.

starfcker
starfcker

There is no joy in my assessment of munger. Those guys built one of the most rock solid and ethical businesses (not to mention successful) in the history of business. I’m sure you, as I did, read everything about buffett you could. His philosiphy about business was a north star in my approach; stay the course, think long, reputation is everything. What happened?

starfcker
starfcker

Llpoh, lots of people shoot from the hip, and elevate their vitriol to absurd levels.. it seems to affect you deeply. Unless you are a business person, you don’t realize the level of attack on everything you spent your whole life building. So much has been muddied. The young don’t realize where jobs come from. They don’t realize where payroll comes from. They don’t realize where interest comes from

starfcker
starfcker

All I’m saying is the buffett or munger of 2015 isn’t the same animal as the ones we grew up admiring. And that’s a shame.

starfcker
starfcker

Everyone ought to try building a business sometime. There is no better education in life. People would act quite differently if they wrote ten grand in payroll every week for a couple of years and then went home and ate spagettios. Or know the terror of the phone ringing, customer or creditor? To owe good people a million dollars, and know you can do it, if you can come up with the 5 grand to keep the business alive in the meantime.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Try hundred grand + every week for decades! Mac and cheese instead of spagettios. We lived frugally for twenty years. I drove a twenty year old car. Every cent went back into the business. Hard work, education, thrift, honesty,integrity, avoidance of debt.

And for that effort, people believe I owe them jobs – because they do not have the drive or the ability to do the same. Or that I should be hung because my efforts and sacrifice paid off.

It is astonishing.

Yes, Munger and Buffett have changed. Why, I do not know. Maybe because they are old and are protecting a legacy. I do not know. But the bulk of what they built remains solidly in place. They do not buy and sell – they invest.

What I do know is that they have not used their wealth for personal benefit re lifestyle. $100k a year, that is it.

IndenturedServant

Llpoh, I don’t know what it is exactly, envy/greed/entitlement, but people always seem to have issues with those who make more money than they do. It happens at all levels. When working construction I quickly rose to the top simply because I was on time and followed directions. This seemed to irritate those who could not be on time and follow direction. In addition to that, if I wasn’t willing to buy cigarettes or loan money to the chronically broke I became the asshole. Company owners and supers were quick to promote me to foreman etc which again brought more money because I could get shit done which made their jobs easier. Still, the drunkards and scum that were perpetually at the bottom of the ladder expected free shit from me and had nothing but disdain for me if it was not forthcoming.

I’ve always taken the attitude that if I wasn’t happy with the money I was making for the work I was doing that *I* needed to fix that. Very few people have the ability to recognize their shortcomings and overcome them. Those that do generally get ahead. Those that whine and complain while watching the cream rise always take a dim view of anyone who gets ahead. They never realize the work and sacrifice that goes into getting ahead. All those lowly construction workers thought I didn’t like them because I refused to sit in the bar Friday night and piss away my paycheck. They did notice that I was never broke but they could not make the connection.

I’m far from what I consider rich but I march to my own drummer and do not envy anyone making more money than me. I simply try to emulate them and reap the rewards. As you pointed out, we all say the same things Munger did re preparing for a harder world but when you or a Munger point it out, they are vilified. All I have ever done and I suspect you as well is be willing to do the crap that others aren’t willing to do. Showing up early, staying late and demonstrating a willingness to learn more and take on responsibilities really goes a long way.

I had my own business for a while and did quite well but since then (25 years) I have not found a single business owner who felt that the bullshit they put up with is worth the bullshit squared that they receive. I made more money being self employed but find that I still do quite well working for fair employers.

Most people I work with profess a desire to do the job I do. I did as well before I got the position. They talked about it terms of how much more money it pays and what they could do with that money. I never even considered the money side of it because I was already happy with the money I was making and I was genuinely interested in the challenge of the job itself. I would spend breaks and lunch time picking the brains of the guys doing that job and trying to figure out how they did what they do. I was intrigued by it all. I never asked or even talked about money. Instead, I expressed, and more importantly, demonstrated an interest in doing the job.

Several years later when a position in that area came open I got the job. I found out that it had been decided years earlier by the big boss that I was next in line for the job if I wanted it despite others expressing interest. The others became, and remain butthurt that I got the position but I’ve learned that they were never in the running even if they were the last humans on Earth. In retrospect the others that wanted the job usually arrive a few minutes late, refuse to work late and spend more time watching the clock than working so in the end my only advantage was that I arrived a few minutes early, was willing to work late and demonstrated (rather than talked) a willingness to learn more about the job.

Maybe Buffet and Munger have done things worthy of the negative things said about them but they always did the shit that most in their position weren’t willing to do like drive old cars (mine is 29 years old), pack a lunch and live up to the challenge of doing a difficult job. The rewards from such trivial things do not come instantly but build over time and more importantly the real rewards come from within. The challenge of the job alone is a reward in itself.

Fuck all the haters at every level. If you’ve got time to compare yourself to others and conclude that you’re getting the short end of the stick, you’re doing it wrong. You should be finding a way to be better than the others.

IndenturedServant

I should add that even though I safely have what I consider to be a dream job, I’m still looking and working toward bettering myself down the road. There is one other guy in my department that is ahead of me in terms of time and experience but he is famous for making excuses and while he is justifying failures I am quietly and slowly surpassing him in ability. While he dwells on excuses I’m learning to avoid the human error situations he makes that create a need for excuses. Even though it’s not talked about, I know I’m better than him in terms of attitude and drive. He’s going to wake up one day playing second fiddle and not have any idea why. He’s the kind of guy who will resent it too.

My biggest shortcoming when it comes to my actual work is a lack of confidence in my ability and that means I’m not as aggressive as I should be. There are times when a soft touch is required and I’ve got that down but when bold moves are required I come up short and find myself behind the eight ball. Still, there is a lot to learn from that position but it’s the hard way. I’ll eventually overcompensate and become too aggressive before leveling out ahead of my co-worker.

The result of all this will put me in a position of being quite literally one of the top two people in the entire world at doing this job. Hell, that alone is quite a reward in itself without the money. My boss, almost single handed has made nearly every advance in this field in the last 20 years and if I can come close to that I’ll write my own ticket. The downside is that they’ll want me to be the boss which I absolutely do not want. I’m happy being one of the little Indians rather than a chief.

Llpoh
Llpoh

IS – nice posts. Sounds like you got the cattle by the horns. Good job.

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