| In this episode, Charlie Munger was asked whether he ever reread books that he had already read before, and if so, what books will he reread?
In this episode, you’ll learn: George Sand’s ‘The Good Goddess Of Poverty’ Poem: #CharlieMunger #DailyJournal [Transcript] CHARLIE MUNGER 00:21 The other day I was musing over the current situation. It popped into my head that I had read a poem about 80 years ago by George Sand. George Sand was a female writer but female writer to get ahead in those days you sometimes use men’s names. George Sand wrote a poem and it was an ode to the goddess of poverty. She said: “Hail to the goddess of poverty, a wonderful goddess of poverty. She tills the fields, she mines the mines”, and so on. If I remember right, toward the ending of the goddess of poverty she said: “You try and banish me, you’ll live to want me back.” I kind of agreed to this poem and I’d like to see it again. I don’t know how to punch notes on the internet and get George Sand’s poem to me so if somebody would send me the poem I would very much like it. But I’m telling you this because it’s an antidote to our politicians who want to tell us they’re going to abolish all poverty. It’s a stupid idea. It’s like saying we’ll all be riches in a modern civilization. It’s status what we want but we need more means. The tow of reaching for status is that the bottom 90% are always going to contain exactly 90% of the people no matter how hard we work or how much we succeed. We actually need some tough incentives in a civilization to make it work. In other words, George Sand was right. The goddess of poverty is not all bad. She’s partly good. And of course I like thoughts that I have that are different from anybody else. I think a billionaire who talks about the glories of the goddess of poverty is making a contribution. But only a bunch of nerds like you will appreciate it. |
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