With so much money riding on reported numbers, human nature is to manipulate them. And with so many doing it, you get Serpico effects, where everyone rationalizes that it's okay because everyone else is doing it. It is always thus.
Charlie MungerAs I continued through Cicero's pages, I found much more material celebrating my way of life.
Charlie MungerThe normal expectancy of the average investor - for example, the pension funds of AT&T or IBM - is 6% for a long time.
Charlie MungerThe only intelligence investing is value investing...to acquire more than one is paying for.
Charlie MungerIt is way less certain to be a wonderful business in the future. The threat is alternative mediums of information. Every newspaper is scrambling to parlay their existing advantage into dominance on the Internet. But it is way less sure [that this will occur] than the certainty 20 years ago that the basic business would grow steadily, so there's more downside risk. The perfectly fabulous economics of this business could become grievously impaired.
Charlie Munger