Charlie Munger says cryptocurrencies should have been banned earlier

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Munger, 98, spoke while fielding nearly two hours of questions at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp, 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 since 1978.

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Munger is a longtime bull on China, spearheading Berkshire's investment in electric car maker BYD Co and recently doubling Daily Journal's stake in e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. 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, Google parent Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp 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