Alice Davey Schroeder, Columnist

Alice Schroeder: Munger Offers Odd Justice on Bailout

September 23, 2010 at 9:00 PM UTC

Alice Schroeder is the author of "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. Schroeder began her career as a certified public accountant, then became a property-and-casualty insurance analyst, as a managing director at Oppenheimer & Company, then PaineWebber and, most recently, Morgan Stanley. In 1999, she introduced Wall Street clients to Warren Buffett as part of her coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition of the underwriting company General Re. For many years before her biography of Buffett was published in 2008, she interviewed Buffett annually at Berkshire shareholder meetings. She has master's in finance from the University of Texas, and lives in Greenwich, Conn.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

You've gotta love a man who speaks his mind, even when he's wrong. We "shouldn't be bitching about a little bailout" of the banks, Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) vice-chairman and Warren Buffett's closest confidante, told students at the University of Michigan on Sept. 14. That's a strong statement, but Munger is one of the refreshing few who can be counted on to deliver his thoughts uncensored in words unminced.

Munger says the bank bailouts were "required to save your civilization." He suggested that burdening the economy with bank failures would have results similar to the economic collapse in Germany after World War I that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, "the culture dies" if you bail out individuals. People in economic distress should "suck it up and cope."