Thursday, September 23, 2010

Munger: Changing the Power Source

More from the University of Michigan interview with Charlie Munger. In this part of the interview he talks about the idea of "Changing the power source for mankind in a really massive way."

Charlie's not a fan of Al Gore.

Excerpts:

"If you asked what I would do if I were the benevolent despot of the United States. I would have the biggest infrastructure program you ever saw to go to power from renewable sources."

"The idea of rapidly going to the sun basically and creating a vast infrastructure that will do it is a thoroughly sound idea. And we now know how to do everything that we need to know how to do. And I think the country would get behind it."

Munger thinks the country should concentrate its intellectual and financial capital on a vast program to develop an alternative energy infrastructure.

"...we had a chance to turn our lemon into lemonade and we still have it. If I were running the world I'd be playing that card hard."

"I think it would be a net plus if we were plainly doing the right thing if we borrowed the money and created the infrastructure. I think when we just borrow the money and shovel it at people it's dangerous but I think it is less dangerous when there is something really meritorious you're doing with the money."

"I think all of this stuff is coming, I just wish it had come faster with more rationality.

I think we have been distracted a lot by people who bleeded about their own things. I'm not sure somebody as technologically ignorant as Al Gore is entitled to speak on the subject. I think you should have punched your ticket in a few better places before you open your mouth."

Interestingly, Munger wants us as a country to invest big in something that happens to be environmentally friendly yet he comes at it from a completely different point of view. An emphasis less on the environmental benefits but instead the social and economic benefits.

Adam

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