Charlie Munger Quotes

I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that regulators are going to be able to outsmart the bankers. So, the task of designing regulatory reform is trying to make more or less foolproof regulation and that's one of the advantages of the systemic category.

Dodd-Frank greatly expanded the regulatory reach of the Federal Reserve. It did not, however, examine whether it was correctly structured to account for these new and expansive powers. Therefore, the Committee will be examining the appropriateness of the Fed's current structure in a post Dodd-Frank world.

I hesitate to deposit money in a bank. I am afraid I shall never dare to take it out again

I'd make banks more accountable. I think they should separate totally the personal banking arm with whatever else they are playing around with.

You have no ability, if you're a financial institution and you're threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate.

In the U.A.E. we were the least-regulated environment in the region, and over time we are seeing more and more regulation coming in. On the other hand, a central bank can overregulate and choke the economy, and then we will have a dead banking industry.

I am pleased to be part of Promontory's steady efforts to assist banks and other financial firms in meeting legal and regulatory obligations and challenges.

I can't sprinkle sprinkles on. I lose control when I have sprinkles. I'm shaky. I still remember the great sprinkle accident of 1982.

There is not necessarily a good reason why a regulator should have to be involved in product design and marketing for rich and sophisticated investors. We recommend that such investors should be able to sign a piece of paper, which allows them to go ahead and buy unregulated products at their own risk.

Money never seems to be interested in strengthening regulatory agencies, for example, but always in subverting them, in making them miss the danger signs in coal mines and in derivatives trading and in deep-sea oil wells.

Washington should revive international efforts begun during the Clinton administration to pressure countries with dangerously loose banking regulations to adopt and enforce stricter rules.

We need to increase the transparency of shadow banking markets so that authorities can monitor for signs of excessive leverage and unstable maturity transformation outside regulated banks.

I would argue that no financial instrument counted as regulatory capital should be allowed to receive any protection from losses.

Banking, I would argue, is the most heavily regulated industry in the world. Regulations don't solve things. Supervision solves things.

Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It

Our respectable legislators will make a most alarming fuss about every bank that is chartered, while manufacturing companies shall pass muster by the dozen, without a single question being asked or answered. Those who strain at a gnat, are marvelously adroit at swallowing a camel.

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from these rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.

Banks too big to fail are too big to be regulated or controlled by the Federal Government.

Fannie Mae may have conformed to the rules but the rules didn’t conform to reality. A major bank or financial institution could meet every single regulatory requirement yet still be at the risk of collapse.

Global banking’s current structure generates an unjust distribution of risks, where losses are socialized.

We're going to try and prove to the market that you can do a legal coin offering. If the SEC doesn't crack down, this party will be amazing - the biggest party in town for a long time. If they do crack down, a lot of people are going to feel a lot of pain.

We have put in place policies through supervision and regulation that has greatly enhanced the safety and soundness of the banking system.

It is not my belief that we need greater government regulation of hedge funds with respect to the systemic risk they create.

Rules that may be easy for Wall Street are a death sentence for startups. They are easy to break accidentally and the penalty for noncompliance is severe.

Eating was my only way of controlling my life, or so I thought. When you are addicted or suffering from a mental illness, you think you're in complete control. But the opposite is true. You are, in fact, completely out of control.