Billionaire Investor Charlie Munger Says Fiat Currency is “Going to Zero”
The 98-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has hypothesized that fiat currency is “going to zero” in the next hundred years.
The veteran investor made the comments in an interview with Yahoo! Finance which was picked up and re-tweeted by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor on Feb. 17. Saylor commented that there is a solution to failing fiat currencies in Bitcoin:
“Like many intelligent investors, he understands the problem, but is unaware that we have engineered a solution in the form of bitcoin.
The safe assumption for an investor is that over the next hundred years the (fiat) currency is going to zero.” – Charlie Munger on #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/7PMFg9hQBt
— Michael Saylor
(@saylor) February 16, 2022
Munger did not specifically finger the dollar, but it was pretty obvious that is what he meant. Inflation in the U.S. is currently at a four-decade high of 7.5% as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. This means that $1 is worth less than it was this time last year, and the year before that, and so on. This is largely due to central bank money printing, which has diluted the supply.
No Love For Crypto
Saylor has called it a big endorsement for Bitcoin but Munger, just like his partner Buffett, has no love for cryptocurrencies either.
According to Reuters, Munger claimed to be proud that he has avoided the “venereal disease” that is crypto, adding:
“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 so on … tax evasion.”
What he failed to acknowledge is that cold hard cash is still the currency of choice for money-laundering, extortion, and tax evasion.
Munger continued his tirade stating, “everybody has to create his own new currency, and I think that’s crazy too,” adding:
“I wish it had been banned immediately, I admire the Chinese for banning it, I think they were right and we [the United States] were wrong to allow it,”
Berkshire Buys Nubank Stock
The company that Munger vice chairs with Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway – has other intentions, however. This week the world’s seventh-largest company by market capitalization filed a report with the SEC outlining the purchase of $1 billion in stock of Nubank.
Nubank is a Brazilian digital ‘neobank’ that operates outside of the realm of traditional finance and allows its customers to invest in crypto-related products.
Regardless of what the aging billionaires think of crypto, smart money is still going into it at the moment.
