The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Davis: Asset manager incentives favor relative preservation over absolute client goals
“One of the really Deep, dark, dirty secrets of money management. Is that, you know, if you were faced with the choice of, you know, you return 10% a year for the next decade, and the market does 12, or you are zero, and the market's down two. Every money manag…”
Charlie Munger believed the intelligent loss of sales actively improves businesses
“Charlie's phrase was the intelligent loss of sales. He said, you're young and you just think more is better. More is better. More is better, but more is not necessarily better. It's who do you keep out?”
Davis: Raising kids in luxury creates unhappiness if they cannot maintain it
“What doesn't work is giving your kids a lifestyle where they will feel like a loser if they are unable to maintain that lifestyle on their own merit. I just think that, you know, if you do the Southampton, Palm Beach Aspen, like, you're creating kids that Eith…”
Davis: Wealthy parents damage kids as much by manufacturing hardship as spoiling
“I've seen just as much damage done by wealthy families trying to build character as I, as I've seen the opposite.”
Davis: Risking a 100% loss on an investment is rational with proper sizing
“At an individual investment level, you know, risk is about the permanent Loss of capital in that investment, and really over a course of a portfolio, because you can be taking a risk of a hundred percent loss in an investment, and it can be a very rational ris…”
Davis: Charlie Munger Dressed Conventionally to Mask His Eccentricity
“Charlie always talked about dressing conventionally, you know, wearing, he said he's so eccentric in other ways that by wearing a suit and tie, people assume that he's more conventional than he is, and that serves him.”
Davis: Money does not ruin kids, parents and genetics do
“Well, I like what, you know, Charlie said that, that money doesn't ruin kids, you know, parents do, and I would add genetics can too.”
Davis: Writing is about what you learn for yourself, not the client
“The writing is not about the product for the client. It's about what you learn by writing for yourself.”
Davis: Banks go illiquid before insolvent; insurers go insolvent before illiquid
“Banks go illiquid before they go insolvent, and insurance companies go insolvent before they go illiquid”
Davis: Max-betting every positive expectation edge guarantees ruin
“It was such an insane theory. To think that, you know, the theory would say bet it all every time that you have an advantage. And if everybody did that, you would get a better outcome net. But of course, it's an insane theory because you're certain to end up a…”
Davis: Berkshire generated outperformance without penalizing investors for extreme conservatism
“It's been run in this incredibly conservative way, but you haven't paid any price for that as an investor. Except some weird theoretical suboptimal outcome. But the fact is that you got your cake and you got to eat it too. You got to have, you know, longterm w…”
Davis: Lowering spending matters most because it annuitizes a lower spending rate
“The number one is if you can get them to spend less, that, that, that has just a huge benefit, right? Because it's not that they spend less, which means that they have more to save you know, more to invest for next year or the year after that. That's true. But…”
Davis: High-performing people who fail are simply in the wrong job
“If they have that credential, and that work ethic, and that level of IQ, and processing speed, and communication skill, and, you know, value system, and they aren't succeeding, they're just in the wrong job.”
Davis: Befriending a 12-year-old and parenting a 40-year-old are big parenting errors
“I would say the most dangerous thing in the world with a twelve-year-old is to try to be his friend. But, you know, the worst thing with a forty-year-old is to try to be their parent. You know, you, you've got to figure out how to transition that relationship …”
Davis: Wealth building slows as risk tolerance declines across generations
“If you started with nothing, you had to be such a risk taker. And then I think what happens is that propensity to risk falls over the generations, but often so does the corresponding ability to build wealth.”
Davis: Investment research is a numbers game where ten calls yield one insight
“You call 10 companies, you learn one thing, you call 20, you learn two, and you know, so it was sort of a numbers game”
Davis: Children judge elders narrowly due to their own limited perspective
“I think of the, you know, the old expression, no man is a hero to his valet. Well, that, that's probably true with kids and grandkids too. You know, they have a very narrow way of judging people. And, you know, when Churchill said that, that shows the limits o…”