Warren Buffett famously called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Now he’s a major shareholder in a bank that is one of the top dealers in those derivatives.
Berkshire Hathaway has owned banks for decades and recently converted warrants into a large block of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) common stock.
But Buffett and Charlie Munger have made comments about banks and the financial system that are at times hard to square with their holdings.
Here’s Munger in 2011:
We would be better off if we downsized the whole financial sector by about 80%. I don’t think the rest of us have anything to gain having massive trading between computers which try to outwit one another with their algorithms to the extent that when one succeeds, the rest of us are all paying for it. And why should we want to encourage our brightest minds to do what amounts to code-breaking and electronic trading? I think the whole system is stark-raving mad. Why should we want 25% of our graduating engineers going into finance? … I don’t see any social contribution.
How does that fit in with Berkshire’s investments in big banks? He explained:
We buy the investments in the public market that are available. We don’t tell the people running them what to do, and we don’t allow our thoughts about what the law should be to change our investments. We invest in the world as it is. But if you ask me what the world should be, I would say that the finance sector of the world should be downsized by at least 80%.
Hmm. So, if shareholders aren’t to keep an eye out after management, who should? Here’s Munger in 2010:
Take soccer as an example. It’s a tremendously competitive sport, and often times one team tries to work mayhem on the other team’s best player. The referee’s job is to limit this mayhem and rein in extreme forms of competition.
Regulation is similar. Most ambitious young men will be more aggressive than they should. That’s what happened with investment banking. I mean, look at Lehman Brothers. Everyone did what they damn well wanted until the whole place was pathological about its extremeness.
When Hitler was in his bunker before he shot himself, he said, “This isn’t my fault. The German people just don’t appreciate me enough.” That’s the attitude of a lot of bankers. They think their silliness is necessary. Banks will not rein themselves in voluntarily. You need adult supervision.
The smart way to regulate is to act like a referee. You have to curtail the activities that are permitted. There should be less trying to fix things and more trying to prevent bad outcomes. There’s an old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That’s wrong. An ounce of prevention can be worth an entire ton of cure.
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), of course, isn’t exempt from this culture. But Munger appears to have sympathy. Again, from 2010:
Goldman has the best morality of any of the big banks. From this sense, it’s a little crazy to be attacking our best bank. I don’t think the government did this [sue Goldman for fraud] to be asinine, but I don’t think how they’ve handled it has been the appropriate response.
Goldman was in a world where Congress legalized all types of derivatives. It’s an inherently dangerous world. Given that world, I see no reason to think Goldman misbehaved in some horrible fashion. Everyone was doing it, and it’s only natural to increase your moneymaking activities when you can do so legally.
