Alexander cried when he heard Anaxarchus talk about the infinite number of worlds in the universe. One of Alexanders friends asked him what was the matter, and he replied: “There are so many worlds, and I have not yet conquered even one.”
via pothos.org – Alexander Quotes.
Economists have long been divided by a simple problem. When you go to the movie theater, soda and popcorn costs a totally unfair price compared with other locations. This just tortures economists. At least 1 million man-hours have gone into trying to solve this problem. Economists understand that a first-class ticket on an airplane costs more than coach. They get that one. Its marginal utility. But they cant figure out the movie theater to save their lives.
Here’s the Munger approach to the problem. In the auto world, a car manufacturer will sell a car for $40,000, and charge $200 for the extra gizmo. No one cares about the extra $200 when you’re already spending $40,000. Its insignificant. The movie theater is basically the same thing. People are OK paying that much for a soda after they’ve paid so much for an admission ticket.
Now, psychologists can explain this clearly. Economists can’t for the life of them. Its so simple what happens when you think beyond your trained field. Its amusing to see someone spend 1 million man-hours on something I can solve with my left hand.
- Charlie Munger
I dig the guy. He’s a little angry-cynical, but often right. I wonder about his million man-hour claim on the above problem.
You can read both parts of his last annual meeting by going through Google (to get around the registration process Motley Fool has): http://www.google.com/search?q=charlie+mungers+thoughts+on+the+world+part+motley+fool
I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work.
Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable.
To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.
- Henry Ford
I’m finally getting around to reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. I opened it this morning on the drive to work (Chas drove, not me), and in the first 20 pages, I read something that I wanted to share before I get started with my day.
In the six years since 9/11, Al Qaeda Central — the group led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri — has been unable to launch a major attack anywhere. It was a terrorist organization; it has become a communications compnay, producing the occasional videotape rather than actual terrorism. *
* Even if an attack were to take place tomorrow, the fact that, for six years, Al Qaeda Central has been unable to organize one explosion anywhere is surely worth noting.
Al Qaeda is to explosions as MTV is to music. Or, Al Qaeda : explosions :: MTV : music
Burn.
“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” – Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk (1915–1968)