"Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939," the Berkshire vice chairman said," but I think civilized people don’t buy gold, they invest in productive businesses." [More]Of course, we civilized investors have connections and opportunities the rest of you barbarians don't...
Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don’t buy gold . . .
ReplyDeleteAm I to understand that Mr. Munger believes that the Jews of 1939 Vienna were not civilized? That certainly fits in well with the propaganda of the time.
"The German people of the late 1930s imagined themselves to be brave. They saw themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.
ReplyDeleteBut in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not."
From http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/reich.html
Both "civilized and tame". Their reputation anesthetized those to what would really happen to them. How could the Germans do this? They are a civilized people!