I think people think I didn't answer the question which pertained narrowly to learning how financial firms operated.
The thing is - Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Philip Carret, and a few others DON'T operate like normal financial firms and have done spectacularly better. To understand financial firms you need to know what works better - and Berkshire Hathaway works a whole lot better. And Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's sounding board.
Read Charlie Munger's advice and compare it to what you read elsewhere about financial firms knowing that Charlie is right.
In fact, the OP reasons in much the way of Buffett (I read several of his eariler articles), except that his noodling around with shorts is a departure from what I take to be Buffett's strategy of buying good management and good companies at good prices, and waiting as long as it takes to get good prices.
The thing is - Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Philip Carret, and a few others DON'T operate like normal financial firms and have done spectacularly better. To understand financial firms you need to know what works better - and Berkshire Hathaway works a whole lot better. And Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's sounding board.
Read Charlie Munger's advice and compare it to what you read elsewhere about financial firms knowing that Charlie is right.
In fact, the OP reasons in much the way of Buffett (I read several of his eariler articles), except that his noodling around with shorts is a departure from what I take to be Buffett's strategy of buying good management and good companies at good prices, and waiting as long as it takes to get good prices.