"You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention."
"The stupid and dishonest accountants allowed the genie of totally inappropriate accounting to descend on derivatives books. And once this has happened - people get status, etc. - it's impossible to get it back into the bottle."
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Source: Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary Needs. Charlie Munger's Herb Kay Undergraduate Lecture at the Economics Department of University of California in Santa Barbara, October 3, 2003.
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