The BRK official position on Valeant is that they take advantage of sick individual's life-or-death need for drugs to price gouge them since purchasing decisions are not made on price (medication is "price inelastic").
Clayton homes is criticized for having bad or misleading loan terms. BRK (and many financial services individuals I know personally) often see just about any loan term as fair as long as no-one was forced into the loan at gunpoint. Is it the responsibility of the lessor or lessee to make sure the lessee is signing to something in their best interest? Loans are not life-or-death and purchasing decisions are frequently made on price (loans are "price elastic").
The article you've linked presents these two cases and makes the argument that they are equivalently immoral, making Munger a hypocrite. Personally, I think they're both fair criticisms, but they definitely come from different places. I don't see necessary cognitive dissonance in having the opinion that only one of these is immoral.
With regard to cutting costs: I see no indication that BRK criticized Valeant for firing people, so I suspect this is a personal issue for the author of the article, so I haven't addressed it here.
Criticisms on valeant don't seem fully justified. Sure valeant had questionable business practices in the past, but they've changed due to law enforcement. Plus, the other criticisms can be applied to almost every pharma company
Clayton homes is criticized for having bad or misleading loan terms. BRK (and many financial services individuals I know personally) often see just about any loan term as fair as long as no-one was forced into the loan at gunpoint. Is it the responsibility of the lessor or lessee to make sure the lessee is signing to something in their best interest? Loans are not life-or-death and purchasing decisions are frequently made on price (loans are "price elastic").
The article you've linked presents these two cases and makes the argument that they are equivalently immoral, making Munger a hypocrite. Personally, I think they're both fair criticisms, but they definitely come from different places. I don't see necessary cognitive dissonance in having the opinion that only one of these is immoral.
With regard to cutting costs: I see no indication that BRK criticized Valeant for firing people, so I suspect this is a personal issue for the author of the article, so I haven't addressed it here.