Warren Buffett said the US economy appears weaker than he thought it would be as recently as last fall, but that doesn’t change his optimistic long-term view of the country’s prospects. “America’s golden goose of commerce and innovation will continue to lay more and larger eggs”.
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“For 240 years it’s been a awful mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start”, Buffett wrote.
In the annual letter to the Berkshire shareholders, Buffett said that he and Charlie Munger, the company’s Vice Chairman, “expect Berkshire’s normalized earning power to increase every year”.
“I bought Tesco, it went down, and it kept going down, and I was wrong about the company”, Buffett said on Monday.
“Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do”, wrote Buffett in his letter, pointing out American GDP per capita is now roughly $56,000, six times its level when Buffett was born in 1930.
But Shanahan said it also put more cash in consumers’ pockets, which helps Berkshire’s retail businesses, such as See’s Candy, the Nebraska Furniture Mart and Helzberg jewelry.
The letter also highlighted the growth of Berkshire’s operating businesses, which contributed to a record $24.1 billion of net income a year ago.
He weighed in on a privacy fight between Apple Inc and the US government, saying privacy should trump security in smaller cases, but security should trump privacy in major cases.
In his shareholder address, Buffett points out his business – Berkshire – is far more conservative when it comes to avoiding risks than other insurance companies.
Buffett said he can’t predict how the current era of low interest rates will affect the economy because it has never happened before, but they could distort prices and encourage more borrowing.
“That leaves just under 98 per cent of America’s business giants that have yet to call us”.
In the interview, Buffett touched on a number of subjects. Last year, Buffett offered a $1 billion prize for anyone who had a “perfect bracket”, where they predicted the correct victor of all of the 63 games.
“That company has invested $16 billion in renewables and now owns 7% of the country’s wind generation and 6% of its solar generation”, according to Buffett.
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It’s that time of year again when everyone with any level of knowledge (or no knowledge whatsoever) sits down and spends anywhere between a few minutes and a few sleepless nights agonizing over their NCAA March Madness bracket.
