"You have to have punishment for people who do the wrong thing."īuffett also said he could not imagine politicians or regulators being willing to "disrupt the world's financial system," including if Washington failed to break its impasse on raising the debt ceiling, or how much the government could borrow.Īnticipating questions on banking, Buffett prompted laughter by putting in front of him a sign reading "AVAILABLE FOR SALE" and one reading "HELD-TO-MATURITY" before Munger.
"A lighted match can be turned into a conflagration or can be blown out," Buffett said. He also said bank shareholders and executives should bear the risks of mismanagement, with Munger criticizing executives concerned more with getting rich than with customers. LIGHTED MATCHīuffett said regulators were right to guarantee depositors of Silicon Valley Bank, saying that not doing so "would have been catastrophic." Vice Chairmen Greg Abel, 60, and Ajit Jain, 71, joined in the morning.īuffett reiterated on Saturday that Abel would succeed him as CEO, while adding he had no plan if Abel could not. The meeting featured Buffett, 92, who is Berkshire's chairman and chief executive, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 99, answering five hours of shareholder questions. The world's sixth-richest person, Buffett has since 1965 run Berkshire, whose dozens of businesses include Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad and consumer names such as Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom.īerkshire also owns $328 billion of stocks, close to half in Apple Inc (AAPL.O).
In contrast, it sold $13.3 billion of other companies' stocks, in a quarter where the S&P 500 Index (.SPX) rose 7%. It is a better world than we've ever had."īuffett spoke hours after Berkshire posted a $35.5 billion quarterly profit and said it bought back $4.4 billion of its own stock, a sign it considered the shares undervalued. But if I still had a choice, I would want to be born in the United States. "We have to refine, in a certain way, our democracy as we go along. "Fear is contagious," he said, adding that "you can't run an economy" when people worry if their money is safe in banks.īuffett also warned of a growing "tribalism" in Washington where partisanship causes people to talk past each other. Speaking at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, Buffett criticized how politicians, regulators and the press have handled the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank, saying their "very poor" messaging has unnecessarily frightened depositors. OMAHA, Nebraska, May 6 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday criticized the handling of recent tumult in the banking sector and said a debt ceiling showdown could bring "turmoil" to the financial system, even as he offered a vote of confidence in the United States and his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N).
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