Eleconomista.es recogía la entrevista de la CNBC al mítico Oráculo de Omaha. Buffet ha comentado en una entrevista con la CNBC que no está seguro de que el euro vaya a existir dentro de una década, y que los europeos tampoco lo saben, y al mismo tiempo ha alertado del estado de la economía de EEUU y de Europa. Buffett aseguró que las cosas están empezando a caer «bastante rápido» en Europa, especialmente en las últimas seis semanas, aunque confía en que allá una solución de aquí a 10 años, pese a que ahora no ve una respuesta obvia.
«No sé si el euro existirá dentro de una década, y tampoco lo saben los europeos», aseguró. El famoso inversor aseguró que gran parte del problema de la Eurozona es que no está claro quién está al mando, si es que hay alguien, y que Europa no tiene su propia «imprenta». Ahondando sobre el tema, aseguró que se trata de un«sistema con fallos desarrollado hace años. Están tratando de poner parches durante el último par de años. Es difícil cambiar un sistema con parches», aseguró y añadió que la Eurozona, tal y como fue diseñada, «no puede existir».
Sobre la economía de EEUU, aseguró que se ha ralentizado tanto que ahora está esencialmente plana, aunque el ve un «perceptible» repunte de la vivienda residencial, precisamente el apartado que había lastrado la recuperación de los últimos meses. A pesar de todo, Buffett asegura que EEUU todavía lo está haciendo mejor «virtualmente cualquier otra gran economía» en el mundo, y que «hasta cierto punto» está en modo de esperar y ver hacia donde va la economía.
Video completo en inglés desde CNBC:
Ross sorkin. becky quick is in sun valley, idaho, with a special guest who will join us for the rest of this show. we didn’t decide you were at dollar mountain so we don’t know where you are, but you have noticed, nothing costs $1 anywhere around that mountain, on that mountain or any of the vicinities near that, but it is dollar mountain.
yes, that’s right, joe. the inappropriately-named dollar mountain, we’re over sun valley and joined by a special guest, warren buffett.
mr. buffett thank you for joining us this morning.
good to be here.
we couldn’t think of a better time to have you on because there are so many questions about what’s been happening with the economy, what’s been happening with the jobs picture. why don’t you tell us what you’re seeing now in your businesses.
for a couple of years i’vebeen telling you everything except residential housing was improving at a moderate rate, not crawling but not galloping but the last two months it’s been sort of the opposite. the general economy in the united states has been more or less flat, and so the growth is tempered down, but the residential housing we’re seeing a pickup, and it’s noticeable, it’s from a very low base and it doesn’t amount to a whole lot yet but it’s getting better, and so we’ve got a flip-flop on that.
what happened? we talked in the past you had said when housing turned that would be when the u.s. economy would turn. what happened?
it hasn’t turned that much yet but it is picking up but at the same time, the rest of the economy i would say is slowing down. it’s not heading downward but it’s not growing at the rate that it was earlier, and then it’s kind of interesting in europe, for a year or so, in most places, i mean forget about greece for the moment but generally in europe, you didn’t have a big slowdown. you had a lot of worry in all of that but in the last couple months in europe, particularly in the last month, it’s pretty much across europe things are really starting to slip pretty fast.
we’ve heard this from a lot of ceos who joined us in the last several weeks but what business lines in particular do you look at and do you see these things kind of popping up?
i look at all of thebusinesses we have and then i talk to people in otherbusinesses, and it’s pretty clear that that’s what’s going on right now, that there’s certain figures i can’t tell you where i get them, but they — europe is really, it’s headed downward in the last, i don’t know, six weeks or so, and it wasn’t going that way before, it wasn’t doing that well, but it hadn’t really hit the skids.
is that because of consumers or because of businesses, confidence and spending slowing down.
spending slowing down andwhen spending slows down, business reacts. i mean, they’re not seeing the same kind of spending so they’re pulling their horns some.
of the things that you can talk b the numbers that you do see concern you the most?
well it’s pretty general,becky. like i say, it has not turned down in the united states. our freight carloadings are up week by week. i normally get them today but i’m not home. last week, they’re up, although the eastern railroads were down moderately. lot of that’s coal but nevertheless just across the board, looking at retail sales and jewelry or furniture or you name it, yards of carpet are down. carpet business is better. on the other hand, if you look at, we’re the largest home builder in the country, clayton homes. that’s up, brick is picking up but these are from low levels but you are seeing, and our real estate brokerage firm, second largest in the country, pending sales are up by a reasonable amount but from a very low base.
with everything else, with not a reversal but a slowdown in the growth, what happened six weeks ago to spook people, to spook businesses?
i don’t know the answer to that. i know the result. you can argue in europe why it was delayed so long. i mean, because europe has really been, you can see this coming, it was two years ago we sold all our spanish and italian and even french bonds, we were overly cautious probably but that was two years ago. so europe, with all that’s going on, it probably kept it from having any kind of gains but it didn’t really seem to sink in, but i would say the last, well i know the last couple months, and with some acceleration, it’s been hitting over there.
we’ve watched the jobs picture, and the last unemployment, the last unemployment numbers at 8.2% from that last big government report last friday. is that a chicken and egg cycle? are people watching the jobs number and getting spooked by it or is the jobs number kind of —
well, you’re right. there is some circularity to it, but i don’t know the answer as to exactly why it’s happening and i don’t know what it will be three months from now or six months from now because three months ago i didn’t know what it would be today, and the u.s. economy is doing better than virtually any big economy around the world. this economy has come back a long way with the exception of housing, from where it was a few years ago and you can see it in corporate profits, but i thought it would take housing, i still think it would take housing coming back significantly to move us generally significantly upward and i still think that’s true, but so far, the little pickup in housing has not been near enough to offset whatever is going on in the world generally.
the fed came out with their minutes yesterday, and obviously they’re concerned about the economy. they say that they could step in to do something else but i guess the question becomes what would it take to get them to step in and what could they do at that point?
i have my own doubts, i’m sure chairman bernanke would disagree with me and he knows a lot more about it than i do. i get — when you have interest rates down to zero, not only here but in the major countries in europe, and you have the, you have a 15-year treasury inflation protected so-called tips security, in a negative yield, 15 years people arewilling to put their money out at a minus rate in real terms, that — that’s about as far as you can go. you can talk about more easing or that sort of thing, but you know the banks are sitting with enormous amounts of money at the fed. they don’t want to be sitting with the money at the fed. it’s bringing in a quarter of a percent. they’re not happy having that money at the fed. they just aren’t seeing that much demand for loans. although they’re picking up a little, i mean, but it’s nothing like people would like to see. i don’t see what the fed does that’s dramatic.
does that mean we’re in a wait and see pattern?
to some extent. it also means that they shouldn’t be bicycling like crazy at the fed while — maybe they should be bicycling like crazy but while congress sits there on the sidelines and you know, basically squabbles.
what should congress be doing at this point? we’ll talk more with simpson and bowles a little later this morning but you think there’s something congress should be doing right now?
i think people have a feeling that congress is inept, and sort of paralyzed by the desire of each side to make the other side look bad. i think that has got to be a factor in general confidence. you know, if you see your government not functioning, it’s not really the most — it’s not the biggest spur to activity that you can imagine.
maybe not a confidence booster so to speak.
so i think it’s hard for the fed to offset the congress in terms of changing public opinion.
okay, we’re going to have more with warren buffett in just a moment, but andrew, i know we have to cut in for a commercial break so i’ll send it back to you.
we will do that. thank you for that becky, thank.