The Annual Meeting of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway attracted more than 40,000 shareholders from around the world as well as a wide variety of media outlets to Omaha every year. "The main problem was they didn't act".
Still, Buffett is uncomfortable with keeping so much of Berkshire's cash parked on the sidelines, and acknowledges that the pressure is on to figure out whether to spend it-likely on a major acquisition-or pay it back to shareholders.
He singled out the company's founder and chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, for praise.
"It's a very, very, very valuable product to people that build their lives around it". Buffett said such shifts help millions of people by providing necessities at a lower cost. "You're going to be 88 on Monday". "In the investment world, it isn't true".
Munoz has apologized many times since then, including before a congressional committee last week. Asked if he had stopped buying Apple, Buffett said: "Maybe, may not". "In any other field, it would just blow your mind".
Buffett said "it's bad" when airline executives get hauled before Congress, as Munoz and others were last week, but said the strategy behind his airline investments remains unchanged. Buffett said he still believes in the long-term prospects of the bank even though Wells Fargo mishandled the scandal.
"These are powerful, powerful ideas with big potential, and he's executed", Buffett said. "The CEO has to act", Buffett said.
GOP-aligned group buys ad time for health bill
House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledges the Senate is likely to make changes to the GOP health overhaul plan passed by the House. With the 48 Democratic votes there solidly opposed to the House version, a fierce fight for approval looms ahead.
"The performance of these units in transition will each be a test of succession planning", said Lawrence Cunningham, a law professor at George Washington University who has written about Berkshire. Still, the analysts said that based on Buffett's investing record and a review of prior reinsurance transactions, the "total projected benefit" is about US$8 billion.
He said "the shares, when we bought them, were much more reasonable" in price.
Buffett said at the meeting that health care costs have become a bigger issue for American businesses than taxes.
Health care costs in other countries are now 10 percent or 11 percent of GDP, even though the ratios were on par with the USA decades ago, he said. Several said they got there almost five hours before doors opened around 6:45 a.m.
During the interview, Buffett spoke on how he sees progress in India and that he is not anxious about the world's economic environment, adding the U.S. will prosper more if rest of the world prospers. Sloan, the bank's CEO, has said most calls to what the bank calls the EthicsLine were handled properly and promised to fix cases where they weren't. "It would be no fun to go through life and say I'm doing this for the greater good, and so that shoes or underwear was all for 5 percent less".
Most new managers are hired from within the subsidiaries, he said, a model that has been successful.
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