Berkshire Hathaway Chairman & CEO Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Liz Claman following the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, NE. When asked if Uber goes public would Buffett buy the stock, Buffett said, “No… it would go public at a price that would be — it would be very hard for me to decide that the discounter value of all the future cash that was going to be produced was going to be attractive in terms of the price.” Buffett also commented on the deficit saying, “modern deficits don’t matter.”
Warren Buffett on Uber:
“It's sort of -- I find -- this always impresses me, when somebody takes something like the car, which is an American -- or the driver, which is an -- or and then figures out a way to make it way more productive and change human lives for the better. And I tip my hat to people who do that. Fred Smith did it at Federal Express. Jeff Bezos has done it at Amazon. They've done it at Uber. I mean it -- you know, they didn't invent a new car or anything, they just thought about it a little different way and I'm not a big user of anything but...I mean I don't -- I have friend after friend after friend that, you know, that whose lives, I feel, are better because of Uber.”
Warren Buffett on whether he would buy Uber stock if it went public:
“No…Well, it would go public at a price that would be -- it would be very hard for me to decide that the discounter value of all the future cash that was going to be produced was going to be attractive in terms of the price. It might well be, but I mean we have -- I would say in the last 40 years, anyway, I don't think we've ever bought a public offering.”
Warren Buffett on what the next President should do to close the deficit:
“Well I don’t regard the deficit as 3 percent or so of GDP is threating to our economy. It’s when the debt increases significantly and consistently as a percentage of GDP… we can run a deficit and have a wonderful economy. We’ve been doing that since World War II... modern deficits don’t matter. I mean the truth is the earning power of the country goes up year after year. Berkshire 50 years ago, three or four million dollars would have been a huge amount of debt, now whatever it is 30 or 40 billion is very easily serviceable, so the richer the country the more debt you can take.”
Warren Buffett on livestreaming the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting on Yahoo this year:
“I think we did a great job. And as far as I know, there was no glitch at all. I haven't seen any of it. I've been busy doing other things. But we'll do it again. They had 40 people out here and I've already got -- been getting e-mails from people who said thanks for doing it.”
Warren Buffett on whether he is surprised that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are still in the race:
“Yes. Hillary is going to get the nomination. And it looks to me like Trump is going to get the nomination, too. But Bernie Sanders did start at 3 percent or something like that. And attracted millions and millions of particularly young people.”
Charlie Munger on Founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management Bill Ackman wanting him to change his mind on Valeant Pharmaceuticals:
“I don’t think so. You know, there’s been a compliant about me saying that Valeant is the sewer, but I thought the compliant would come from the sewers never occurred to me that anybody would be defending Valeant.”
Charlie Munger on Bill Ackman being a baby Buffett:
“Well he certainly made a brilliant investment in General Growth Properties and he’s totally right about Herbalife, and he’s very articulate and intelligent, and he’s a fellow Harvard man. So he’s not all bad. On the other hand, the main thing Valeant did that was unbelievably clever was to pay the consumers part of the deductible for the drugs they were selling. That is totally illegal, criminal under the Medicare laws, but that doesn’t apply under the state laws and they saw that loophole so they did with all the drugs that weren’t covered by Medicare. They paid the consumer share of the deducible and they tried to pretend it was a charitable contribution, but really it was…the equivalent to bribing the other fellows purchasing agent, sewer was too light of a word for the behavior of this company.”
Warren Buffett on Donald Trump’s trade tariff on China
“It would cut down on trade dramatically in both directions and it would have a negative effect on the economy, a significant negative effect. Instantly, I don think he would do it if he were President. I don’t know if he’s going to be President, but I don’t think he would do it.”
Charlie Munger on Donald Trump’s trade tariff on China
“I consider it absolutely essential to both China and the United States that they need to become two great and permeant friends. To start a trade war with China, well it’s not my favorite policy.”
