Warren Buffett Can’t Say When U.S. Economy Will Recover
Warren Buffett, the second richest person in the world, was on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today and talked about a number of financial issues, including the state of the U.S. economy. Bianna Golodryga and Alice Gomstyn wrote on the ABC News site this morning:
Nebraska native Buffett, known as the “Oracle of Omaha” for his long history of prescient stock picks, said that despite the talk of recent economic “green shoots,” he couldn’t predict when the flagging economy would bounce back.
“We are not in a freefall, but we are not in a recovery either,” Buffett said. “We were in a freefall really in the last quarter of last year, starting in the financial markets and spreading to the economy, and we had this huge change in behavior. That change hasn’t changed.”
The U.S. unemployment rate, which currently stands at 9.5 percent, still “has a ways to go” before it peaks, he said. His own company, he said, had to lay off 500 people.
“We didn’t want to do it, and if we saw things coming back we wouldn’t do it,” he said.
Source:
“Warren Buffett Backs Second Stimulus”
Bianna Golodryga, Alice Gomstyn
ABC News, July 9, 2009

