Warren Buffett is on CNBC this morning, all clips along with links can be found below. This will be updated throughout the morning so check back (or subscribe)
NOTE CNBC has a technical with embedding their videos (for over 6 months now….); you can find the videos by scrolling down or just click on the links to see them directly on CNBC.com.
UPDATE 9:50AM EST this should be all the videos if we missed any let us know. We will be covering the FBN interview and of course the Sohn Conference.
10-year not part of my strategy: Buffettett
Buffett: No desire to go to war with Coca-Cola
Buffett: Generally fighters not invited on boards
I don’t want to embarrass Coca-Cola: Buffett
We will never do a hostile deal: Buffett
Buffett: Mary Barra is made for the job
Tax reform could cause one hell of a fight: Buffett
We are not unduly burdened by taxes: Buffett
Capital allocation easier under current structure: Buffett
There’s honesty in what we do: Munger
Retail sector is a moving target: Buffett
Amazon model will change US: Munger
Pharmacy biz wants zero tax rate: Munger
Three traits need to get elected to Berkshire board
Shareholder power important part of system: Gates
Munger: Totally against exporting natural gas
HFT equivalent of rats in a grainery: Munger
Patents are too easily granted: Munger
Gates’ Microsoft sell strategy
More below
we’ll do over 40 million dollars in one week here at the furniture mart. and that’s a lot of business. most furniture stores don’t do that in a year. and it’s our biggest week of the year. in fact, it’s a normal month. we do about $450 million a year at this store. so it’s a normal month. and we do it all in a week. and the stockholders get more excited every year. they — i run into people in the elevator that a month or two ahead of time say thank you for holding the meeting. you know, they are patting me on the back for the meeting and explain they want to come out to furniture mart. so you had told us before that you expected maybe 38,000 people this year. what do you think the numbers were? not any less than that. this was the biggest meeting by quite a margin because we filled utterly the main auditorium and all three overflow rooms and had spillover to the hilton and people were in the exhibition hall. so we never can get a perfect count, but i’m sure we beat anything in the past by at least 3,000 and wouldn’t be surprised if we beat it by 5,000. so someone between 38,000 and 40,000 is what you’re getszing? yeah. i have not seen the ten-year yet this morning at 2.75%. why do you think that is? is this a sign of concern about what’s happening? what would be your guess? i don’t know. i’m no good on interest rates, but one thing i know is ten year from now they won’t be at 2.57 or 3.57. does that catch your attention, though, when you the ten-year continuing to decline? most people thought it would definitely go up this year. well, it’s surprising but i’m used to getting surprised in markets. and we issue bonds from time to time, so the lower rates are more of an issue and the longer we like to issue them. would a ten-year at this level change any of your behavior in the business? would you do anything differently? no, we don’t do anything differently. if it moved up 50 or down 50 basis points, we wouldn’t do anything differently. we don’t react to apple factors at berkshire. our macrofactor is that the country will do better over time and that guides us in everything we do. again, i know it’s not something you spend a lot of time on, but if you had to make a guess now, would you guess the ten-year will end above or below 3%? i really don’t think about that, but yeah, if you told me i had to pick a figure, i would pick higher.
yeah. we had no desire, never will have desire to go to war with coca-cola. they are a wonderful company that have treated us wonderful. the management has been candid with us. i’m sure we have the right leader there, so we had no desire to go to war, but we did think the program was a success. and with those two beliefs, we thought the best way to do was to express our opinions privately to the management who will listen carefully and to abstain from discussions with coca-cola between now and any equity plan. there was an article in the back of this from cacon, but this article says why buffett is wrong on coke. he’s got a different style than you do. i hope so. do you think that, first of all, what do you think about what carl said and secondly do you think your style is effective in this situation? yeah, i do think our styles will be affective. and i think our style actually would be more effective than might be proposed by carl, but carl goes into other types of businesses where often at least he goes in where there’s a problem. there isn’t a problem with coca-cola, but there was a plan proposed that was excessive. it is very easy to make it nonaccessible. spread the authorization. whether it turns out excessive, they have not locked into stone that they are using stone for the next few years. frequently carl was working with managements for different attitudes and probably have a different attitude toward him. have you spoken to muchar
yeah, i voted for plans over the years and have been on board for 55 years. i vote for plans and have voted for acquisitions i didn’t like. i’mopposed to it. and if you start objecting to this and this and this, pretty soon people don’t pay attention to you. and you want to save your bullets for one they really can’t. and i have never seen a cop committee come into a boardroom and all my time that i had with a recommendation, the board delegates to a committee and say, you go out and work on this. they may say that the governor’s committee, you work on getting directors and all kinds of things. once the board is delegated to a community and they spent hours working on something and reported with 20 other items on the agenda, the german calls on the cop xhooi committee. it gives it 30 seconds to report. the it never gets old. and a short fuse. i have a better idea. i haven’t talked to compensation person in a little while, but it will happen. i don’t think stunned by what you have said but just that you have said it. there’s been this idea that boards are clubby and basically came out to say that’s the case. i’ve ridden that for 30 years and have seen bars operate. it should be no surprises. it’s always interesting to hear the academic discussions on board. like you read in the movies or something, but boards are in part business organizations and in part social organizations. and people walk into those with their behavior formed by dozens of — usually you hear people say some standing, so they have learned how to get along with other people. and they don’t suddenly change stripes when coming into a board meeting, so there’s a great tendency to behave in a socially acceptable way and not necessarily in a busine maximization way. people like to get along with other people. most people. do you, carl? is that a gene? and i do enjoy battle. but generally you don’t get invited on board if you have a person who actually loves a fight. and your point, i guess,
well, i don’t really want to embarrass coca-cola company. i mean, i like the people and everything, but i think we have some people that, i don’t know if they would use the word embarass, but they would frefr that i didn’t do it. i guess i used to have word before 2009, so i was not looking to embarrass him and was certainly looking to re-examine it because they are in a great position to re-examine it as they have not used a share in this authorization yet. even though they said in the proxy statement they expect to use it over four years. but they generally issue their options in either january or february. so they have a lot of time to think about what is best and they are, the one thing i can guarantee you, they are decent high-grade people. and i think they will do what is right, but i don’t believe the best way to do that is to go to war with them.
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway chairman & CEO, shares his thoughts on Bank of America’s mistake in regulatory capital calculations.
bank of america very recently had to pull back their plan to increase the dividend and buy
