2020年2月CNBC巴菲特访谈实录（中文+英文）

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翻译：一朵喵
　　时间：2020年2月24日
　　地点：CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
　　以下是2月24日星期一，CNBC在CNBC的“Squawk Box”(美国东部时间早上6点到9点)节目中对伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特的采访全文。采访视频可在CNBC.com上观看。
　　所有引用必须注明来自CNBC。
　　乔·克宁：早上好，欢迎收看CNBC现场直播的Squawk Box。这里是来自时代广场的乔·克宁(Joe Kernen)和安德鲁·罗斯·斯金(Andrew Ross Skin)，我的同事贝基·奎克(Becky Quick)正在奥马哈作关于巴菲特的现场报道。今天因为巴菲特的到来，真是美好的一天。嘿，贝克，我们马上就去找他们。首先是最新的市场消息。市场目前下跌了大概800点。我很高兴地说，当我开始读这个数字时，指数稍微回升，只跌了799点，但是——我们又回到了800点了。随着冠状病毒疫情的蔓延，美国股票期货价格暴跌，人们担心全球经济增长，以及中国为世界其他地区提供的至关重要的供应链的影响。按百分比计算，这也不是世界末日。但它会引起你的注意。如果它在盘前下跌了800点，那你可能会看到——你可能最终会看到4位数字。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：没错。
　　乔·克宁：几分钟前，我听到了沃伦·巴菲特的一些评论——“当股票便宜的时候，就是我喜欢买入的时候。它们比前一天便宜了。”也许他可以缓解市场在这一点上的恐慌。让我们来看看国债收益率。看看你所期待的10年期——今天早上债券表现强劲，你会看到收益率在一段时间内处于我们所见过的10年期债券的最低水平——低于1.4%，现在是1.389%。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：好吧，让我们来看一下今天早上关于冠状病毒的最新进展。中国今天报告有150人死亡，以及409个新病例，这发生在一夜之间。韩国在发现病例后，将其冠状病毒警报提升到最高水平。他们从31人激增到超过750人，这发生在不到一周的时间里。现在，亚洲股市一夜之间暴跌。香港恒生指数下跌1.8%，韩国股市下跌3.9%。韩国两家最大的航空公司取消了飞往首尔的航班，导致它们的股价暴跌。与此同时，意大利政府正忙于应对亚洲以外最大规模的冠状病毒爆发。你会看到那里的股票也在暴跌——今天早上接近5%。意大利政府将意大利北部至少10个城镇隔离，并取消威尼斯狂欢节的最后几天的活动。在意大利的其他地方，学校、博物馆、大学和电影院都关闭了，大型足球比赛也被取消了……所有这些都对屏幕上的红色箭头有帮助。但就像乔之前提到的，贝基现在要和沃伦·巴菲特谈一下——他可能对这一切有一些独特的看法。所以我们想去奥马哈见他们。早上好，贝琪。
　　贝琪·奎克：嘿，早上好，安德鲁，早上好，乔。很高兴见到你们俩。今天上午，我们与伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特一起来到了内布拉斯加州的奥马哈。本周末，他刚刚向股东们发布了第55份年度股东信。这实际上是我们在奥马哈的第13个年头了。这是一个我们叫做“问沃伦”的节目，这样人们在阅读了巴菲特的信之后，就可以向他提出自己的问题。但是很明显今天早上的新闻让人们对股票市场产生了很多其他的疑问。让我们和巴菲特先生一起开始吧，他现在就在这里。沃伦，谢谢你今天来到这里。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嘿，谢谢你们邀请我。
　　贝琪·奎克：很高兴见到你。我想谈谈这封信，很明显你在信中提到的一件事，就是人们什么时候应该买股票。我们会深入研究的。但是当你今天早上看到期货下跌了818点时，我想观众想听到的第一件事可能是你对冠状病毒的看法，如果这是恐慌的一个原因，如果你对此感到担忧的话。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，除了关于冠状病毒的新闻之外，我不知道我是否还有什么特别的想法。我买股票的第一天是1941年3月12日。结果，那天股票下跌了2%。不幸的是，我是早上买的。所以当我晚上回家时，我爸爸告诉我收盘价格下降了2%。如果你买的是企业——也就是股票，事实上，如果人们说，“我今天买了一家企业”而不是股票，他们会更富有。因为这给了你一个不同的角度去看待它。如果你买了一家企业，你将拥有它10年，20年或30年。真正的问题是，美国企业10年或20年的前景在过去的24小时或48小时内改变了吗?你会注意到我们拥有的许多企业——或者部分拥有一些企业，比如美国运通，我们拥有它20年；可口可乐，我们拥有它40年——但这些都是企业。你不会根据今天的头条新闻来买卖你的生意。如果它能让你有机会买你喜欢的东西，而且你能以更便宜的价格买到它，那你基本上是幸运的。
　　贝琪·奎克：虽然有很多人看着市场说，“看，我想买，但我不想在市场处于新高的时候买，特别当它每天都在刷新纪录的时候买。也许今天早上它下跌了800点，但也许还会有更多的下跌，因为冠状病毒的影响将对全球经济产生影响。”IMF在周末就是这样表示的。你会看到不仅中国，其他国家也在试图解决这个问题。是的，在五年或十年的时间里，它可能不会改变什么。如果我认为我可以以可能低10%的价格买到某样东西，如果我等上一周或一个月，价格可能会还是现在这个水平的话，你怎么看？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：如果你这么认为，那么你就会——如果你是对的，你就会变得非常富有。你所要做的就是每隔10天不断地买进，并不断地做出你下一个10天的预测。前提是，我需要明确知道市场未来要做什么。但我认为没人知道市场会怎样。我认为你要知道你是否在一个给定的价格上做出了明智的购买，那你可以拿一个黄色的小本子，在一页纸上记录下，“我要以420亿美元收购通用汽车公司，因为——”你应该把购买的原因写在一张纸上。或者你有另外一张纸，上面写着，“我想我知道股票市场的走势，所以我知道一周后是涨还是跌。”但实际情况是，你并不知道。
　　贝琪·奎克：你是不知道，但如果我担心经济会放缓——不仅是这个季度，而是今年，我认为这将影响到他们能卖出多少辆车，甚至能生产多少辆车。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我向你保证汽车销量总有一天会减速。1932年，通用汽车(General Motors)拥有1.9万名经销商。这比今天美国所有的汽车经销商都多。当时美国只有1.25亿人，但他们有19,000名经销商。我记得有一个月他们卖了不到计划的1/10辆车。但那是购买通用汽车的大好时机。忘了市场吧，如果你能够预测市场，那你甚至不需要看资产负债表。你甚至不需要读任何报纸——不过显然，你不能通过读报纸来预测市场，那是肯定的。你当然也不能通过听我的话来预测市场。事实上，你购买的是企业本身。
　　如果你昨天打算买一个当地的加油站，而今天加油站又关门了，我想你是不会抓狂的。因为你应该已经看过它的位置，他们与供应商的合同，并就竞争做出了决定。
　　因为人们每一秒都能在股票上做出决定，而他们不能分分秒秒在农场上做出决定，所以他们认为投资股票不同于投资企业或投资农场或投资公寓。但事实并非如此。如果在未来的10年、20年或30年里，你的钱在未来的赚钱能力方面是有价值的，那么你就做了一个很好的投资。你不可能日复一日地挑选它们。如果你觉得自己能做到的话——不过我还没见过知道怎么做的人。
　　贝琪·奎克：你在今年的一封信中强调了这一点，你强调了埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯(Edgar Lawrence Smith)在1924年写的一本书。你说在他出现之前没有人真正意识到买股票的复利效应。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯用这本书改变了世界。现在人们已经完全忘记了这一点。在20世纪20年代，随着经济的繁荣，它变得越来越像一种信念。但埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯说：“我想写一本关于债券和股票的书。”他原本的想法是，债券在通货紧缩时期是更好的投资，股票在通货膨胀时期是更好的投资。但他书的第一行就是说他错了。但他有足够的理智去审视他的证据。
　　我认为达尔文说过，如果你发现了与你已经相信的相反的证据，那么，在30分钟内把它写下来，否则你的大脑就会把它屏蔽掉。我想说的是，人们对新证据有很强的抵抗力。
　　他说，“如果一个股票的收益率是4%，一个债券的收益率也是4%，那么，股票的收益将超过债券，因为我们的留存收益的回报率，超过了这个债券的收益率。”在很长一段时间以来都是这样，但没有人注意到这一点。
　　我们不会因为我们得到的红利而变得富有，虽然我们很高兴接受他们。我们变得富有的原因是——留存收益被用来建立新的盈利能力，或者通过回购——这增加你在公司的所有权。自我们接手伯克希尔哈撒韦公司起，留存收益就一直存在。这是伯克希尔在保留收益的情况下，市场价值大幅上涨的唯一原因。
　　贝琪·奎克：凯恩斯说这是一本重要的书。然后人们开始关注它。你说得对，它加剧了1929年之前的疯狂。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是真的，我以前的老板本·格雷厄姆很早就告诉过我，“一个好主意比一个坏主意给你带来的麻烦更多，”因为好主意是可行的。我的意思是，买个房子是个好主意。但是，有时人们会发疯。一个好主意是可行的，它会一直可行下去。
　　大多数时候，股票比债券更有效。不过一段时间后，人们忘记了还有其他一些限制条件。埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯的书中说，当债券和股票的收益率相同时，也就是当时的情况，股票的表现会更好因为它们有留存收益。所以，20年代股票开始上涨。不过突然间，他们的售价是他买那本书时的五六倍。他原先正确的看法的前提条件发生了一些变化。但人们只是得到了股票价格的信号。这就是牛市的情况。人们开始认为股票便宜，然后他们开始认为股票将要上涨了。
　　股票可以是好的买入，也可以是坏的买入；债券可以是好的买入，也可以是坏的买入——这取决于价格。
　　贝琪·奎克：如果他的前提是股票总是比债券更好的投资，那这就像是你今天在市场中听到的——我们也已经听了一段时间了，我们没有其他选择，对吧?你必须买股票，是因为债券收益率很低，是因为利率很低。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：如果你看一下现在的情况——我们之前已经讨论过这个问题了，你投资股票的收益比投资债券要高。虽然它不总是必然——但在美国通常都是这样。
　　如果你今天买了一个收益率为2%的30年期债券，那你支付的是50倍于收益的投资，而且收益在30年内是不会上升的。如果有人对你说'我想卖给你一只市盈率为50倍的股票，并且它30年内收入是不会增加的'，那你会说这听起来不太好。
　　所以，股票比30年期债券要好得多。我是说，这很明显。这是一种选择。人们往往有三种基本的选择，短期现金是一种选择，剩下就是长期债券或长期股票。现在，股票比债券便宜。
　　贝琪·奎克：查理最近说——查理·芒格，伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的副董事长，在不久前召开了他的每日期刊(daily journal)的股东大会。在那次会议上，他说，现在有很多糟糕的过度行为，因此会有很多麻烦。你同意吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：麻烦总是会来的。是的，1942年我买第一支股票的时候遇到了麻烦，各种各样的麻烦。比如，“菲律宾很快就会沦陷”，“1949年有各种各样的麻烦”。确实有麻烦，然后2008年我给《纽约时报》写了一篇文章。我说：“麻烦来了。但我还说：“买股票。”
　　贝琪·奎克：这次你会再说一遍，“如果麻烦来了，现在就买股票吗”?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我会说，如果你的钱足够多，那就买股票。你知道，我们就买了一些股票。我们不关注股市走势。我们说我要买——比如说美国运通，我们拥有美国运通的8.15亿股，在今天早上，它是126美元左右，它的售价大约是1000亿美元。现在真正的问题是，这家公司的价值是1000亿美元还是更少。它与股票明天或下周或下个月的走势无关。
　　贝琪·奎克：你刚才说——就在几分钟前我们在全球交易所问你的时候，你说，现在伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司是股票的净买家。你处于净买入状态?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：从我11岁开始，我们每年都净买入股票。我一生中有15位美国总统，超过美国历史上的1/3。在胡佛执政期间，我有三分之一的时间没有买股票，因为那时我只有六个月大。但之后又有7名共和党人和7名民主党人。我在每个总统任期都买了股票。不过，我不是每天都买股票。有几次我买的股票的股价在非常高的位置。我甚至为此写过一两次文章。但这种情况很少见。
　　贝琪·奎克：但你也一度结束了你们的合伙企业。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：因为某个原因，我曾经结束了我的合伙人关系。
　　贝琪·奎克：因为你觉得太贵了。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。但现在不是这样的时候吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们现在拥有价值2400亿美元的股票。我们将其视为价值2400亿美元的企业——我们拥有其中的一部分。但是，我喜欢拥有这些企业。
　　贝琪·奎克：你还有超过1250亿美元的现金。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们想收购更多的企业。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的，我们稍后会详细讨论这个问题。当我们再次回来的时候，我们会从巴菲特那里得到更多答案。不过现在我要把画面交回给演播室，给乔和安德鲁。伙计们，到你们了。
　　（广告时间）
　　贝琪·奎克：大家早上好。欢迎回到CNBC的Squawk Box。我是贝基·奎克，现在和伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特一起住在奥马哈。本周末，他刚刚发布了第55封致股东的年度信。我们一直在回答你们的问题。今天上午我们会讲到这些问题。沃伦和我正在一起，我们在伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的总部大楼。现在我们在大楼楼上，一间叫做云室(the cloud room)的房间里。这是一个你经常带学生去的地方，当他们来找你的时候，你可以和他们谈谈他们的问题。你也可以做一些其他的事情，比如做一些其他方面的演讲。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我这里已经有学生几十年了。多年来，总共有40所学校。他们是八人一组的，我每年要花五天的时间。他们来自世界各地。我们有来自秘鲁的，有来自中国的，有来自以色列的。我们显然玩得很开心。但现在我已经放弃了。我21岁的时候就开始教书了。所以当我88岁的时候，我想我应该休息一下。
　　贝琪·奎克：好了，今天有很多观众提出的问题。他们今天早上醒来，看着道琼斯指数下跌近800点。实际上，我们已经脱离了早上最糟糕的水平，不顾你仍然看着道琼斯指数下跌约786点。人们对经济有很多疑问。他们想知道现在发生了什么，尤其是冠状病毒。你手头有大量的经济数据，因为不仅是伯克希尔拥有的许多企业，还有你所拥有的企业。你现在在全球都看到了什么?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，它影响了很多行业。我会说我收到了报告——几乎所有公司每个月都会给我一些报告。很多人都说这对他们的影响，我相信这肯定是加重了。但他们也受到关税的影响，受到税收的影响，他们最常见受影响是他们受到竞争对手的影响以及随着时间的推移，供求关系的影响。我一点也不知道我们的企业6个月或12个月后会做什么。但我确实认为，不仅是我们的企业——大多数美国的企业从现在起的30年或20年后都会有惊人的增长。在我看来，长期是很容易预测的。但这是一个重要的方式。我不认为有任何方法可以预测股票市场从现在起十分钟、十天或十个月后的走势。所以我在做我认为我能做的事情。我很想知道十分钟后会发生什么，但这不是我能掌握的。所以，幸运的是，我可以得出一个非常坚定的结论，那就是从现在开始的二三十年后，美国商界乃至全世界的商业都会比现在好得多。
　　贝琪·奎克：你从冠状病毒身上看到了什么?你能举一个例子么？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：举个例子，我们在中国大概有1000家冰雪皇后特许经营店。它们就是普通的接待客人的门店，它们是老式的餐饮业。但是，其中很多家冰雪皇后都关闭了，并且那些开着门的公司根本没有什么生意可言。而苹果——我们在苹果拥有更大的投入，我们拥有苹果5.6%的股份，苹果出来说，冠状病毒不仅影响了它的门店销售，还影响了所有的东西，比如供应链。我发现我们的一些公司的供应链安排受到了冠状病毒影响，我甚至不知道我们的这些公司背后的这些供应商的名字。
　　贝琪·奎克：哪些公司呢？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：比如前几天约翰·曼达尔(John Mandal)给我说，你通常不会认为他们有一个大的供应链，还有邵氏地毯……我可以向你保证，我们的企业中有相当大的比例都受到了冠状病毒这个问题的影响。但是他们也受到很多其他事情的影响。而真正的问题是，这些业务在五到十年后会发展到什么程度。他们总是会有起有落。我们的糖果生意非常好。但它一年有七个月是亏损的。但好的事情是圣诞节每年都来。
　　贝琪·奎克：当你观察经济，看看事情是如何进展的，比方说，今年年初，当经济开始回升的时候，你如何评估当时的美国经济?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，它很强劲，但比6个月前弱了一点。这是一个很广泛的范围——你可以看汽车公司的销售，看看铁路的货运量……它们又一次受到关税的影响，因为人们提前购买各种各样的东西。有很多变量会影响。但是，生意比之前不好做。不过它是从一个非常好的水平下降的。所以我想说，不妨看看我们的70家企业——实际上——他们代表了数百家企业，此外他们受到的影响要弱一些。另一方面，星期六晚上我和内布拉斯加家具市场的伙计们出去了，他们的生意在二月份有很大起色。但那是因为天气好。要知道，影响生意的有很多变量。
　　贝琪·奎克：你认为过去六个月生意不好吗?是你的信心下降了？还是从之前异常活跃的水平下降?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：它并没有真正下跌。只是，它变平了，也许现在更柔和了。但是，关税的情况对所有公司来说都是一个大问题。在某种程度上仍然是。有一段时间，关税问题这是最重要的。而现在冠状病毒处于前沿和中心。6个月之后、1年之后、2年之后，其他一些事情将会成为中心。真正的问题是，从现在开始的5年、10年、20年后，你的企业会发展到什么程度?他们中的一些人会制造轰动，一些人会消失。总的来说，我认为美国将会做得很好——你知道，自1776年以来就一直如此。
　　贝琪·奎克：可你还是会看铁路的货运量……
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我什么都看。但我这样做并不是为了做出具体的投资决策。我很享受，我是说，我想知道发生了什么。但我也不认为我可以通过预测下周或下个月的情况来赚钱。我认为我可以通过预测未来十年的事情来赚钱。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，既然你喜欢了解这些事情，那就多告诉我们一些吧。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，正如我所说，某些业务在很大程度上取决于天气。以零售业为例，大趋势是往线上走。另外，我们在航空业务上有一大笔投资，而我听说有更多的航班被取消等等。有时候是由于天气原因航班取消了，但在这种情况下它们在更长的时间内被取消是因为冠状病毒。但如果你拥有航空公司10年或20年，你知道，这生意就会起起伏伏——有些可能与天气有关，也可能会遇到各种各样的原因。真正的问题是，从现在开始的10年和15年以后，他们会搭载多少乘客?他们的利润率会是多少?他们的竞争地位会是什么?但我承认，我还是一直看着这些数字。
　　贝琪·奎克：你提到了航空公司。你持有了所有主要航空公司的股份，但是规模都不如达美航空(Delta)。我想你现在拥有达美11%的股份?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们最大的仓位在达美航空，四个座位中有三个是我的，另一个是其他人的。但我们拥有四大航空公司大约10%的股份。
　　贝琪·奎克：大家有很多猜测。事实上，这个周末的一些问题是关于这些航空公司的。不知道你会不会直接买下其中任何一个。你考虑过直接收购这些公司吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们不太可能这么做。我不是说不可能。但是——这是复杂的。
　　贝琪·奎克：为什么？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：首先，它们是受监管的，而且有相互作用。给你举个例子，不是说我们会这么做。由于达美航空拥有美国运通18%的股份，美国运通是一家银行控股公司，银行控股公司的业务也有限制。我们是美国运通银行控股公司的被动持有人。我们拥有一家与他们联系紧密的航空公司，他们会有很多监管。这里面有很多复杂的因素，因为这是一个受监管的行业。任何时候，你进入一个受监管的行业，你都有更多的复杂的交易。
　　贝琪·奎克：那么，可以说你喜欢这些股票，如果不是很复杂，你会持有更多，对吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：当我们在任何公司的持股比例超过15%，如果要增加持股时，会有很多规定。显然，几乎所有我们拥有的东西，我们都想拥有更多。
　　贝琪·奎克：你现在还想买这些股份吗?比如苹果的股票——
　　沃伦·巴菲特：说到我们要买的东西，我总是闭上嘴巴。（笑）
　　贝琪·奎克：你想了一会儿。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：突然之间，我觉得我的嘴巴被卡住了。（笑）
　　但公平地说，我们喜欢我们所拥有的任何东西。你知道，我们拥有的股票数量很少，我认为它们是企业所有权的一部分。我持有的公司中，很少有公司我会想以更高的价格出售。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，让我问一个托尼·狄金森的问题。他问：“去年第四季度，伯克希尔出售了5500万股富国银行的股票。股东们是否应该认为这是对新的CEO复兴计划缺乏信心?沃伦对富国银行的未来前景如何?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我不会给他任何关于富国银行的建议。但我们确实已经出售了我们的头寸。有些是为了避免超过10%而出售的，因为一旦超过10%，你就有需要向美联储递交一些文件，但是——
　　贝琪·奎克：你们卖出的股份似乎更多啊？好像是持股剩下8.4%？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们卖出了更多的股票。你说的不错。我们在第四季度卖掉了富国银行，我们之前也卖掉了一些。
　　贝琪·奎克：我能问为什么吗?因为我确实收到了一些关于出售富国银行的问题。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我能理解。但是我们不想给出任何关于我们正在做什么的建议，因为我可以改变我明天要做的事情。我们什么都谈，就是不给股票建议。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。我想再问一个托尼·狄金森的问题。我想我总共有15到20个不同的问题。
　　“伯克希尔哈撒韦持有美国银行(Bank of America) 325.8亿股和富国银行(Wells Fargo) 173.9亿股，一个持仓一直在增加，另一个持仓一直在减少。沃伦喜欢美国银行的程度是富国银行的两倍吗?股东应该如何看待持股?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我认为他们已经看到我们买入了美国银行，也卖掉了一些富国银行。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，我来问你一个更广泛的问题，关于利率和它们可能产生的影响。Varun Jain在Facebook上写道：“你好，我是巴菲特的超级粉丝和学生。请问问他，日本和欧洲等地的零利率环境对它们的银行有什么影响，业务是否依然良好。美国长期的低利率制度是否损害了摩根大通等美国银行的前景?在这种情况下，那些股本回报率高的印度银行对巴菲特有吸引力吗?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我不能对此发表评论，但是——一般来说，还有很多其他的变量，但是如果利率更高，曲线更陡，银行就会赚更多的钱。这条曲线比10年期利率和短期利率更重要。它的影响比利率的绝对水平更大。但是美国的银行用极低的利率赚了很多钱。在世界各地——如果你看看英国、欧洲或日本，更低的利率让银行的日子变得相当艰难，股本回报率也不高，同时他们必须使用更多的杠杆来获得相同的回报。我不喜欢这样。
　　贝琪·奎克：如果你说的是我们今天早上看到的曲线，那么五年期和两年期是倒挂。两年期和十年期现在还没倒挂。但今天上午，10年期国债收益率低于1.4%。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：想想看，10年的1.4%意味着你要为一件10年都不能增加收益的事情支付70倍的收益。
　　贝琪·奎克：这是个好办法。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：如果有人带着一只股票来找你，对你说：“这是一只很棒的股票。其市盈率为70倍。你会说，“好吧，再跟我解释一遍。”但我们从未见过世界上出现这样的情况。我的意思是，你可以回去读凯恩斯，你可以读亚当·斯密，你可以读所有伟大的著作。他们不讨论负利率。他们从未想过这种情况。他们谈论的，总是供给和需求以及边际成本等等。杰出的经济学家从来没有真正预料到世界范围内会出现负利率，比如像现在这样13万亿美元。我们不知道这意味着什么。
　　不过，我们有很多人可以推测这意味着什么。但从现在起10年或15年后，当我们回首往事时，我们会说，“嗯，很明显会发生什么，我们会看到的。“这不是一个正常的情况。
　　利率是一切价值的基础。如果你觉得利率将在100年内为零，那你会认为1%是一个很好的回报率。你同时也知道，如果你买了收益率为1%的东西，如果忽然它的利率涨到8%，那你很可能就会损失掉所有的资本。
　　所以，这是一个巨大的因素。我们不知道答案，央行也不知道答案。我们所知道的是它在刺激经济方面是有用的，特别是十年来的资产价格的表现。
　　我们在2008和2009年认为，这只是暂时的货币政策刺激，我们只是把脚踩在了油门上。但现在全世界都这样。
　　贝琪·奎克：你在信中说你不知道这些利率会持续多久。你和查理从不尝试寻找这些问题的答案。不过，上周圣路易斯联邦储备银行行长布拉德(Jim Bullard)也参加了这个项目。他说，他预计在未来很长一段时间内都将看到这样的低利率。这确实引发了很多问题。如果发生这种状况，那这对股市意味着什么，对银行意味着什么，对保险公司意味着什么，你在信中也提到了。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：这对保险公司不利。但这对股市有利。
　　贝琪·奎克：结果对保险公司有什么影响?一些保险公司会暴露在风险中吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：真正受到影响的不是寿险公司，就是承诺回报的年金公司。财产意外险业务不承诺回报率。年金公司持有货币，所以这伤害了他们。如果你向某人承诺支付3%或4%的年金，而现在你发现你以1%的利率进行再投资，那最终你会消失。
　　贝琪·奎克：保险公司是否不得不冒越来越大的风险?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：他们不应该这么做。我的意思是，如果你需要3%而你只得到1%，答案是放弃3%。这不是试图让一个人去做更多危险的事情。你应该使你的消费适应你的收入。你不应该试图调整你的收入以适应你的消费。这是个人、企业和其他一切的基本原则。追求收益是很愚蠢的。但这就是人性。我是说，我能理解。人们会说，我一生都在存钱，现在只能得到1%的利息。我该怎么办?不幸的是，你只能靠1%来生活。你不该去听某个推销员跟你说，“我有个神奇的方法可以帮你得到5%的回报。”
　　贝琪·奎克：你认为这就是会发生的事情吗?你认为结果是保险市场上有更多的冒险行为吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：当然。你可以看到，他们称之为杠杆贷款和较弱契约。这是愚蠢的。随着时间的推移，它会产生一些后果。但它反映了人性。
　　贝琪·奎克：会对市场产生巨大影响的后果?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：这要看情况如何了。这是一种慢慢建立起来的东西，在90年代后期，人们疯狂了，科技公司也疯狂了。这个过程可能比你想象的要长得多。但最终你到了午夜，一切都变成了南瓜和老鼠。
　　贝琪·奎克：这就是低利率、养老金、储蓄者的缺点，任何一个人在这种情况下都会受到伤害。另一方面，如果利率迅速上升，或者可能不会这么快，这对联邦债务意味着什么?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：这取决于债务的平均期限。但是我们的期限很短，它们现在期限长了一点。但如果你以2%的利率借了20万亿，你有4000亿的利息费用。但在5%的利率下，你有一万亿的利息费用。由于替代利率非常低，我们的国家预算从中获得了巨大的好处。因此，利息成本并没有像你预期的那样上升——并没有像20或30年前，大家认为利息会随着国家债务的增加而增加。华尔街发行了100年期债券，是2%左右。然后价格上升了很多，现在收益率也许是1.1%左右。但如果你是借款人，这是很好的，也许每个人都应该再融资他们的抵押贷款。
　　贝琪·奎克：这是财政部发行更多长期债券的理由?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，是的。如果是在五六年前，我也会这么说，但我错了。如果我们在目前的利率曲线下，延长它仍然会花费更多。但是你在以非常非常低的利率在延长它的期限。如果我是财政部长，我会倾向于这么做。但是在过去的十年里，我错过了很多。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，等我们回来的时候，我们会跟沃伦·巴菲特聊更多话题。我们会讨论一下伯克希尔哈撒韦公司是否因为它是联合企业而被市场低估。伙计们，现在我把直播间还给你们。
　　（广告时间）
　　贝琪·奎克：嘿，沃伦，对于那些刚刚醒来的人来说，他们正在收听节目，他们想知道你对今天早上的抛售有什么看法。看到道琼斯指数在早上下跌700到800点，你会作何反应?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我的反应是我喜欢买股票，所以我不希望别人生我的气。但是我的确喜欢——如果他们想便宜一点卖给我，我更喜欢。现在指数大概下降了3%左右。我不知道我一生中经历了多少次3%的下跌，但确实有很多次。我想不出有什么是你不该买的。就这么多股票，它们会在下周、下个月或明年上涨或下跌。如果你想拥有美国企业，你现在就有机会以3%的折扣价格买到它。我不认为这便宜了多少。除非你不得不卖出股票，否则（股价更便宜）怎么会是坏消息呢?
　　现在，如果你因为某种原因不得不卖掉它们（比如杠杆），那你的情况就可能会更糟。如果你不需要卖掉它们——我的意思是，今天如果有人会过来为你的房子报价，而且可能今天的报价比他们昨天给你的价格低2%，但是如果你喜欢这个房子，这对你来说真的没有任何区别。
　　贝琪·奎克：这是否意味着伯克希尔今天会购买股票?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们当然不会抛售。这点你说的没错，我们很容易就能买到东西。
　　贝琪·奎克：我们来谈谈上周刚出版的《巴伦周刊》的封面故事。封面故事里的好消息是，他们认为伯克希尔现在的价值超过了它现在的售价。坏消息是，他们认为这在一定程度上是因为它获得了大型企业集团的折扣。他们认为如果你不再经营伯克希尔，那它可能会会遭受损失。你对这条逻辑有什么看法?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：企业集团多年来名声不好，理由很充分。我在60年代末结束了我的合伙企业。之后，企业集团公司出现了一次挤兑，一次滥用权力的挤兑，他们玩弄数字，他们有被称为会计的肮脏池池。他们想让他们的股票上涨，然后发布消息，这样他们就可以发行更多的股票。市场上有很多糟糕的企业集团，而且远比那些诚实经营的单一业务的公司要多。我们不认为我们是那种企业集团。我们当然从未想过要发行股票。我们也从不吹嘘股票。在我们的案例中，（如果有增发），这都是出于商业原因。有趣的是，如果你仔细想想，美国公众在过去的几年里对大型企业集团的热情越来越高涨。我的意思是，这是一个非常受欢迎的领域。但他们称之为指数基金。比如，你买了500家企业——
　　贝琪·奎克：我想跟上你在说什么。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，总共500家企业。我是说，那是终极的企业集团，不是吗?我的意思是，我向很多人推荐了指数基金，当他们这么做的时候，他们就相当于买入了500家企业的股票。他们将从现在开始持有500家公司。同时，他们认为这些企业会做得很好。我也认为我们的这组企业集团会做得很好。
　　贝琪·奎克：标准普尔500指数的不同之处在于，它是由500个不同的管理团队管理的500个不同的公司，他们都专注于自己的业务。不同之处，可能是指数并没有一个总部，它只是松散地运行所有这些业务。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们的企业是由不同的人经营的。我是说，我们刚过完情人节。我没有选择盒子里装的是什么。我大概有十年没去过一家糖果工厂了。现在，我每个月都会拿到数据。但是我不知道怎么做巧克力，我也不会为门店选择新的地点。我们的经理人和我们拥有的美国运通或可口可乐的经理人都非常相似。
　　不过，我们可以做几件事。我们可以确定子公司的股利政策。我们可以在一定程度上控制它们的资本配置。但在大多数的资本配置上，无论是购买新设备还是诸如此类的事情，他们都会自己做出决定。比如，BNSF铁路公司将花费35亿美元——我没有参与其中的任何一美元的资本支出。他们知道他们需要做什么，他们需要在哪里铺设轨道，他们需要多少机车——不管是什么，他们都能自己决定。
　　从某种意义上说，我们的经理比标准普尔500指数的经理更独立，后者每周都去华尔街报到。他们参加投资者关系会议，他们总是解释他们在做什么，试图得到分析师的批准，诸如此类的事情。我们只是告诉我们的经理去做有意义的事情。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，除了他们不必向个人股东或投资界汇报之外，那他们拥有你还什么好处呢?另外，能不能谈一下资本配置部分?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，好的。我们可以把资本转移到内部，如果你把资本从一个股票转移到另一个股票，你可以得到收益，但是，你要纳税，然后就是支付股息税。或者如果你出售一部分，把资金从一个企业转移到另一个企业，那也会产生很多税收（资本利得税）。在某些情况下这是在公司层面，但在个人层面肯定存在。
　　我们的确可以转移资本，再拿喜诗糖果做例子好了。我们是在1972年买的。我们已经把几十亿美元从糖果行业转移到其他行业。如果我们能把它用在糖果生意上就好了，但这不是那种生意。
　　除此之外，我们把我们的经理从所有与华尔街打交道、与银行家打交道、处理我认为是对他们时间的低效利用的所有事情中解放出来。
　　贝琪·奎克：但是，你也有遇到过这样的情况，有一些积极分子对这只股票感兴趣，包括比尔·阿克曼(Bill Ackman)。我认为他已经就如何提高北伯林顿铁路公司(Burlington Northern Santa Fe)的利润率发表了一些看法。你可以回顾一下比尔·阿克曼在加拿大太平洋铁路公司的经历，我想知道他是否正在建立一个头寸，是因为他希望看到你在那里发挥更积极的作用。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们注意到其他铁路公司的盈利情况，以及它们的利润率在什么时候更好。虽然我们给我们的经理的压力比华尔街给他们的压力要小，但我们的经理很清楚其他行业的情况。我们已经做出了一些改变，我们认为有些企业的表现并没有达到应有的水平。但不可否认的是，我们有非常非常优秀的经理。他们有足够的资本来做任何有意义的事情。我们决定分配多少，资本流向哪里。有时它会从一个行业转移到另一个行业。而在某些行业，合并税收对我们很有帮助。
　　贝琪·奎克：有一个叫做Ben Comston的观众提问：“比尔·阿克曼最近指出，伯克希尔的一些子公司，如Geico、BNSF，在某些方面落后于同行。你同意吗?你的继任者如何在保持分散管理结构的同时推动子公司的改进?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们在1995年收购了Geico的控制权。我们最早占了汽车保险市场的2.5%。而我们现在的市场份额约为13.7%。我们的保费收入从25亿增长到350亿。我们现在是State Farm之后，排名第二。我们收购的时候，那时我们是第六或第七名。我想说，这完全不是伯克希尔的功劳，这些年的所有这些，几乎都是托尼的功劳。在汽车保险行业，Geico一直是所有其他公司羡慕的对象。他们也的确做得很好。Geico的价值比我们当初买下它的时候多了几百亿，再加上我们现在赚的钱，这真的是一笔好买卖。这真的是太棒了。
　　伯灵顿去年的股息是50亿美元，我们为收购它支付了350亿美元。它的市场份额和业务增长了，它的运营利润率有所提高，但没有其他一些铁路公司提高得多。
　　贝琪·奎克：那你相信火车的精确调度吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我们对此拭目以待。我的意思是，我们已经看过很多类似的案例了。
　　贝琪·奎克：对于那些不知道这是什么东西的人来说，这是一种会让顾客生气的东西，因为它会让事情变得更死板。不过，它确实改善了——
　　沃伦·巴菲特：它让客户适应铁路，而不是铁路适应客户。几乎每个人都这么做。一个叫亨特·哈里森的家伙就非常成功——
　　贝琪·奎克：他和比尔·阿克曼一起在加拿大太平洋铁路公司工作过——
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，他曾与BNSF合作过，市面上有一本关于它的书。这非常有趣。他做到了——在伊利诺斯中央铁路公司(Illinois Central)，在加拿大国民铁路公司(Canadian National)，在加拿大太平洋铁路公司(Canadian Pacific)。然后他去了CSX。他发展了一种使顾客更适应铁路的铁路运输方法，然后使得利润率大幅提高。我们的利润率接近于更好的铁路——而从精确的铁路调度中只能得到一点利润。我的意思是，我们现在已经获得了份额——
　　贝琪·奎克：因为顾客不喜欢（精确的时刻表）。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：显然铁路客户更喜欢我们。长期来看，我们对此将拭目以待。但（提高时刻准确性）并不像是我们不能做的事情。
　　贝琪·奎克：关于Geico和托德·库姆斯(Todd Combs)的角色，我们还有更多的问题要问。但现在我们必须在广告时段插播广告。现在让我们回到纽约的演播室。
　　

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贝琪·奎克：随着投资者追踪中国以外地区冠状病毒病例的激增，全球范围内的抛售正在进行。这里有有关疫情爆发的最新情况，以及你需要从传奇投资家、亿万富翁沃伦•巴菲特身上获得的投资建议。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：我们正在追踪股票的走势，看看哪些板块受到的冲击最大，以及市场的反应。
　　乔·克宁：沃伦·巴菲特对病毒的全球经济影响的看法和他给投资者的建议，就在第二小时的“Squawk Box”。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：早上好。欢迎回到CNBC的Squawk Box。我是安德鲁·罗斯·斯金(Andrew Ross Sorkin)，还有乔·克宁(Joe Kernen)。贝琪·奎克今天上午与投资者兼伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特在奥马哈会面。我们马上就会听到他们的消息。能从巴菲特身上听到意见，这可是重要的一天，我们看到目前美国股指处于下跌状态。现在稍微好一点，但也好不了多少。道琼斯指数的开盘点位在下跌702点左右，这在很大程度上是由于人们对冠状病毒的担忧加剧，而这种病毒在周末期间传播有一些新的数据。我们马上会讲到这些。纳斯达克指数较开盘后下跌约250点，标准普尔500指数较开盘下跌了75点。现在来看看欧洲市场。冠状病毒在意大利的传播给当地的股票带来了很大的压力。你们看到的是数据显示，指数有3%和4%的下跌，但我们也想在这个时候快速地向你们展示石油价格。你现在看到的是WTI原油，每桶51.35美元，较昨日下降了近4%。
　　乔·克宁：这是新型冠状病毒。中国一夜之间又报告了150人死亡和409例新病例。在不到一周的时间里，韩国的冠状病毒感染病例从31例激增至750例，随后韩国将其警戒级别提升至最高水平。亚洲股市连夜下跌。香港恒生指数下跌1.8%。韩国综合股价指数下跌近3.9%。韩国两家最大的航空公司的股票下跌，因为它们取消了飞往大邱的航班。大邱是发现许多新病例的地方。与此同时，意大利政府正忙于应对亚洲以外最大规模的冠状病毒爆发。美国股市隔夜走低。政府将意大利北部至少10个城镇隔离，并取消了威尼斯狂欢节的最后几天。在意大利的其他地方，学校、博物馆、大学和电影院被关闭，大型足球比赛被取消。另外，鲍里斯·约翰逊今天早些时候离开，安德鲁，他说英国公民面临的风险仍然很低。我想说，我们的官员在这里也会这么说。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：是的。
　　乔·克宁：目前来看，对美国公民来说，风险仍然很低。但因为供应链中断，影响了几十家甚至上百家公司。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：当然。
　　乔·克宁：这抑制了全球经济增长。让我担心的是我们不知道，三个月，六个月，九个月后会怎么样。在世界上的许多国家，人们甚至不知道这些疾病的起源。如果它们继续发展，我认为在这一点上，全球经济增长仍在放缓。而在世界上的大多数地方，很多人都担心他们会感染冠状病毒。他们不能出去——他们不能去看电影，不能去健身俱乐部，也不能去餐馆。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：现在，主要的旅行方式现在正在改变。很多会议被取消了。《时代》杂志上有一篇文章推测日本夏季奥运会是否会被取消。因此，这里有可能产生深远影响。话虽如此，我们离春天越远、夏天越近，它的情况就变得越好。天气是重要的影响因素。
　　乔·克宁：如果你在恐惧和恐慌中走得太远，你会被指责。如果你走得不够远，你就会因为另外的原因被指责。所以，我们真的需要每天坐在这里，报道事实，尽量保持中立。但这次大流行与其他“黑天鹅”不同。这是一个可怕的前景。不管怎样，让我们回到今天的嘉宾。上周末，巴菲特在奥马哈向股东发表年度致股东信。现在，巴菲特正与贝琪在奥马哈会面。
　　贝琪·奎克：乔，这要追溯到1918年。如果你看看全球范围内发生的流行病的数量，就会发现有多达5000万人在那次大流行中丧生。全球三分之一的人口受到了感染。当时有5亿人被感染。当时有67.5万美国人死亡。所以，不可避免地，你的思绪会回到过去发生的事情上。因为，作为人类，我们总是回顾历史，试图预测未来。但这并不是经常成功。它并不总是具有预测性。但它确实告诉你，如果情况变得越来越糟，你该怎么做。现在，安德鲁提出了天气暖和的想法。我们即将迎来春天，不仅仅在这个国家的很多地方，还在这个星球的很多地方。这可能是个好消息。我们只是不知道这一次，这些病毒之一是否会在温暖的天气中死亡。等着瞧吧，人类还有点希望。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：事实上，据我所知，人们对病毒的了解比我多很多，不幸的是，很可能这将会贯穿整个夏天。至于疫苗，你知道，还有很长的路要走。所以，你知道，这是很可怕的事情。但我认为这不会影响你在股市的投资。不过，就人类而言，当你发生流行病时，这是一件可怕的事情。
　　贝琪·奎克：是的。我想这一次尤其可怕，因为它是新的。没有任何一种人群天生就有免疫力。你想知道会发生什么，尤其是在那些没有像我们美国或一些发达国家的医疗保健体制的地区。我想这也是这次危机的一部分。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我想到了我们5月2日的年会。我的意思是，它很可能会被影响。
　　贝琪·奎克：我们有观众问的很多问题。今年的年会很不同吗？尤其是因为中国有大量的股东，估计他们会来吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。这当然会受到影响。顺便说一句，流感对老年人来说特别严重。舞台上有两个人年龄加起来是185岁。所以，我们不会期待那些有传染迹象的人的到来。但这就是问题之一，它的孕育期确实很长。它的传染性很强。
　　贝琪·奎克：再一次，你之前谈到过这个问题。你说你在你的独资企业的汇报中看到了些东西。这是你没有预料到的。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。比如，我们拥有的航空公司。新型冠状病毒的确在现在影响着企业。事实上，我爸爸过去常给我讲故事。1918年，他14岁。他告诉我在西班牙流感大流行期间，奥马哈发生了什么。那是当时的事。而且，（我相信）流感疫情还会在未来发生。现在，人们希望得到的是一种通用的疫苗。但是，这还有很长的路要走。我自己的科学顾问是比尔·盖茨，所以我给他打电话，前几天我和他谈过这件事。他对普遍预防的新型冠状病毒的长期前景持乐观态度。但是，现在疫苗没那么快出来，但再过10年这种病毒就不太可能会出现了。
　　贝琪·奎克：作为一个花费大量时间周游世界的人，作为一个试图帮助世界上一些欠发达地区医疗的人，比尔有什么顾虑?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。盖茨基金会非常积极地试图在这方面提供帮助。比尔说疾控中心是世界上最好的。我的意思是，我们在这个国家有丰富的资源。但流行病就是流行病。只是没有办法评估。但是我听说这个夏天不太可能结束。
　　贝琪·奎克：你知道为什么吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我不知道。你知道，你不应该被问我——我也不应该给出我的意见。因为我只是把我认为聪明的人说的话传给别人，但是——
　　贝琪·奎克：实际上我是在征求比尔的意见，而不是你的意见。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我真的不应该——我不应该引用他的话，但他就是我问的人。几天前我还和他谈过，他喜欢谈论科学，他可以让它我可以理解这次疫情的情况，这可需要相当的技巧。在盖茨基金会，他们非常严肃地对待这件事。
　　贝琪·奎克：盖茨基金会的钱正在用来尝试和寻找疫苗吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我确信他们正在投入大量的人力和财力在这上面。
　　贝琪·奎克：我是说，他们的投入也许比你想象的要多。但是你知道他们有没有把人力资源投入到中国或者其他地方吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我不知道。我不想对此发表评论。但我知道，他们一直都在为人类健康而努力。尤其是这次。比尔对疫苗很了解。
　　贝琪·奎克：我们来谈谈伯克希尔哈撒韦公司。有人提出了这个问题，不仅是在《巴伦周刊》(Barron 's)的封面故事上，还有其他地方也提出了这个问题——如果伯克希尔哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)被分拆，它的价值是否会更高?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：这是个好问题。如果你有两年的时间，你说，‘我们将出售所有的业务’，你还是会有出售这些业务的费用。现在，如果你把这些业务全部卖给那些把它们杠杆化到最大限度的人，你可能会得到比股票卖价稍微多一点的价格。不过，从税收角度看，这将是非常低效的。
　　更令人恼火的是，直到1986年，这种情况还不存在。我是说，当时曾经有一个通用的公用事业原则(general utilities doctrine)来处理公司的分拆。根据这个原则，你可以很好的处理企业分拆或出售证券。如果你处理得好，你可以处理掉证券或企业，并且不需要在公司层面纳税。直到1986年，这都可以通过各种方式定期进行的。
　　然后，他们在很大程度上修改了税法。他们废除了通用的公用事业原则。你现在不能再这么做了。
　　现在，你可以去做衍生品的相关业务。为了得到最好的税收政策，你可能不得不在你的目的上撒一点点谎。这需要时间。你不可能分拆——你不可能处理将整个业务分拆成一个又一个业务，而不承担非常大的税务责任。（分拆本身）它不会产生收益。
　　另一方面，把很多业务放在一起，会产生一些非常有价值的协同效应。我们伯克希尔，并不像那些购买各个子业务的人那样使用杠杆。当然，我们完全可以把伯克希尔的杠杆提高到天上去，但我向人们保证，我们不会这样做。因为我们向人们承诺了50年或100年的保险，我们也向我们的股东承诺将持有股票50年，他们都不希望我们把杠杆抬到天上去。
　　如果我们只是宣布在接下来的24个月里你可以进来收购我们的任何业务，然后把它们卖给出价最高的竞标者，那其实并没有利润可言。
　　贝琪·奎克：你在年度信中强调了这一点。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。
　　贝琪·奎克：你在信中说过——“我对伯克希尔哈撒韦公司未来的判断和董事们的忠诚是伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的关键。他们将定期接受华尔街人士的收费测试。在许多公司，这些超级推销员可能会赢。不过，我不认为伯克希尔会出现这种情况。”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：没错。我认为把它写出来，也会有一点帮助。
　　毫无疑问，华尔街很乐意与我们合作，出售我们所拥有的一切。我是说，他们的每次交易都要收费。而且，这是一笔很大的费用，还有来自纳斯达克的费用。我是说，我们周围有各种各样的人爱管闲事，他们知道他们那一套在我身上不会得逞——我想他们以后也不会得逞。
　　我即将要离开了——我所有的伯克希尔股票都捐给了慈善机构，这是我99%的净资产。所以，在我死后的几年里，没有人比我更关心如何为那些慈善事业获得最多的钱。这将持续15年。我说过，要把这些都留在伯克希尔哈撒韦。如果我认为伯克希尔哈撒韦将以一种响应华尔街的方式运营，我宁愿做些别的事情，把钱分配给这些慈善机构，而不是把所有钱都花在伯克希尔哈撒韦身上。
　　伯克希尔拥有一个非常寻常的股东基础。我意思是，我们有许多个人投资者拥有伯克希尔哈撒韦。很多人已经拥有它50年了，就像人们买它是为了拥有一辈子一样。我们要让他们不会失望。
　　贝琪·奎克：你认为那些相对较新的股东、以及购买B类股的人，会和那些在A类股投资50年的人有同样的心态吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我们鼓励这样的人。实际上，我们不希望每个人都买我们的股票。我是说——只有这么多座位，A类股大约有一百六十万股，现在所有的座位都坐满了。我爱我们的股东。我不想去华尔街找一些新的股东来取代我们现有的人。听着，我们想让大家坐在与我们同步的座位上。
　　你可以经营一家法国餐馆，也可以经营一个汉堡包摊。如果你提供好的汉堡包，你就能做成好生意。在法国餐厅，你也可以做同样的事情。但是你不能经营一家法国餐馆，然后在里面卖汉堡包，你也不能经营一家汉堡包摊，然后在里面卖法国食物。所以，我们在行动中、在言语中，尽我们所能地宣传我们所做的一切。我们希望教堂的座位能坐满与我们步调一致的人。我们也确实有这样一批股东，我们每个“星期天”都接待同样类型的人。
　　我看不出如果我们走出去，告诉华尔街的人——“我们将会做一些很棒的事情，然后换掉那些座位吧”——这样做有什么好处。因为得到座位的唯一方法就是把别人从座位上扔下去。可我们只有这么多座位，而且都坐满了。我们希望他们都是与公司政策、理念一致的人。因此，你必须解释这些政策和理念，你也必须遵守这些政策和理念。55年来，我们一直在努力。
　　贝琪·奎克：所以，你得到了你应得的股东。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：没错。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。做个比喻，你能有一个权力下放的集团办公室，同时管理法国餐馆和汉堡店吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们没有试图让铁路管理人员来管理这里的公共事业。
　　贝琪·奎克：不，我的意思是“去中心化”。一个权力下放的总部，一个综合企业集团，负责着所有这些不同的业务。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们已经把管理权力下放了。我们可以让一个人负责所有的小公司，另一个负责大公司。我们可以想象各种各样的方式。我想我们可能会有更多的间接管理费用。我想我们会有八种不同（业务类型）的经理人。我们的经理人喜欢经营自己的生意，并且他们从不需要为他们的企业融资。我的意思是，他们永远不需要去华尔街，那他们可能就节省了25%的时间。我想让他们感觉到他们拥有自己的生意，他们只负责这个。
　　如果我们在其他方面搞砸了，你知道，他们仍然可以根据他们的表现来获得报酬。同样，我们也吸引那些喜欢在此基础上运营的经理人。我们并没有吸引到那些认为自己能够在各个部门中，一步步前进并最终掌控整个公司的管理者。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧。我们可以稍后再讨论继任问题，因为你在年度信中也写了很多关于这方面的内容。但是现在，我们要把时间交回给安德鲁。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：谢谢你，贝琪。在休息之后，我们将会听到更多来自奥马哈和沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的消息。不过，一定要先看看期货的情况。就在此时，我们回到了道琼斯指数下跌约700点的情况。纳斯达克指数开盘下跌247点。标准普尔500指数开盘下跌77点。所有这些都是由于对冠状病毒传播的新恐惧。我们待会会讲到更多。休息一下。
　　（广告时间）
　　贝琪·奎克：欢迎回到Squawk Box。这是CNBC。我们现在在内布拉斯加州的奥马哈为您带来沃伦·巴菲特的特别节目。但在我们继续之前，让我们快速查看一下今天上午的金融市场的状况。如果你一直关注期货，你会发现道琼斯指数期货整体下跌超过700点，今天早上我们也已经看到了比800点更糟糕的水平，其中很大一部分跌幅来自银行板块。银行，如果你纵观全局，下降了大约3%。高盛、美国银行、花旗集团下跌2.9%，摩根大通下跌3%，富国银行下降少了一点，下降了1.9%。今天，我们再次邀请到了伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特。沃伦，很多人都对银行有疑问，请问银行发生了什么？你的一些投资随着时间的推移发生了什么变化？詹森·戈德堡写信进来。他问：
　　“请询问沃伦对银行股的总体看法，特别是对富国银行的看法。在过去几个季度里，他出售了自己长期持有的富国银行(Wells Fargo)股份的近四分之一。而且，在第四季度，他抛售了三分之一的高盛股票，尽管他仍然持有超过750亿美元的银行股权。”
　　那么问题来了，你对银行有什么看法?不一定只针对今天的抛售，因为我知道你不会天天看。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：如果你不做资产方面的蠢事，银行业是一项不错的业务，基本上就这么简单。商业银行的有形资产净收益率在12%到16%之间。那是个好生意。相对于2%的长期债券来说，这是一个很好的买卖。你可以在2%的投资工具和12%的投资工具之间选择，哪一个会赢得时间?如果你问我，“当银行的有形资产回报只有3%或4%时，我是否认为银行会倒闭”——我不认为会发生这种情况。
　　问题在于，他们是否做了一些非常愚蠢的事情。我的意思是，一些银行周期性地犯这样的错误。
　　我对我们拥有的银行感觉很好。与我看到的大多数其他证券相比，它们非常有吸引力。而且，他们中的大多数每年都在回购大量的股票——比如美国银行的回购。所以，我们对美国银行的持股今年可能会增长7%或8%，而我们一分钱都不用花。
　　我想拥有任何一门好生意——同时我的所有权每年上升7%或8%且我无需掏钱（指回购），除此之外，我还能得到红利。因此，它们非常有吸引力，无论是相对于利率，还是相对于债券，以及在我看来，相对于其他股票。
　　贝琪·奎克：你会说：“他们偶尔也会做傻事。”也许你说的是富国银行(Wells Fargo)的丑闻?它在周五刚刚和解——当时一些监管机构正在调查它，也发生了一些关于投资的指控——和解花费了30亿美元。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。
　　贝琪·奎克：这是否意味着他们终于度过了难关，可以继续前进了?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我不知道答案。他们要支付30亿美元，因为这已经宣布了。（除此之外，）我不知道还有什么是已经公布的。但就一个教训而言，富国银行很经典。我的拍档查理·芒格(Charlie Munger)他说，“无论何时我们遇到问题，你就应当立即着手解决。”他还说：“一分预防不如十分治疗。一分预防胜似十分治疗(An ounce of prevention is not worth a pound of cure. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure)。”我们一次又一次地看到这种情况。有趣的是，我根本不知道细节，但最初的东西是一大堆虚假的账户。我可不知道如果你开了两百万个假账户，你怎么能赚到钱。我没有赚到钱，股东们也没有赚到钱。
　　贝琪·奎克：嗯，激励机制是这样建立的，一些员工这样做了，为了赚更多的钱。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：这是你能想到的最愚蠢的激励机制。只要你想学，你就能设计出愚蠢的激励机制。我们自己也曾做过。我的意思是，你你可以让人们做错事，因为人们会做他们被鼓励去做的事情。
　　很明显，富国银行他们有一个非常愚蠢的激励系统，并且他们的员工开始用不同的方式去实现它。更重要的是当他们发现的时候，他们会忽略它。虽然你会在生意场上做傻事——我们每天都做，但你知道吗?一旦出现问题，你必须立即着手解决，而且你也知道这一点。如果这种情况真的发生了（指富国银行自己修正错误），那富国银行的股东们的日子会好过得多。
　　富国银行的股东们并没有从开设虚假账户中获利，这些账户里什么都没有，但有些员工却因为开设新的账户，都能拿到这么多钱。这种做法会被广泛传播——因为如果规则允许的话，不好的做法确实会传播。这些问题却被忽视了，这是一场彻底的灾难。看看后果吧。最终两三年后，谁来买单呢？是股东们正在为那些没有任何好处的东西买单。
　　贝琪·奎克：这就是你抛售股票的原因吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：不。（我抛售股票）没有特别的理由。
　　贝琪·奎克：我知道你不想详细说明你为什么——
　　沃伦·巴菲特：不，我不是在推荐什么股票——（我不谈论买卖股票的理由是因为）人们必须自己做出决定。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。我想问你一个关于托德·库姆斯(Todd Combs)和他在Geico的新角色的问题（一朵喵注：Todd在2020年1月1日被正式任命为Geico的CEO)。我有几个相关的问题。
　　让我们看一下彼得•兰佩利斯(Peter Lamperis)的这个问题：“2018年信件公布后，去年你在CNBC接受采访时，被问及GEICO的继任问题，你提到最近在GEICO的一次会议上，你会见了约40名GEICO的高管。在每个人自我介绍之后，他们陈述了他们与公司相处的时间。最短的是19年。请解释一下，为什么这40位高管都没有资格在比尔•罗伯茨(Bill Roberts)退休后接任首席执行官一职。”
　　再说一遍，这个问题是来自芝加哥的皮特·兰佩利斯。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：比尔·罗伯茨接管了Geico公司不到两年。他在与托尼（一朵喵注：Geico灵魂人物，前前任CEO）的关系上做得很好。我是说，GEICO是我的初恋，绝对的。我告诉其他公司，你可以竞争我的第二顺位，但是你不能竞争我的第一顺位——那就是GEICO。因为它可以追溯到69年前，它为我创造了奇迹。不管怎样，比尔·罗伯茨在不到两年前接管了GEICO公司。去年10月或11月，他说他想在一年内退休。比尔想以一种对我们比较方便的方式进行职位的调整。然后在我看来，我们当时没有人可以代替他。
　　托德·库姆斯在伯克希尔工作了10年，他过去曾是进步保险公司(Progressive)的产品经理，他对保险非常了解。保险可能是我在所有子公司中所了解的唯一业务，其余的都是有各种疑惑的，但我的确对保险业务有一定的了解。
　　托德在操作层面上非常了解。托德现在在那里，我非常希望他不会在那里待太久，因为我想让他回到奥马哈。我们总是想从内部选拔——我们希望能在GEICO找到合适的人。我这么说并不是说GEICO的人不胜任。只是，我想要一个对的人。因为当我把一个人放在那个位置的时候，我会想让他在那里呆很长一段时间。也有可能是她。
　　贝琪·奎克：这是否意味着托德不会在那里待很长时间?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：不，不。这个计划不适合他。我的意思是，他还没有做出永久性的职业转变。不过我不知道他会在那里呆多久。我们有一个重要的问题——所有的保险公司都有，但是进步保险公司在管理方面做得更好——将我们的风险与利率联系起来。这就是我们现在关注的。换句话说，要有适当的回报率。
　　贝琪·奎克：没错。收取合理的费用——
　　沃伦·巴菲特：合理收费。如果你在人寿保险行业，你认为80岁的人和20岁的人的预期寿命一样，那你就有大问题了。然后你会承保所有80岁的人的保单，而其他人会承保20岁的人的保单。汽车保险也是一样。这有很大的区别。
　　贝琪·奎克：在汽车保险方面，我不确定。我可能更喜欢80岁的人，而不是20岁的人。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：也许吧。不过你当然会更喜欢80岁的人而不是16岁的人。你还会更喜欢16岁的女性而不是16岁的男性。这里面有很多筛选标准。所以，你必须——你真的必须划分风险，这是非常重要的。每个公司都在努力做得更好，我们现在做得比50年前要好得多，但我们仍有改进的空间。我们专注于此。与此同时，我们增长得更快，我们正在扩大市场份额。GEICO是一笔极好的资产。托德的工作就是专注于此，但同时他也要尽快地把自己从工作中解脱出来，当然最好是找到来自GEICO的人去替换他。
　　贝琪·奎克：Eric LeFante接着提了一个问题。他说：“沃伦，你和阿吉特为什么决定任命托德•库姆斯为GEICO的首席执行官?”——这是你刚刚回答的那一部分——“他怎么能同时管理GEICO、管理一个130亿美元的投资组合、监管Haven，还能成为摩根大通的董事会成员?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这会让他很忙。我们告诉他NetJet可以无限使用。（笑）所以——
　　贝琪·奎克：真的吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：哦，当然。（笑）我是说，我们希望他高效。这就是NetJets的目的。你知道，他每周工作70个小时。
　　关于投资组合的问题很有趣。大多数时候，泰德和托德都不会对他们的投资组合做任何改变。虽然投资组合管理是你几十年来学习的东西，但当我管理的是伯克希尔公司的投资组合时，它不是你必须每天坐在那里做的工作。可现实中，人们却是这样做的。多年来，如果我完全保持投资组合不变——不做任何改变，我们的情况会更好。所以，就管理投资组合而言，对托德他不是问题。
　　但就摩根大通董事会、Haven等等这些事而言，你是对的，他会很忙的。现在GEICO是他工作的重中之重，但它不会在很长一段时间内都是重中之重。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧，让我再问一个Max0205写的问题：“托德•库姆斯(Todd Combs)和泰德•韦施勒(Ted Weschler)从开始在伯克希尔工作以来，他们的表现是否优于标普500指数?你为什么不披露他们的记录呢?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们没有披露——我认为这是非常不寻常的——一个公司往往要披露每个人去年的业绩，包括销售人员或类似的人。但我认为他们有权在相对匿名的情况下工作。
　　我的意思是，我们的董事知道他们是怎么做的。我知道他们是怎么做的。我们和他们一起赚了很多钱。我感觉很好——我的意思是，我对他们在各个方面都感觉很好。
　　我们不会告诉你每家喜诗糖果店卖了多少，或者谁是第一名或其他相关的东西。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧。让我们来看看伯克希尔对标普500指数的整体表现。在1年、3年、5年和10年的测试中，伯克希尔的表现都落后于标准普尔500指数。是不是因为它规模太大了?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：没错，规模过大也是原因之一。但是我想说，与此同时，去年我们的GAAP收益非常好——虽然我不太喜欢这个标准，但我们实现了世界上所有公司中最高的GAAP收益——那是归属投资者拥有的。我们的净资产是世界上所有公司中最高的，是世界上所有公司。
　　所以，我想说，随着时间的推移，考虑到本金的安全性，我对此感觉很好。我很高兴我99%的钱都在里面，而且这将是我死后15年里所有慈善捐款的来源。
　　我不认为它会出现在未来10年表现最好的10%的股票中。我也不认为它会在未来10年或15年内进入表现最好的15%的股票之列。但我也不认为它会在底部10%或20%或30%。
　　我们有能力在市场上拥有巨大的优势，我们现在拥有5500亿美元的市场价值——它将以一种非常非常安全的方式来实现。
　　贝琪·奎克：投资标准普尔500指数是比伯克希尔更好的投资吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：有可能。总的来说，我认为我们会做得更好。但它是次要的问题，这实际上取决于我们所处的市场。如果市场低迷，我们就能战胜它，就是这么简单。有时我们会打败他们，而过去十年，我们还没有。但是，过去55年来，它一直有效。它也将继续有效。但是它不会获得像我们在1亿或10亿美元的时候的成绩。这是毫无疑问的。但我们有很好的生意，我保证，在很长一段时间内，我们不会处于最差的四分之一。
　　贝琪·奎克：现在就像1999年有些人说的那样，认为你已经失去了优势。1999年也发生过类似的事情，你可以看到人们把大量的钱投入到科技股，比如.com公司和很多其他相关的公司。如果你再看一下市场，你会发现，那些科技公司的表现非常抢眼。这一次，你参与的是苹果公司，它是这次行情的领跑者之一。但这会是一个周期性的事情吗？我想问的是，你认为市场会再次下滑吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：噢，会有一个低迷期——
　　贝琪·奎克：伯克希尔的业绩会优于其他公司?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：——有时。
　　贝琪·奎克：然后伯克希尔公司在这时候会表现更出色?还是?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：噢，我们会在低迷的市场表现出色。对此，人们可能并不特别满意，但是我们自己会感到满意的，因为我们有这些赚钱的企业，我的意思是，现在我们在某种程度上偏离了大多数人正在参与市场的方向。这是很正常的。
　　如果你仔细想想，我们的股票占我们净资产的80%左右——我们可能有2300亿或2400亿美元的股票，看起来我们的市值是40%。我们拥有其他非上市公司的100%股份——这些也是股票。我是说，我们拥有一条铁路，我们拥有保险公司，这些实际上都是股票。
　　总的来说，我们持有大约80%的股票，大约20%的现金。而我宁愿把那20%投入到其他好生意中去。但是，这在某种程度上是规模的诅咒。在某种程度上，这是非常困难的。
　　如果利率继续维持这个水平，那么下一个10年或20年，股票的投资比重可能会到125%。你知道，现在股票比债券、长期债券便宜得多——所以，也许有些东西会发生重大变化。我只是不知道未来会怎么样。但很明显，我想做好一切准备。
　　贝琪·奎克：所以你才会有这么多现金。你希望能够为衰退或危机做好准备。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：贝琪，我们要为流行病做好准备，我们要为任何事情做好准备。是的。这就是我的主要工作。有些人在五六十年前给了我钱，至今他们中的一些人仍然把全副身家投在伯克希尔上。我所捐赠的五个基金会，目前将得到800亿美元，并且我认为随着时间的推移可能会得到更多。所以，我们不想产生永久性的资本损失。
　　你不会想要一个壳公司，什么都不做。我们对工人的赔偿要求和汽车事故负有义务已经有50年了。你知道，我们必须经营好这个地方，以便在任何情况下，每一张支票都能兑现。这就是为什么我们持有国库券——我们没有商业票据，我们也不依赖银行贷款之类的。当人们害怕的时候——他们偶尔会害怕，一切都冻结了（指流动性缺失），你知道吗?在这种时候，你还得靠自己。这种事情不会经常发生，但偶尔会发生。
　　贝琪·奎克：我知道你这么多年你都不在乎外界的看法，但是当人们开始质疑你是否已经失去了“投资光环”的时候，你会生气吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我确信我失去了一些。我的意思是，我可以告诉你我投资中各种各样的失败案例。这是常有的事。但是，我们没有失去GEICO，没有失去我们拥有的铁路，无论我是否在伯克希尔，伯克希尔的价值都是一样的。我的附加值并不高——顺便说一下，我不认为我是“负价值资产”。（笑）
　　最重要的是我们的业务如何运作，以及随着时间的推移，我们可以在业务中添加什么。我们可以通过有价证券来增加价值。我的意思是，我们现在拥有苹果公司5.5%或稍多一点的股份，而这可能是我知道的世界上最好的生意。我们拥有苹果5.5%的股份，除了保险和铁路，这比我们在任何业务上都有更大的承诺。苹果是我们的第三大生意。
　　贝琪·奎克：是的。这一点比你最大的收购，精密铸件(Precision Castparts)要大。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：当然。这是我们的第三大产业。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧。下面让我测试一下你对外界的看法。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：好的。哇。（笑）
　　贝琪·奎克：这是《巴伦周刊》的封面故事。他说，“有理由认为，在巴菲特离开后，伯克希尔将成为一个市场霸主。与此同时，祝你90岁生日快乐。”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是啊，我希望我死后，它能在市场上大获成功。我就指望它了。我告诉我的遗产执行人，我告诉他们保留伯克希尔的每一份股份，直到他们把我的股份进行捐赠。我希望他们届时回头看看，然后说：“哎呀，我们应该早点做出改变的。”因为这最终将决定我们能够购买多少疫苗、教育和所有类似的这些东西。在我离开之后，我对伯克希尔的感觉棒极了。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。我们马上要继续和沃伦的对话。现在，安德鲁，我把直播间交回给你。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：谢谢你，贝琪。我们再过几分钟就会重新连线贝琪和沃伦·巴菲特。现在我们想让你快速了解一下今天早上的新闻。
　　据报道，金融软件制造商Intuit即将达成一笔70亿美元的交易。据《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)报道，拥有Turbo Tax和Quick Books的Intuit不久将宣布一项收购信贷监控服务公司(Credit Karma)的交易，它会给你信用评分等各种数据，还有一些隐私问题。
　　另外，百事可乐还在中国达成了一项收购交易。它正在以7.05亿美元收购中国零食品牌好想你的百草味品牌。在坚果行业中，有一个新的挑战者。
　　嘉吉，世界上最大的私营公司之一，正在推出一系列新的人造肉产品。对于像Beyond Meat和Impossible Foods这样的公司来说，这将是一个挑战。现在，新的产品将在四月上市。
　　Squawk Box正在直播，稍后我们将连线沃伦·巴菲特。
　　（广告时间）
　　乔·克宁：市场因担心冠状病毒、病毒扩散及其对全球经济的影响而抛售股票。这是最新的情况。中国一夜之间又报告了150人死亡和409例新病例。在不到一周的时间里，韩国的冠状病毒感染病例从31例激增至750例，随后韩国将其警戒级别提升至最高水平。亚洲股市一夜之间下跌。香港恒生指数仅下跌1.8%，而韩国综合股价指数下跌近4%。韩国两大航空公司的股价下跌。他们取消了飞往大邱的航班，因为那里发现了许多新病例。与此同时，在世界的另一个地方，意大利政府正忙于应对亚洲以外最大规模的冠状病毒爆发。股市在一夜之间下跌。政府将意大利北部至少10个城镇隔离，并取消了威尼斯狂欢节的最后几天。在意大利的其他地方，学校、博物馆、大学和电影院被关闭，大型足球比赛被取消。
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：沃伦·巴菲特还有很多话要讲。在我们休息的时候，让我们再来看看期货。目前道琼斯指数下跌773点。纳斯达克综合指数开盘下跌约266点。标准普尔500指数下跌85点。以下是标准普尔500指数在盘前交易中最大的跌幅。你看到的是——先进微科技(Advanced Micro)跌了7%，自由港迈克墨伦(Freeport-McMoran)也跌了近7%。提醒一下，你随时都可以在CNBC的应用程序上观看我们的直播。在这之后，我们马上回来采访沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)。
　　贝琪·奎克：大家早上好，欢迎回到特别版的Squawk Box。我们正在内布拉斯加州的奥马哈与伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特连线。他刚刚公布了他每年写的股东信，这封信他已经写了55年了。沃伦，非常感谢你今天和我们在一起。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你的到来。
　　贝琪·奎克：……（重复叙述冠状病毒带来的影响，后续类似新闻的翻译略）
　　沃伦，我想谈谈我们还没有涉及到的另一个问题。这就是美国的政治。我们只是看了内华达州的预选会议。在那之后，伯尼·桑德斯赢得了最多的代表票。这一次，他似乎是民主党总统候选人提名的领跑者。你一直是民主党的支持者。你觉得怎么样?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我想我还是等等看谁会获得提名。但是——我是民主党人，但我不是一个持证的民主党人。我把票投给了共和党人，这方面我为共和党做出了贡献。事实上，我一生中只竞选过两个职位。一个是宾夕法尼亚大学共和党兄弟会(Young Republicans at the University of Pennsylvania)的领袖，另一个是1960年共和党全国代表大会代表的候选人。但通常情况下，我会投民主党的票。我们来看看会发生什么。
　　贝琪·奎克：哇。这是我第一次听到你说这样的话。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，这些年来我一直保守着这个秘密，但现在终于说出来了。（笑）
　　贝琪·奎克：你刚才说你不是民主党人。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：没错。
　　贝琪·奎克：你是持证的党员。你真的有这个证？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：当然。
　　贝琪·奎克：你钱包里有吗？
　　沃伦·巴菲特：是的。
　　贝琪·奎克：我看见了。
　　（巴菲特拿出来给贝琪，然后展示给摄像机）
　　我想安德鲁有个问题想插进来。安德鲁?
　　安德鲁·罗斯·斯金：沃伦，我想接着这个问题，大约一年前我们问过你关于迈克尔·布隆伯格的问题。你说过如果他参加竞选，你会支持他。你会支持他吗?他是你的候选人吗?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我当然会投他一票。但我不认为宣布另一位亿万富翁支持他是最好的安排。但是没错，我会毫不犹豫地投票给迈克·布隆伯格。
　　顺便说一句，我不想妨碍竞选。我想谈谈桑德斯。在他想要完成的某些事情上，我实际上同意他的观点——不过我在很多方面都不同意他的观点。事实上，我们应该对那些被资本主义制度抛在后面的人有更好的安排。
　　我也认为我们不应该在这个过程中扼杀资本主义制度。我认为我们应该确保蛋糕越做越大。自1776年以来，市场经济制度一直运转良好。但对于那些天赋与市场经济不相适应的人来说，这就行不通了。我认为任何人都不应该被一个人均GDP超过6万美元的经济体抛在后面。因此，我非常支持增加所得税抵免。我觉得应该做些改变。但如果让我选择，我肯定会投给迈克·布隆伯格(Mike Bloomberg)，而不是桑德斯。
　　贝琪·奎克：让我们来谈谈桑德斯的一些计划。你说你同意他的一些意图，但是让我们谈谈那些实际的计划。其中一项计划是将公司20%的股份分给员工，并让员工进入董事会。你觉得怎么样?这个计划适用于任何一家公司——年收入超过1亿美元或发行了1亿股的上市公司。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我不认为资本家把20%分给工会是一个好主意。我认为，就开发更多的商品和服务而言，市场体系运转得非常非常好。
　　现在你可以轻松的飞到奥马哈，而你在1776年就飞不起来了，你不会看到任何东西。你现在所看到的一切都是资本主义运作的产物，这个系统的运作方式是世界历史上前所未有的。所以，我不赞成搞砸我们的这个体制。
　　同时，我相信，任何愿意一周工作40个小时并有几个孩子的人都不应该有第二份工作。我认为人们应该有更高的收入，而这不一定是需要更高的最低工资标准。
　　但我不认为所得税抵免至少每小时产生15美元是不合理的，在某些地区这个抵免标准可能更高。
　　我非常赞同参议员桑德斯的观点，他认为很多人被甩在了后面，这并不是他们自己的错。资本主义有各种各样的方面，在某种程度上需要被监管，但我不认为要放弃资本主义制度。
　　贝琪·奎克：好吧。让我插入一些观众在这方面的问题。迈克尔·布兰克写道：“请问一下沃伦，如果伯尼·桑德斯赢得民主党提名变得明朗，你是否认为市场会抛售股票。”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：我通常不会对这样的事情发表评论，但是我会说，如果你认为有桑德斯和民主党的参众两院，或者有特朗普和共和党的参众两院，那就会有很大的不同——事实上，我不会因为“我认为投给XX就会对市场有利”而进行投票。我认为这是一个很糟糕的标准。我不想在总统选举中投下我的一票，仅仅是因为在选举后的30天、60天或90天，哪个对市场更有利。
　　贝琪·奎克：但我想，你对伯尼·桑德斯的保留与你对其对经济影响的担忧是一致的，特别是在更长的一段时间里。
　　沃伦·巴菲特：经济的某些方面。还有一些事情，你知道，我希望事情能办成。比如我希望看到所得税抵免大幅上调。
　　贝琪·奎克：艾伦·巴基提问。他说，“如果迈克尔·布隆伯格成为民主党候选人，你会考虑收购他的公司吗?”
　　沃伦·巴菲特：没有。我可以给你一个明确的答案。
　　贝琪·奎克：是因为价格?
　　沃伦·巴菲特：会有更多的东西值得你付出更多（一朵喵注：应该是指他的公司不符合巴菲特的标准）。
　　贝琪·奎克：好的。我想这个小时快结束了。所以，伙计们，把时间交回给你们。
　　

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FULL TRANSCRIPT: BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR WARREN BUFFETT SPEAKS WITH CNBC'S BECKY QUICK ON "SQUAWK BOX" TODAY
　　WHEN: Today, Monday, February 24th
　　WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk Box"
　　Following is the full unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with Berkshire Hathaway Chairman & CEO Warren Buffett on CNBC's "Squawk Box" (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Monday, February 24th. Video from the interview is available on CNBC.com.
　　All references must be sourced the CNBC.
　　JOE KERNEN: Good morning-- and welcome to Squawk Box here on CNBC Live. From the NASDAQ market side in Times Square I'm Joe Kernen along with Andrew Ross Skin, Becky Quick live in Omaha with Warren Buffett. Good day to have him. Hey, Beck, we'll get-- to them in just a minute. First, the breaking market news. We're right around down 800. I was glad to say we're down 799 when I started read this read but-- we're back below-- 800 again. U.S. Equities futures plummeting as the Coronavirus outbreak widens and worries about-- global growth and the effect that-- the all-important supply chain that China provides for the rest of the world-- that really what's dampening-- expectations this morning. On a percentage basis, not the end of the world. But it-- it'll get your attention. And if it's down 800 in the pre-market session you might see a-- you might see four numbers up there eventually--
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You might.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --at some point. I'm not forecast-- maybe it recovers. I heard some comments from Warren Buffett a couple minutes ago about-- you know, when stocks are cheap that's when I like to buy. When-- they're cheaper than they were the day before. Maybe he can assuage-- market participates fear at this point. Let's look at the treasury yields. Looking at the ten-year which you would expect-- bonds to be strong this morning and you do see the yield at some of the lowest levels on the ten-year that we've seen-- in a while. Down below 1.4, 1.389.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay, let's-- break down what's going on here with the latest-- on the Coronavirus this morning. China now reported 150 deaths. And 409 new cases. That happened overnight. South Korea raising its Coronavirus alert now to the highest level after the number of cases. They're ballooned from 31 to more than 750. And that took place in less than a week. Now stocks in Asia are plunging overnight. Honk Kong, Hang Seng falling 1.8%-- South Korea-- the exchange there three-- down 3.9%. Now shares of-- South Korea's two largest airlines tumbled as they canceled flights to the city-- to go where many of these new cases were detected. Meantime, Italy's government is scrambling itself to deal with the biggest outbreak of the Coronavirus outside of Asia. And you're looking at stocks there tumbling as well. Now-- off about four-- over f-- nearly 5% this morning. The government there placing at least ten towns in Northern Italy under quarantine. Canceling the last few days of the Venice Carnival. Elsewhere in Italy, schools, museums, universities and cinemas were all closed. And major soccer matches were canceled as well. And all of this contributing-- to the red arrows that you're seeing on your screen. But as-- Joe mentioned earlier-- Becky's gonna be talking to the one and only Warren Buffett right now-- who may have some unique views about all of this. So we wanna get-- to both of them in Omaha. Good morning to you, Becky.
　　BECKY QUICK: Hey, good morning, Andrew, good mooring, Joe. It's good to see both of you. We are here in Omaha, Nebraska this morning with Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He has just released his 55th annual shareholder letter to the shareholders over this weekend. And this is actually the 13th year that we are now in Omaha talking to him after that letter. This is a show that we call ask Warren so the people can write in their own questions to Mr. Buffett after they've read that shareholder's letter. But obviously this morning given the news there are a lot of other questions that people have concerning the stock market. Let's jump right into it with Mr. Buffett who is here with us right now. And-- Warren, thank you for being here today.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh thanks for having me.
　　BECKY QUICK: It's good to see you. I wanna talk about the letter-- obviously one of the things that you touch on the level-- on the letter is when people should be buying stocks. We're gonna dig into a lot of it. But when you're looking at the futures down about 818 points this morning, I think probably the first thing viewers wanna hear from you are your thoughts on what's happening with the Coronavirus, if this is a reason to panic and if you were worried about this.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I-- don't know if I have any special thoughts beyond the news on the Coronavirus. The very first day I bought stocks was March 12th, 1941 '42. And-- the stocks were down about 2% that day as it turned out. Unfortunately I bought in the morning. So when I came home in the evening and my dad told me the execution price it was down 2%. If you're buying a business-- and-- that's what stocks are, businesses, in fact, people would be better off if they say, "I bought a business today," not a stock today because that gives you a different perspective on it than presumably good and buy a farm, if you buy an apartment, a house, if you buy a business you're gonna own it for ten or 20 or 30 years. And the real question is is has the ten-year or 20-year outlook for American businesses changed in the last 24 hours or 48 hours? And we're gonna-- you'll notice many of the businesses we own-- partially own, American Express, we've owned it for 20 years, Coca-Cola, we've owned it for 40 years-- but those are businesses. And—you don't buy or sell your business based on-- on-- today's headlines. And-- if it gives you a chance to buy something that you like and you can buy it even cheaper then it's-- you're in good luck basically.
　　BECKY QUICK: Although there are a lotta people who look at the market and say, "Look, I wanna buy but I don't wanna buy when the market's sitting at new highs, when it's been hitting new records every day. Maybe it's off 800 points this morning but maybe there's more of a decline to come because the effect of the Coronavirus is going to be an impact on the global economy." IMF said that over the weekend. You are going to see weakness as not only China but other countries try and address this. You're right, it may not change things over the five or ten-year span of things. But if I think I can buy something for potentially 10% cheaper, maybe more than that if I wait a week or a month, maybe that's what I'm sitting around--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, if you think that then you gotta-- you're gonna get fabulously rich if you're right. All you have to do is just keeping buying in ten-day intervals and keep making your ten-day prediction. If I knew what the market was gonna do obviously. But you-- don't-- I don't think anybody knows what the market's gonna do. I think you know-- do know whether you're making an intelligent purchase at a given price. Everybody when they buy a stock, if you're gonna buy, say, General Motors that has a billion-- 400 million shares out, you should be able to take a yellow pad like-- there and on one page say-- let's say it's selling for 30. It isn't selling that low but that'd be $42 billion. You should say, "I am buying the General Motors company for $42 billion because--" and you should get it on a piece of paper. And then if you wanna have a separate piece of paper that says, "I think I know what the stock market's gonna do so I know whether it'll be higher or lower in a week," but you don't. You don't have that--
　　BECKY QUICK: You don't but if I worry that the economy is gonna slow down, not just for the quarter but for the year that would impact how many cars I think they might be able to sell or even produce.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I guarantee you cars are gonna slow down some day. They-- and-- in 1932 General Motors had 19,000 dealers. That's more than all the auto dealers in the United States today. There are only 125 million people. But they had 19,000 dealers. They produced-- or sold and-- there was one month I think when they sold less 1/10 of a car or right at a 1/10 of a car per dealer. That was a terrific time to buy General Motors. And-- forget about the market, if you can put a good market, you know, you don't even have to read balance sheets. You don't-- you don't even need-- you don't even read any-- you certainly can't predict the market by reading the daily newspaper. That is for sure. And you really can't-- you certainly can't predict the market by listening to me. But you're buying businesses. And if you plan to buy a local service station yesterday and it was closing today I don't think you'd tear your hair out or anything like that. You'd have already looked at it where it was located, the contract that they had with the suppliers and made a decision on competition. People-- because they can make decisions every second in stocks, whereas they can't with farms, they think an investment in stocks is different than an investment in a business or an investment in a farm or investment in an apartment house. But it isn't. If--- you get your money's worth in terms of future earning power over the next ten or 20 or 30 years you're gonna have made a good investment. And you can't pick them from day to day. If you can do that you can, well, I haven't met anybody yet that-- that knows how to do it.
　　BECKY QUICK: You-- made a point of that in a letter this year where you-- highlighted a book that was written by Edgar Lawrence Smith back in 1924. And you said until he came along nobody really realized the compound interest effect of buying stocks. Not just buying businesses but buying stocks themselves.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Edgar Lawrence Smith changed the world with that book. And people have forgotten all about it now. Although in the 1920s it became more and more gospel as the boom went on. But Edgar Lawrence Smith set out, "I'd like to write a book on bonds versus stocks." And he said-- he went in with the idea that bonds would be a better investment in times of deflation and stocks would be a better-- investment in times of inflation. And the first line of his book was to say that he'd been wrong. But he had enough sense to look at his evidence. And, I mean, I think Darwin said if you found evidence that was contrary to what you already believed write it down in 30 minutes or your mind will just block it out. I mean, people have a great resistance to new evidence. And he said, "If a stock yields 4% a bond yields 4%," which is what he was talking about then, "The stock was going to outperform the bonds because there were retained earnings that we're building beyond that yield." And that's-- that has been true for a long, long time but nobody paid any attention to it. We don't get rich on our dividends that we receive. While we happy to receive them. We get rich on-- the fact that the retained earnings are used to build new earning power, repurchase-- shares which increases your ownership in the company. And- Berkshire has retained earnings ever since we started. That's the only reason Berkshire is worth a lot more as we retain earnings.
　　BECKY QUICK: That-- led Keynes to actually say that this was an important book. People paid attention to it. But you're right, it added to the frenzy that built up to 1929.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that is true because you can get-- an old boss Ben Graham told me very early on, "You can get in more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea," because the good idea works. I mean, it's a good idea to buy a home, for example. And then people go crazy sometimes. A good idea works and it works and it works. Stocks work out better than bonds most of the time. And after a while, people forget that there were some other limiting conditions. With Edgar Lawrence Smith's book it was that when bonds yield the same as stocks, which was the case then, that stocks are gonna outperform because they have this retained earnings. So stocks started going up in the '20s. And all of a sudden they were selling at five or six times the prices as when he bought the book. And the original correct-- perception on his part had experienced changing conditions. But people just looked-- they-- they got their confirmations for the stock price. And that's what happens in bull markets. People-- start out thinking stocks are cheap and then they start thinking stocks have gone up. And-- a stock can be a good buy or a bad buy. A bond can be a good buy or a bad buy. It depends on price.
　　BECKY QUICK: And-- but that leads us to today. I mean, if his premise was that stocks are always going to be a better-- a better investment than bonds that's kinda what you hear today which we've been hearing for a while is TINA, there is no alternative. Right? You have to buy stocks because bond yields are so low because interest rates are so low.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, if you look at the present situation, we've talked about this before, that you get more for your money in stocks than bonds. That doesn't have to be the case. I mean-- but it's usually been in the case in America. Very usually been the case. And-- if you buy a 30-year bond today with yield 2% you're paying 50 times earnings for an investment where the earnings can't go up for 30 years. Now if somebody said to you, "I wanna sell you a stock that's at 50 times earnings. The earnings can't go up for 30 years," you'd say that doesn't sound very good. Stocks are way better than 30-year bonds. I mean, it's--that's clear. And--that's one of the alternatives people h-- people really have three basic alternatives, short-term cash which is an option of doing something later, long-time bonds or-- long-term stocks. And stocks are cheaper than bonds.
　　BECKY QUICK: Charlie said recently-- Charlie Munger, vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway had his daily journal meeting just a couple weeks ago. And at that meeting he said that there's a lot of wretched excess out there and that there's a lot of trouble coming as a result. Do you agree with that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: There's always trouble coming. Yeah, there was trouble coming in 1942 when I bought that first stock. All kinds of trouble. Phillipines were gonna fall pretty soon. there's all kinds of trouble in 1949. There was trouble-- certainly trouble in 2008 when I wrote an article for The New York Times. I said, "Trouble is coming." But I said, "Buy stocks."
　　BECKY QUICK: Would you repeat that this time, if trouble's coming would you still say buy stocks right now?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I would say buy stocks if you get enough for your money. You know, we buy a few stocks. But we don't look at-- we're not buying the stock market. We're saying I am buying-- say American Express. We own American Express. There's 815 million shares out. And sells at-- this morning it was $126 or something like that. So it's selling for roughly $100 billion. Now the real question is whether the company's worth or more less than $100 billion. It isn't what the stock is gonna do tomorrow or next week or next month.
　　BECKY QUICK: You said-- just a few minutes ago when we asked you on worldwide exchange, right now Berkshire Hathaway is a net buyer of stocks. You are in a net buying position?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We've been a net buyer of stocks-- or I've b-- actually been a personal net buyer of stocks ever since I was 11, every year. And-- there's been 15 American presidents in my lifetime, more than 1/3. I've lived under 1/3 of the I didn't buy stocks under Hoover. I was only about six months old then. But there've been seven Republicans after that and seven Democrats. I bought stocks under every one of 'em. Now I haven't bought stocks every day. There've been a few times I've bought stocks where-- were really quite high. And I've even written an article once or twice. But that's very seldom.
　　BECKY QUICK: But you wrapped up your partnership at one point too.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I wrapped up my partnership once because of that.
　　BECKY QUICK: Because you thought it was too expensive.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. But this is not a time like that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We own $240 billion worth of stocks now. We look at that as $240 billion worth of businesses-- that we own parts of. But-- I love owning those businesses.
　　BECKY QUICK: You've also got more than $125 billion in cash sitting around.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, that's-- we'd like to buy more businesses.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, we're gonna talk more about that in just a little bit. When we come back we have much more from Warren Buffett. Right now though I'll send it back to Joe and Andrew. Guys, back over.
　　JOE KERNEN: All right, thanks, Becky. Much more to come-- from The Oracle.
　　BECKY QUICK: Good morning, everybody. And welcome back to Squawk Box here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick, I'm live in Omaha with Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He's just released his 55th annual letter to shareholders over this weekend. We've been taking questions from you. We'll be getting some of those questions in through this morning. We are here, Warren, with you at Berkshire Hathaway's headquarters building. This is upstairs in the room that's called the cloud room. And this is a room where you often take students, kinda talk to them about questions they have when they come to visit you. You also do some other things up here too, other presentations.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I-- have students here for dozens of years. And-- for many years, 40 schools would come in. They'd come in groups of eight-- at-- five days I'd spend-- a year. And they-- come from all over the world. We have them from Peru, we have them from China, we have from Israel. And-- we have a good time obviously. Ag-- I've given it up now. I-- but I-- started teaching when I was 21. And I-- when I got to about 88 I thought I'll take a rest.
　　BECKY QUICK: Well, there are a lotta questions that are coming in from viewers that have been hitting here today. They're waking up this morning, looking at the stock market indicated down by almost 800 points for the DOW. We're actually off our worst levels of the morning which is something to say when you're still looking at the DOW down by about 786 points. But people have a lotta questions about the economy. They're wondering what's happening right now, particularly with the Coronavirus out there. You have a lotta economic data at your fingertips because not only are the many businesses that Berkshire owns but the businesses you own pieces in. What-- are you seeing right now around the globe?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it-- affects various businesses. I would say that I received commentary-- I get some commentary monthly with-- from-- from almost all of the companies. And-- a good many of them had some comment about how it was affecting them and how it was affecting them at-- that time I'm sure it's sure it's accentuated. But they've been affected by-- they were affected by tariffs, they're affected by taxes, they're affected by-- the most thing is they're affected by competitors and supply and demand over time. And I don't have the faintest idea what our businesses will be doing six months from now or 12 months from now. I do think that not only our businesses but American business generally will be doing fabulously better 30 years from now or 20 years from now. And the-- long-term is very-- in my view is very easy to predict in the general way. But an important way. I don't think there's any way to predict what the stock market will do ten minutes from now, ten days from now or ten months from now. So I work on what I think I-- I'm able to do. And as desirable as it might be to know what was gonna happen ten minutes from now that's just-- not something I'll ever be able to master. So fortunately I can come to a pretty firm conclusion that 20 or 30 years from now American business and probably all over the world will be far better than it is now.
　　BECKY QUICK: What are the momentary implications that you've seen from Coronavirus? What's an example of the business--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, an example-- is that we have maybe 1,000 Dairy Queen-- franchises in-- China here. And they're just treat only, so they're-- the old type of-- food. But-- a great number of them were closed. But the ones that were open weren't doing any business to speak of. And-- Apple is-- I mean, a much bigger holding is Apple. We own 5.6% of Apple. And-- the company came out and said that it's affecting not only its stores but all kinds of things, supply chain and I find that certain of our companies have got supply chain arrangements that are being affected that I didn't even know I had those.
　　BECKY QUICK: Like what?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I got one-- from John Mandal the other day, for example, you wouldn't normally think of them as having a big supply chain, but Shaw Carpets or you name it. I'll guarantee you that a very significant percentage of our businesses one way are affected by this. But they're being affected by a lot of other things too. And the real question is where are those businesses gonna be in five or ten years. They'll have ups and downs. Our-- candy business is a wonderful business. But it loses money seven months out of the year. But the nice thing is Christmas comes every year.
　　BECKY QUICK: When you look at the economy and how things were kind of chugging along, let's say, beginning of this year, when-- first things-- first picked up, how would you gauge the U.S. economy at that point?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it-- it's-- strong but a little softer than it was six months ago. But that's over a broad range of-- you look at car holdings-- railcar holdings, that-- that's moving goods around. And there again, that was affected bythe tariffs too because people front-ended purchases, all kinds of things, all-- a lotta variables. But-- business is down. And-- but it's down from a very good level. So I would say that looking at our 70 businesses-- and that actually-- they represent hundreds-- in addition-- they're a little softer. And on the other hand I was out with the fellows from the Nebraska Furniture Mart just Saturday night and--their business was up quite a bit in February. But that's because weather was good. So you have a lot of variables that hit.
　　BECKY QUICK: Why--do you think business was down, let's say, the last six months? Is it-- a decline in confidence or is it coming off of levels where there was unusual activity ahead of that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it isn't really down. It's just-- it leveled off and a little softer maybe now. But, look, tariffs the-- tariff situation was a big question market for all kinds of companies. And--still is to some degree. But that-- that was front and center for a while. Now Coronavirus is front and center. Something else will be front and center six months from now and a year from now and two years from now. Real question is-- where your-- where are these businesses gonna be five and ten and 20 years from now? Some of them will do sensationally, some of them will disappear. And overall I think America will do very well-- you know, it has since 1776.
　　BECKY QUICK: But you still watch things like railcar load--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: --very closely.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I watch everything. But I don't do it to make in-- specific investment decisions. I-- it-- but I-- enjoy, I mean, I-- wanna know what's going on. But I also don't think that I can make money by predicting what's gonna go on next week or next month. I do think I can make money by predicting what's gonna happen in ten years.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, tell us more about what's going on just since you like knowing about those things.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I-- as I say-- you know, the-- certain businesses depend on weather to quite an extent. In retail, for example, in given months-- but the big trends you see are going on, I mean, in terms of movement-- to online commerce. And, I mean, the big stuff-- keeps moving. But we've got a big investment in airline business and I just heard they're-- even more flights are canceled and all that. But flights are canceled for weather. It so happens in this case they're gonna be canceled for longer because of-- Coronavirus. But if you own airlines for ten or 20 years you're gonna have some-- ups and down in current business. And some of them will be weather related and s-- they can be all kinds of things. The real question is you know, how many passengers are they gonna be carrying ten years from now and 15 years from now and what will margins be and-- what will the competitive position be? And-- but I still look at the figures all the time. -- I'll admit that.
　　BECKY QUICK: You-- you mentioned the airlines. And you own stakes in all the major airlines but--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: All.
　　BECKY QUICK: --not as much as Delta. I think you own-- north of 11% of Delta at this point?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well--
　　BECKY QUICK: Or right--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --we-- the-- our largest position is in Delta-- three of the four positions are mine. One of the positions is one of the other fellows-- the four positions. But we own a very roughly ten-- close to 10% of-- the four largest airlines.
　　BECKY QUICK: There's been a lotta speculation. In fact, some of the questions that came in over this weekend-- were questions about those airlines. Wondering if you would buy any of them outright. Have you considered buying any of those companies outright?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It'd be very unlikely that we would do that. I'm not saying it's impossible. But-- it's complicated.
　　BECKY QUICK: Why?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, for one thing, they're regulated and-- there's an interplay. I'll just give you an example, not that we would be doing. But with Delta we own 18% of American Express and American Express is a bank holding company and bank holding companies have limits as to what they can do. And we're a passive holder of a bank holding company with American Express. But instead we own an airline that was tied up with them they'd have lots of arrangements. There's-- a lot of complications because it's--a regulated industry. Anytime you get in a regulated industry you-- have more complications and---- in transactions.
　　BECKY QUICK: So, is it fair to say you like these stocks and you would own more if it wasn't complicated?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we – to go beyond 15% in any company we'd have to go in on – I mean, there's a lotta rules as you increase your ownership. Obviously almost anything we own we like to own more of.
　　BECKY QUICK: Are you buying more of any of those stakes right now? Apple shares –
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I get pretty closed mouth when it comes to what we're buying.
　　BECKY QUICK: You thought about that for a second.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: All of a sudden, I feel my jaws lock up.
　　BECKY QUICK: But fair to say--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: But it's fair to say that anything that we own we like. You know, and there's very few stocks that we own and I look at them as part ownerships in businesses. There's very few that are selling at some price where I would sell them a little higher.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, well, let me ask a question that came from Tony Dickinson. He said, "In the fourth quarter Berkshire sold 55 million shares of Wells Fargo. Should shareholders view this as a lack of confidence in the new CEO turnaround plan? And what is Warren's future outlook for Wells Fargo?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I won't give him any advice specifically on Wells Fargo. But it's absolutely true that we've sold down our position. Some of it was sold down to avoid being over 10% because then you do have some filings with the Fed and so on, but—
　　BECKY QUICK: They've sold well more than that.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we've sold – more than that.
　　BECKY QUICK: I think it's 8.4% was the last—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. That sounds right. And now we sold Wells Fargo in the fourth quarter and we sold earlier.
　　BECKY QUICK: Can I ask why? Only because I did get a number of questions about--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, I can understand that. But we don't want to give any advice on what we're doing because I could change what I'm doing tomorrow. We talk about everything except we don't give stock advice.
　　BECKY QUICK: Ok. I'll try one more from Tony Dickinson just because I think I got 15 or 20 different questions on this. "Berkshire owns 32.58 billion of Bank of America and 17.39 billion of Wells Fargo, one position's been increasing while the other's been decreasing. Does Warren like Bank of America twice as much as Wells Fargo? And how should shareholders see the holding?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, I think they've sees that we've bought Bank of America and we've sold some Wells Fargo.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, let me ask you a broader question that comes in just on interest rates and the impact that they might have as well. Varun Jain writes in on Facebook, "Hi, I'm a huge fan and student of Mr. Buffett. Please ask him what impact does the zero-interest rate environment across places like Japan and Europe have on their banks, whether the business is still good. And does the prolonged low-interest rate regime in the United State hurt the prospects of American banks like JPMorgan, etc.? And in such circumstances do Indian banks which have high return on equity look attractive to Mr. Buffett?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, I can't comment on that, but–
　　BECKY QUICK: I know that, but—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Generally speaking, but there are a lot of other variables too – but the banks are going to make more money if there are higher rates with a steeper curve. The curve makes – is more important than there was the ten year versus short-term rates. They make more difference than the absolute level. But American banks have made very good money with very low interest rates. Around the world, if you look in the U.K. or Europe or Japan even lower rates have made it pretty tough for banks. The returns on equity are not as high. And they have to use more leverage to even get the same returns and I don't like that as well.
　　BECKY QUICK: If you were talking about the curve that we're looking at this morning, the five-year, two-year is inverted. Two-year ten is not right now. But the ten-year's below 1.4% this morning.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: And think of it, the ten-year at 1.4% that means you're paying 70 times earnings for something that can't increase its earnings for ten years.
　　BECKY QUICK: That's a good way of looking at it.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: If somebody came to you with a stock and said, you know, "This is a terrific stock. It sells at 70 times earnings. The earnings can't go up for ten years," you'd say, "Well, explain that to me again." But no – we've never seen a situation like this in the world. Literally. I mean, you can go back and read Keynes and you can read Adam Smith and you can read, you know, all the great ones. And they don't talk about negative interest rate. It never crossed their mind. Always supply and demand and all these marginal costs. But brilliant economists never really anticipated that you would have negative – you've got 13 trillion or something like that – worldwide at negative interest rates. And we don't know what that means. And we've got a lot of people that can speculate what it means. But ten years from now or fifteen years from now we'll look back and say, "Well, it was obvious what would happen with that, and we'll see it." But it is not a normal situation. And well, interest rates are the basis of all value. I mean, you know, if you knew interest rates we're going to be zero for 100 years you would think 1% was a great rate of return. But you also would know if you bought something was yielding 1% or that was what it paid and rates went to 8% you'd lose practically all your capital. So, it's an enormous factor. And we don't know the answer, central banks don't know the answer. All we know is that it's been useful in stimulating things, and particularly asset prices now for ten years and what we thought was temporary in 2008 and '09 in the way monetary policy to stimulate we've just put our foot on the gas even further. The whole world has.
　　BECKY QUICK: You made a point in the letter of saying that you don't know how long these interest rates will last. You and Charlie never try and figure these things out. But we did have St. Louis Fed president Jim Bullard on the program last week. And he said that he expects to see these low interest rates for a long time to come. That does raise a lot of questions. If that happens about what this means for the stock market, what that means for banks, what that means for insurance companies, which you touched on in the letter too.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's bad for insurance companies. But it's good for stocks.
　　BECKY QUICK: Bad for insurance companies and what happens to the insurance companies as a result? Are they getting more – are some insurance companies going to push out risk?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the ones that really get hurt on it are either life or annuity companies that have promised returns. Property casualty business doesn't promise returns. It still holds money, so it hurts them. But if you promise somebody an annuity that's clearly to pay them 3% or 4% and now you find that you're reinvesting your money at 1% or something, you know, you're going to disappear.
　　BECKY QUICK: Are insurance companies being forced to make riskier and riskier bets?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, they shouldn't. I mean, the answer – if you need to get 3% and you're only getting 1%, the answer is to quit giving 3%. It's not to try and get the one up to three and do more dangerous things. You should always adapt your consumption to your income. You shouldn't try and adjust your income to your consumption. That's a basic principle for individuals, businesses and everything else. And reaching for yield is really stupid. But it's very human. I mean, and I understand it. People say, "Well, I've saved all this money all my life and now I can only get 1%. What do I do?" The answer is you learn to live on 1% unfortunately. And you don't go and listen to some salesman come along and tell you, "I've got some magic way to get you 5%."
　　BECKY QUICK: Do you think though that's what should be happening. Do you think that there is more risk-taking place in the insurance market as a result?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Sure. And you see that in – they call leverage loans and weaker covenants. No people are reaching for yield. There's no question about that. And that's stupid. And it has consequences over time. But it's very human.
　　BECKY QUICK: Consequences that could have a big market impact?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Depends how far it goes. Yeah. Yeah. it's something that – things that get built in slowly, people going crazy and tech companies in the late 1990s. It could take a lot longer than you think. But eventually you get to midnight and everything turns to pumpkins and mice.
　　BECKY QUICK: You know, that's the downside of low interest rates, pensions, savers, anybody who gets left in a raw position of that. On the alternate side of things, if rates were to rise rapidly or maybe not even so rapidly, what does that mean for the federal debt?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it depends on the average maturity of the debt. But our maturities are fairly short. They've got lengthened a little. But if you take 20 trillion and you're borrowing at 2%, you've got 400 – what have you got? Two trillion – 200 billion. I mean, you got 40 billion of the expense. But close to 5% you got 100 billion of the expense. I mean, no at 5% you got a trillion of expense. I'm sorry. We are benefiting enormously in our national budget by the fact that inverse rates are very low. And so, interest cost has not gone up as you would've anticipated if you were looking at the scene 20 or 30 years ago with the increase in national debt. You know, Wall Street issued 100-year bonds. You know, but 2% or thereabouts. And then they've gone way, way up and that – maybe they yield 1.1 or something like that. I don't know where they are now. But it's great if you're a borrower, gee, maybe everybody should refinance their mortgage.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is that an argument for the federal reserve or I'm sorry, for the treasury department here issuing longer notes?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, yeah, but I would've said the same thing five or six years ago and been wrong. But if we – under the present slope it still would cost more to lengthen it out. But you're lengthening it out at very, very low rates. And it would be what I would be inclined to do if I were secretary treasury. But I would have missed a lot of bets in the last ten years too.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, we're going to have much more with Warren Buffett when we come back. We'll talk a little bit about conglomerates and whether Berkshire Hathaway is being discounted in the market because it's a conglomerate. But, guys, right now I'll send it back over to you.
　　BECKY QUICK: Hey, Joe, thanks very much. Warren, again, for people who are just waking up, they're tuning in and they want to know what you think about this sell-off this morning. To see the DOW down 700, 800 points in the morning, what's your reaction when you see something like that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, my reaction is that I like to buy stocks, so I don't wish ill on anybody else. But I like to – if they want to sell them to me cheaper, I prefer it. So that's you know, roughly a 3% decline or thereabouts. I don't know how many 3% declines I've had in my lifetime but there have been a lot of them. And I can't think of one that you shouldn't have bought on. You know, basically – not as many stocks are going to go up or down next week or next month or next year. But if there's something – if you like to own American businesses, you're getting a chance to buy it 3% cheaper. I don't consider that a lot cheaper. I mean, but how can it be bad news unless you have to sell stocks? Now if you have to sell them for some reason, you're worse off. If you don't have to sell them, I mean, somebody can come around and offer you a quote on your house today. And it could be 2% less than they offered you yesterday. But if you like the house it really doesn't make any difference to you.
　　BECKY QUICK: Does that mean Berkshire will be buying stocks today?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we certainly won't be selling. And yeah, we could easily be buying something, sure.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about a Barron's cover story that was just out last week. The good news on the cover story is they think that Berkshire is worth more than it's selling for right now. The bad news is they said think that's in part because it's got a big conglomerate discount. And they think if you weren't running it that it might get broken up. What your response to that line of logic?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, conglomerates have had a bad name and for good reason over the years. I mean, I closed my partnership up at the end of the 1960s. And there was a run, a very abusive run in conglomerates where they played with numbers and they had dirty pooling as they call it of accounting. They wanted to have their stocks up and put out stories to do it so they could issue more stock. They were kind of chain-letter arrangements. There have been a lot of bad conglomerates. And probably disproportionately so compared to sort of honest to God single-industry businesses over time. We don't think we're that kind of a conglomerate. We've certainly never wanted to issue shares. We never touted shares. You know, it's done for business reasons in our case. The interesting thing is, of course, is the American public has been going wild in their enthusiasm for conglomerates in the last few years, if you think about it. I mean, it's been an incredibly popular area. But they call them index funds. You buy 500 businesses—
　　BECKY QUICK: I was trying to figure out what you were talking about.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, 500 businesses all put together. I mean, that's the ultimate conglomerate, isn't it? I mean, I recommended index funds to lots of people and when they do it they're buying into 500 businesses. And they're going to have 500 businesses a year from now and five years from now. And they think that group of businesses will do very well. And I think our group of businesses will do okay.
　　BECKY QUICK: The difference with an S&P 500 index is it's 500 different companies run by 500 different management teams who are all focused on their business. Maybe not having a centralized operation that is loosely running all of those businesses.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we've got – our businesses are run by separate people. I mean, we just finished Valentine's Day. And I did not select what pieces went in the boxes. And it's probably been ten years at least since I've been to a See's Candy factory. Now, you know, I get the figures every month. But I don't know how to make chocolate. You know, anything of the sort. I don't pick out the new locations. We have managers for our businesses that are very much like the managers we have for the businesses that we own pieces of like American Express or Coca-Cola. And there's a couple things we can do. We can determine the dividend policy of our subsidiaries. We can control their capital allocation to some extent. But on most capital allocation whether buy new equipment or anything like that they make the decision. The BNSF railroad is going to spend $3.5 billion on – I don't approve a single dollar of that in terms of capital expenditures. They know what they need to do, where they need to lay track, how many locomotives they need – whatever it may be. So, our managers are I would say in a sense they're almost more independent than the managers of the S&P 500 who go around and report to Wall Street week after week. They go to investor relation meetings and they're always explaining what they're doing and trying to get the approval of the analysts and all that sort of thing. And we just tell our managers to do what makes sense.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay, outside of the idea of them not having to report to individual shareholders or the investment community, what's the advantage of having you there? The capital allocation part of it?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, yeah, we can move capital within – if you move capital from one stock to another and you got a gain – particularly, I mean, you pay a tax. And then they pay a dividend tax or if you sell part – but there's a lot of taxes incurred in moving from one business to another. Either at the corporate level in some cases but certainly at the individual level. And we can move capital, well, just take See's Candy again. We bought that in 1972. We've moved a several billion dollars from the candy business to other types of businesses. And we'd love if it we can use it all in the candy business. But it just isn't that sort of business. And in addition to that we free up our managers from all dealing with Wall Street, dealing with bankers, dealing with all kinds of things that are what I regard as a less productive use of their time.
　　BECKY QUICK: However, you also have a situation where you have gotten some activists who have been interested in the stock, including Bill Ackman. He's built up a stake. Hasn't said too much about it. But I think he has made some comments about how maybe Burlington Northern Santa Fe's margins could be improved. You could look back at Bill Ackman's experience with the Canadian Pacific Railway and kind of wonder if he's building up a position because he would like to see you take a more active role there.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we notice what other railroads are earning and when their margins are better. I mean, and we certainly put way less pressure on than Wall Street might who would want them next week. But our managers are well aware of what's going on in other industries. And we've made changes where we don't think some businesses are performing as well as they should. But overwhelmingly, we've got managers there that are very, very good. They've got capital available to them for anything that makes sense. And we decide how much they distribute, where the capital moves. And sometimes it moves from one industry to another. And in certain industries, a consolidated tax position really is very helpful to us.
　　BECKY QUICK: There's a viewer question that came in from Ben Comston and he asks, "it was recently pointed out by Bill Ackman that some subsidiaries like Geico, BNSF lag their peers in some areas. Would you agree with that? And how can your successor push improvement in subsidiaries while maintaining a decentralized management structure?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, at Geico we bought control in 1995. We had about 2.5% of the market for auto insurance. And we're at about 13.7% of the market. So, we've gone from 2.5 billion of premium volume or thereabouts to 35 billion of premium volume. We're number two now to State Farm. We were number six or seven at that time. So I would say that not due to Berkshire at all, but due to Tony Nicely during almost all those years. Geico's been the envy of every other company in the auto insurance business expect for Progressive. They've done a good job too. But Geico is worth tens and tens and tens of billions more than when we bought it in addition to all the earnings we've gotten, just a good will value. So that's been extraordinarily well-run. And with Burlington, I think we paid a dividend of $5 billion last year. And we paid $35 billion for it. So, it's gained in market share and its business. Its operating margins have improved but they haven't improved as much as some other railroads.
　　BECKY QUICK: Do you believe in precision scheduling railroading?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we'll see. I mean, we've watched it plenty.
　　BECKY QUICK: And for those who don't know what that is, it's something that kind of irritates customers because it makes things a little more rigid. But it does improve –
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, it makes the customers adapt to the railroad more than the railroad adapting to the customers. And practically everybody's done it. And a fellow named Hunter Harrison was enormously successful—
　　BECKY QUICK: Who worked with Bill Ackman at the Canadian Pacific—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, he worked with BNSF if you go back far enough. And there's a book about it. It's very interesting. But he did – at the Illinois Central, the Canadian National, the Canadian Pacific. And then he was going over to the CSX. He developed a method of railroading where the customer does adapt more to the railroad. And improved margins dramatically. Our margins are close to what the better railroads – well, there's only a few you get from precision railroading. I mean, and we've gained share—
　　BECKY QUICK: Because the customers don't like it.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: because the railroads apparently – railroad customers like us better. And over the long-term we'll see. But it isn't like it's something we can't do.
　　BECKY QUICK: We've got more questions to come with Geico and Todd Combs' role there. There were several questions that came in on that. But we do have to flip in a commercial break. So let's go back over to Andrew and Joe right now in New York.
　　BECKY QUICK: A global sell-off underway as investors track a surge in the number of coronavirus cases outside of China. The latest on the outbreak and the moves you need to make with your money from legendary investor and billionaire Warren Buffett.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We're tracking stocks on the move, the sectors being hit the most, and market reaction.
　　JOE KERNEN: Warren Buffett's perspective on the global economic impact of the virus and his advice to investors is straight ahead as the second hour of Squawk Box begins right now.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Good morning. Welcome back to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin, along with Joe Kernen. Becky Quick is in Omaha this morning with investor and Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett. We're going to hear from them in just a second. Couldn't be a more important day to hear from them, in large part because U.S. equity futures at this hour are in the red. Getting marginally better, but not much better. Dow looks like it would open off about 702 points right now, in large part about-- because of increasing fears of the Coronavirus-- which has spread some the numbers over the weekend. We'll talk about those in just a minute. NASDAQ looking to open down about 250 points. The S&P 500 looking to open down about 75 points all in. And check out European markets at this hour. The spread of the coronavirus in Italy really putting pressure on stocks there. You're looking at numbers across the board with 3% and 4% off, but we want to show you oil prices really quickly at this hour, as well. You're looking now at WTI crude, a barrel will cost you $51.35. and that's down about nearly 4% right now.
　　JOE KERNEN: And here's the latest on the coronavirus. China reported an additional 150 deaths and 409 new cases overnight. South Korea raised its coronavirus alert to the highest level after the number of cases there ballooned from 31 to more than 750 in less than a week. Stocks in Asia falling overnight. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.8%. South Korea's KOSPI fell nearly 3.9%. Shares of South Korea's two largest airlines down, as they canceled flights to the city of Daegu, where many of the new cases were detected. Meantime, Italy's government is scrambling to deal with the biggest outbreak of the coronavirus outside of Asia. Stocks there were lower overnight. The government placed at least ten towns in northern Italy under quarantine and canceled the last few days of the Venice Carnival. Elsewhere in Italy, schools, museums, universities, and cinemas were closed and major soccer matches were canceled. At this point, I mean, Boris Johnson out earlier today, Andrew, saying that the risk to U.K. citizens just over there remains low. I would say that our officials would say that here, too. The risk—
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Yes.
　　JOE KERNEN: --to U.S. citizens remains low. But there's a significant difference between-- supply chain disruption, slowing dozens and dozens and actually, hundreds—
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Absolutely.
　　JOE KERNEN: --of companies.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Absolutely.
　　JOE KERNEN: And that's dampening global growth. What worries me is that we don't know, three months, six months, nine months. If it ever gets to the point where we start to see, in a lot of countries around the world, these breakouts where they don't even know the origin of some of these. And if they multiply like that, that's when I think it could really get-- at this point, it's still—
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: No, that's—
　　JOE KERNEN: --it's still a global growth slowdown. Nobody in-- in most of the world is worried that they're going to catch Coronavirus.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
　　JOE KERNEN: --and they can't go out, and they can't, you know, go to the movies, or the health club, or to a restaurant. But that-- I just want to—
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But, look, there are—
　　JOE KERNEN: --we don't know.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: --major travel that's being changed right now. Conferences are being canceled. There was an article in Time Magazine speculating whether the Olympics in Japan over the summer will be canceled. So, there's real implications here that could reverberate. Having said that, the farther we get to the spring, the better it gets. There's weather. There's a whole sort of--about how the flu--you know-
　　JOE KERNEN: You know, I was looking at Jim's-- some of Jim's tweets earlier. If you go too far with the fear and the panic, you're accused of one thing. If you don't—
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Yep.
　　JOE KERNEN: --go far enough, you're accused of the other thing. So, we really just need to sit here and each day, report on the facts and try to remain detached. But there's something about a pandemic that just is different than other black swans. It's a frightening prospect. Anyway, let's get right back to our guest of the morning. Warren Buffett joins Becky in Omaha following the release of his annual letter to shareholders over the weekend. And, I mean, Becky, you took a plane. I mean, were you--it's in the back of our minds. Is it not—
　　BECKY QUICK: I did.
　　JOE KERNEN: It's just in the back-- there's nowhere—
　　BECKY QUICK: It is.
　　JOE KERNEN: And-- and the-- the risks are low—
　　BECKY QUICK: Joe, it goes back to 1918. It goes back to—
　　JOE KERNEN: Right.
　　BECKY QUICK: --1918. You know, if you look at the numbers of what happened in that pandemic when it came around the globe, up to 50 million were killed in that. It was a third of the planet's population that was infected. It was 500 million people that were infected at that point. 675,000 Americans died at that point. So, inevitably, your mind kind of goes back to what's happened in the past. Because, as humans, we always look back to history to try and predict the future. Doesn't always work. It's not always prophetic. But it does give you something of what to kind of play out if this were to get worse and worse. Now, Andrew brought up the idea that it's warm weather. We're approaching spring in a lot of parts of the country or a lot of parts of the planet. That may be good news. We just don't know if this time around if this is one of those viruses that does die off in warmer weather. Wait and see, and kind of hope.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I, actually--I think this, from what I've heard from people that know a lot more about viruses than I do that, unfortunately this will make it through the summer. And, in terms of having a vaccine, it's, you know, a long ways off. So, you've got-- you know, it is scary stuff. I don't think it should affect what you do in stocks. But, in terms of the human race, it's scary stuff when you have a pandemic.
　　BECKY QUICK: Yeah. I guess this one's particularly frightening because it's new. So, there's no natural immunity that's built up in any of the populations. And you wonder what happens, particularly in areas where there's not the same health care structure that we have in America or in some of the developed nations. I guess that's a big part of the question, too.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And it's—well, I think about it in terms of our annual meeting. I mean, which is May 2nd. I mean, it could very well affect-- by that time, it could affect—
　　BECKY QUICK: We've got questions from viewers asking just that. Will the annual meeting be any different this year, particularly because you have a large Chinese contingency of shareholders who—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don't think—
　　BECKY QUICK: --will be here for that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And-- and that certainly will be affected. And, incidentally, I mean, flu is particularly tough on old people. You are going to have two guys on the stage whose combined age is 185. So, we'll-- we won't be looking for people that show are getting signs of contagion. But that's one of the problems with this, is it does have a long gestation period. And it's highly transmissible.
　　BECKY QUICK: And, again, you did talk about it earlier. It's something that you see in the results of the businesses. Even—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's true.
　　BECKY QUICK: --some of your own fully owned businesses--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Sure.
　　BECKY QUICK: --that you didn't anticipate.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we own airlines, for example. No, it-- it affects businesses now. Actually, my dad used to tell me stories. He was 14 in 1918. And and he told me what went on in Omaha, you know, during the big Spanish flu epidemic. I mean, it was-- it was something in those days. And, pandemics will occur in the future. Now, what they hope to get is a universal flu vaccine. But, that's a long way off. It isn't impossible. I mean, I asked my-- my own science advisor is Bill Gates, so I talk to him, I call him. I talked to him the last few days about it. And he's bullish on the long-term outlook for a universal prevention of it. But, this is not going to come, you know, for -- it's not going to be here in 10 years.
　　BECKY QUICK: What are Bill's concerns, as somebody who spends a lot of time traveling around the globe, as somebody who is trying to help medicine in some of the less developed parts of the world?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The Gates Foundation is very active in trying to be helpful on this. And Bill says the CDC is the best in the world. And, I mean, we've got terrific resources in this country. But a pandemic is a pandemic. And, there's just no evaluating. And--but I have heard that the summer is not likely to cause the end of this.
　　BECKY QUICK: Do you know why?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: But I don't know. And-- you know, you shouldn't be ask—I shouldn't be offering my opinion on it. Because I pass along things I hear from people I think are smart, but—
　　BECKY QUICK: I'm actually asking for Bill's opinion, not yours.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I shouldn't-- and I shouldn't really quote him, but I do--he's the guy I ask. And I did talk to him just a few days ago. And, he loves to talk science. And he can make it so I could understand it, which is-- quite a trick. Well, at the Gates Foundation, they're taking it very seriously. I'll put it that way.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is money going from the Gates Foundation to try and—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I'm—
　　BECKY QUICK: --find a vaccine?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --I'm-- I'm sure they are expending human and financial resources.
　　BECKY QUICK: Have-- I mean, maybe this is more than you know. But do you know if they have put human resource out either into China or other places where there's—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know that. I don't want to comment on that. But I know that they're--that is-- something they've always spent, they've been very involved in, is human health. And, even particularly this. Bill knows a lot about vaccines.
　　BECKY QUICK: Let's talk a little bit about Berkshire Hathaway. We were in the middle of a conversation when we had to go to a break before. But there has been this question raised, not only about Barron's and the cover story there but by other places, too, about whether Berkshire Hathaway would be worth more if it were split up.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: That's a good question. And I will tell you that-- that if you were to say--and let's say the stock market didn't change for two years and interest rates didn't change. So, if you had a two-year period and you said, 'We'll sell off all the businesses,' I don't think-- I mean, you have the expenses of selling them. Now, if you sold them all to people who leveraged them up to their maximum, you might get a little more than the stock is selling for. It would be very tax inefficient, very tax inefficient. Interestingly enough, up until 1986 it wouldn't have been. I mean, there was as general utilities doctrine that governed corporate breakups. And so, you could dispose of businesses or securities-- if you did right, you could dispose of securities or businesses that are depreciated without a tax at the corporate level. That was done regularly in various ways up till 1986. They revised the tax code big time. They killed general utilities. You can't do that now. Now, you can go-- you can have spinoffs, this business or that business. You probably have to lie a little in terms of your purpose in order to get the best tax ruling. And it takes time. But you cannot break up-- you cannot dispose of the entire business, business by business, without having very substantial tax liability. It would not produce a gain. On the other hand, having them together produces—there are some very valuable synergies in there. Now, we don't use leverages much as the people who would buy them piece by piece would do. So, we could leverage Berkshire up to the sky. I've promised people we won't. Because we have insurance promises to people out 50 or 100 years and we've got shareholders who are going to own the stock for 50 years, and they do not want us to leverage to the sky. But there would not be a profit if we were simply to announce that over the next 24 months that you could come in and buy any business we had, and we'd sell them to the highest bidder.
　　BECKY QUICK: You made a point of talking about this in the annual letter.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: You said: Key to my only Berkshire—or, key to my Berkshire-only institutions is my faith in the future judgment and fidelity of Berkshire directors. They will regularly be tested by Wall Streeters bearing fees. At many companies, these super salesmen might win. I do not, however, expect this to happen--at Berkshire.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: That's exactly true. And I think by writing it, it helps it a little, too. No, there's no question that Wall Street would love to come along and sell anything that we've got. I mean, there's a fee every time that there's a transaction. And, they are big fees. And, there's fees for the NASDAQ. I mean, there's—so, we've had all kinds of people snoop around. And they know they're not getting it done with me, but they're not-- they won't-- it won't get done later on either. I am leaving-- every share of Berkshire I have goes to charity, and it's 99% of my net worth. So, I've got-- nobody cares more than I do about getting the most money to those philanthropies over the years following my death. And that's going to take place over 15 years. And I say keep it all in Berkshire. But if I thought that it was going to be run in a way responsive to Wall Street, I would instead do something else, and have the money distributed to these philanthropies, and not have it all tied to Berkshire. But Berkshire has a very usual shareholder base. I mean, we have individuals that own Berkshire. And a lot of them have owned it 50 years just like-- it's-- people buy it to own for a lifetime. And we're going to run it in a way that they won't be disappointed.
　　BECKY QUICK: Do you think the people who are newer--relatively newer shareholders, buying the B shares, have the same mentality as the people who have been in it for 50 years in the A—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we try to because—
　　BECKY QUICK: --shares?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --that's who we encourage. I mean, in effect, we don't want everybody to buy our stock. I mean, there's only so many seats. There's about a million, six-hundred-and-some thousand A shares out. All the seats are filled. I love the shareholders we have. I don't want to go to Wall Street and try and get some new shareholders that are going to replace the people we have. So, look, we want to have people in those seats that are in sync with us. You can run a French restaurant, or you can run a hamburger stand. And if you serve good hamburgers, you'll do good business with hamburgers. And, at the French restaurant, you can do the same thing there. But you can't run the French restaurant and then serve hamburgers inside, and you can't run the hamburger stand and serve French food inside. So, we advertise in our deeds, in our words, in every way we can what we're about. And we're looking to have the seats filled at our church by people who are in sync with us. And we do have them there. We get the same people every Sunday. And I see no advantage in going out and telling everybody on Wall Street we're going to do wonderful things and having those seats replaced. Because the only way you can get a seat is to throw somebody else out of that seat. There's only so many seats, and they're all full. And you want them filled with people who are in sync with the policies at the company. And therefore, you have to explain those policies and you have to live up those policies. And for 55 years, we've tried to.
　　BECKY QUICK: So, you get the shareholders you deserve.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Exactly.
　　BECKY QUICK: Alright. Not to mix metaphors, but can you have a decentralized central office running both the French restaurant and the hamburger place?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, they aren't trying-- we're not trying to have railroad management run the utility here.
　　BECKY QUICK: No, decentralized. That's what I mean. A decentralized headquarters that's in charge, a conglomerate in charge of all those different businesses.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, you-- we could run-- we have decentralized management as it is. We could have somebody in charge of all the little companies, another one, the big. We could visualize it in all kinds of ways. I think we'd have more overhead. I think we'd have eight different sort of manager. Our managers like running their own businesses. And they like -- they never have to finance their businesses. I mean, we-- and they never have to go to Wall Street. They never-- they probably save 25% of their time. And, I want them to feel they own their businesses. And that's all they're responsible for. If we mess up some other way, you know, they still-- they get paid based on how they do. And, there again, we attract managers who like to operate on that basis. We don't attract managers particularly who think they're going to keep moving step by step through various divisions and eventually run the whole place.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. We can talk more about succession later, because you did write an awful lot about that in the annual letter, too. But right now, we're going to send things back over to Andrew.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Thanks, Becky. We're going to have a lot more from Omaha and Warren Buffett right after the break. Do take a look, though, at futures. As we speak, we're back to about being off about 700 points on the Dow. The NASDAQ looking to open down about 247 points. The S&P 500 looking to open down about 77 points. All on additional new fears about the spread of the coronavirus. We'll talk about that and so much more. The Oracle of Omaha right after the break when we return.
　　BECKY QUICK: Welcome back to Squawk Box. This is CNBC. We're here with a special show with Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska. But before we continue with that, let's get a quick check on the financials this morning. If you've been watching the futures, you're going to see that overall the Dow futures are indicated down by over 700 points. We've seen levels of worse than 800 points off this morning. But you see a big part of that comes from the banks themselves. The banks, if you look across the board, are down by about 3%. If you're looking at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup down by 2.9%, JPMorgan Chase off 3%. Wells Fargo down a little less, it's down by about 1.9%. Again, we're with Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, today. And, Warren, one of the things that people wrote in--a lot of people had questions about the banks, about what's happening with the banks, what you've changed with some of your investments of over time. Jason Goldberg writes in. He says:
　　'Please ask Warren about his views on the bank stocks in general and on Wells Fargo in particular. Over the last few quarters, he has sold almost one-quarter of his longstanding Wells Fargo stake. Also, in the fourth quarter, he dumped a third of his Goldman stock--Goldman Sachs shares, although, he still owns over $75 billion in bank equity.' So, what do you think about banks? Not necessarily the sell-off today, because you don't look at day by day.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, banking is a good business if you don't do dumb things on the asset side. I mean, basically. And, it's a business that the banks we own earn between-- the commercial banks earn between 12% and 16% or so on Net tangible assets. That's a good business. It's a fantastic business against the long-term bond, you know, at 2%. If you have a choice between a 2% instrument and a 12% instrument, which one's going to win over time? So, if you asked me whether I think banks are going to go down when they only earn 3% or 4% on tangible assets, I don't think that will happen. The question is really whether they do something massively dumb. I mean, which periodically a number of banks have done. And I feel very good about the banks we own. They're very attractive compared to most other securities I see. And, most of them are buying-- Bank of America's buying-- a lot of stock every year. So, our ownership of the Bank of America this year probably will go up 7% or 8% without us spending a dime. I'd like to own any business-- any good business where my ownership goes up 7% or 8% every year without me spending any money and on top of it, I get a dividend. So, they're very attractive, both against interest rates and against-- or against bonds and against other stocks in my view.
　　BECKY QUICK: You say occasionally "they do dumb things." Maybe you're talking about Wells Fargo with the scandal that it had? It just settled on Friday, with a number of the regulatory institutions that were kind of looking into it, the investing allegations that were taking place, for $3 billion.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: Does this mean that they have kind of finally gotten through that and can move forward?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know the answer to that. I know that they're paying $3 billion because it was announced. I don't know what else is outstanding. But Wells Fargo's classic, in terms of one lesson. My partner, Charlie Munger-- he's-- you know, he says, 'Whenever we have a problem, you attack it immediately.' He says, 'An ounce of prevention is not worth a pound of cure. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.' And we've seen that time after time. And the interesting thing, I-- and I don't know the details at all, but the original thing was a bunch of-- whole bunch of phony accounts. Now, I don't know how if you open up a couple million phony accounts you make any money on it at all. I don't, the shareholders didn't make money. People say, "Well, the—
　　BECKY QUICK: Well, the incentive structure was set up so that some of the employees did--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It was the dumbest incentive—
　　BECKY QUICK: --make most of the money.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --system you can think. And as soon as you learn, you can devise dumb incentive systems. We've done them ourselves. I mean, you can-- you can cause people to do the wrong thing. Because they will do what they're incented to do. And they had a—obviously, a very dumb incentive system. People started playing it various ways. And the big thing is they ignored it when they found out about it. I mean, you're going to do dumb things in business. And we do them every day, you know? But you absolutely have to attack a problem as soon as it occurs, and you know about it. And if that had happened, Wells Fargo shareholders would be a lot better off. But Wells Fargo shareholders did not profit from opening up accounts that were phony accounts that had nothing in them. I mean, somebody was getting paid so much per account. So-- and the practice spread because bad practices do spread if they're allowed to spread. And they were ignored, which is a total disaster. And look at the consequences. So, two or three years later, who's paying? The shareholders are paying for something that didn't do any good whatsoever.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is that why you've sold off some of the shares?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No. Not specifically.
　　BECKY QUICK: I know you don't want to get specific on why you--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No, I'm not-- I'm not-- I'm not recommending it--it's what stocks--people have to make up their owns minds on that. But—
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. I want to ask you a question about Todd Combs and his new role at Geico. I've got several questions that came in from that. And let's just use this one from Peter Lamperis: 'During last year's interview on CNBC after the 2018 letter was released, you were asked about succession at GEICO, and you mentioned that at a recent meeting at GEICO you met about 40 of their top executives. And after each introduced themselves, they stated their length of time with the company. The shortest was 19 years. Please explain why none of these 40 top executives were qualified to take over as CEO after the retirement of Bill Roberts.' Again, that's Pete Lamperis from Chicago.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Bill Roberts took over, not even two years ago. And last-- and he has done a terrific job in connection with Tony Nicely. I mean, GEICO is my first love. Absolutely. I tell the other companies that, you can't-- you can compete for my second love, but you can't compete for my first love, which is GEICO. Because it goes back 69 years. And, it did wonders for me. Anyway, GEICO, Bill Roberts took over a little less than two years ago. And then in either October of November last year, he said he would-- he'd like to retire in a year. He would adjust it in any way that made it easiest for us. And, we did not have the person, in my view, to replace him at that point. And Todd Combs, who's worked with Berkshire now for 10 years, he actually was a product manager at Progressive in the past, and he knows a lot about insurance. Insurance is probably the only business I know something about that we're in. All the rest of them are total confusion. But I understand the insurance business to some degree. Todd understands it very well at the operating level. And so, Todd is there, and I hope very much that he's not there very long because I'd like to get him back in Omaha. But our intention always is to promote from within. And-- we would hope to have-- pick out the right person at GEICO. It isn't that there isn't somebody there. It's just you want to have the right one. Because when you put somebody in, you're going to keep him there for a long time. And-- or her. And—
　　BECKY QUICK: Does that suggest Todd is not going to be there for a long time?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't think he's--no, no. The plan is not for him to be. I mean, he has not made a permanent career shift. And-- he-- you know, I don't know how long he'll be there. We have one important problem, which is, which all insurance companies have. But Progressive has done a better job of managing—of correlating our risk with rate. And that is what we're focused on now.
　　BECKY QUICK: Correlating risk—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: But we're—
　　BECKY QUICK: --with rate, meaning—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: In other words, having the proper rate.
　　BECKY QUICK: Right. Charging the right amount for—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Charging the right amount. If you were in the life insurance business and you thought that 80-year-olds had the same life expectancy as 20-year-olds -- you'd have a big, big problem. And what would happen is you'd write all the 80-year-olds and somebody would write all the 20-year-olds. So, in auto insurance, the same thing. There's a vast difference—
　　BECKY QUICK: In auto insurance, I'm not sure. I might prefer the 80-year-olds over the 20-year-old.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, you might. And-- you-- you certainly would prefer the 80-year-olds to 16-year-olds. I mean—
　　BECKY QUICK: Right.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah. So-- and you'd prefer the 16-year-old female to a 16-year-old male. There's a whole bunch of things. So, you've got to cor-- you really got to segment risk. And that's enormously important. And every company's trying to do it better all the time. We do it far better than we did 50 years ago, but-- we have-- room for improvement on that. We're focused on that. And in the meantime, we're growing faster. We're gaining market share. GEICO is a fantastic asset. Todd's job is to focus on that, but it's also to work himself out of a job very quickly. And, preferably to work-- definitely preferably to work himself out of a job, with somebody from GEICO.
　　BECKY QUICK: Eric LeFante writes a follow-up question. He says: 'Warren, why did you and Ajit decide to appoint Todd Combs as the CEO of GEICO?' That part you've answered.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: But: 'How will he be able to run GEICO, manage a $13 billion investment portfolio, oversee Haven, and be on the board of JPMorgan?'
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, let's-- it'll keep him busy. And we're-- and we've told him he has unlimited use of a NetJet. So--
　　BECKY QUICK: Really?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, sure. No, I mean, we want him to be efficient. That's what NetJets is for. And-- he, you know, he'll be working 70-hour weeks. The question about the portfolio is interesting. Most months, neither Ted nor Todd makes a single change in their portfolio. I mean, portfolio management is something that you learn over decades. And when I ran Salomon, I-- you know, I was running Berkshire portfolio. It is not something that you have to sit there day by day and do. People do it that way. But if-- there are many years where if I just left the portfolio entirely the same and didn't make any changes, we'd be better off. So, that's not a problem. But you're right in terms of JPMorgan's board, Haven, all that. He's-- he's going to be a very busy guy. GEICO's a top priority, but it isn't going to stay the top priority for a long, long time.
　　BECKY QUICK: Alright, let me-- run to another question that Max0205 wrote in: 'Have Todd Combs and Ted Weschler outperformed the S&P 500 since they began working at Berkshire? Why don't you disclose their record?'
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Why don't I?
　　BECKY QUICK: 'Why don't you disclose their record?' they said.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well-- we're not disclosing-- I think it would be very unusual-- for a firm to disclose everybody's sales last year among their salespeople or anything like that. I think that's-- they're entitled to work in relative anonymity. Our directors know how they do. I know how they do. We've made a lot of money with them. I feel very good--I mean, I feel very good about them in all ways. But we're not going to-- we're not going to tell you how much each candy store sells at See's Candy or who was the top-- the top person at any place, brought in in sales or whatever it may be.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. Let's jump to Berkshire's overall record versus the S&P. Berkshire has now underperformed the S&P 500 on one-year, three-year, five-year, and 10-year marks.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yep.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is that because it's too big? And will it ever be able to outperform the—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, certainly being too big is part of it. And-- but I would say this. During that same time, I mean, last year we achieved-- now, I don't like-- GAAP earnings very well, but we achieved the highest GAAP earnings of any company in the world has ever achieved-- that's investor owned. And we have the highest net worth of any company in the world, investor owned. Any company in the world. So, it-- I would say related to safety of principal over time-- I feel good about it. And I feel good about the fact that 99% of my money's in it and that it will be the source of all the philanthropic contributions that are made for 15 or a dozen years after I die. So-- but I don't think-- I do not think it will be in the top 10% of stocks performing over the next 10 years. I don't think it'll be in the top 15% of stocks performing in the next 10 or 15 years. I also don't think it'll be in the bottom 10% or 20% or 30%. So-- but our ability to have a huge edge over the market generally with a $550 billion market value-- it's just, it'll be minor, but it'll be done in a very, very safe manner.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is an investment in the S&P 500 a better investment than—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It could be.
　　BECKY QUICK: - at Berkshire?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It could be. You know, on balance, I think we'll do a little better. But it'll be-- it'll be minor. Depends on the kind of market we're in. If we're in a down market, we're-- we're going to beat it. I mean, it's that simple. And sometimes we will beat. The last 10 years. We haven't been. But-- over 55 years, it's worked. And-- and it-- it will continue working. But it-- it will not work at all like it did when we were working with $100 million or a billion dollars. There's no question about that. But we've got good businesses, and we're-- we won't be in the bottom quartile, I promise you that, over any long period of time.
　　BECKY QUICK: There are people-- like there were back in 1999, who have said maybe you've lost your edge. It was a similar thing in 1999, where you saw the technology stocks that were the big high flyers that people were pouring their money into, the .com companies and a lot of others associated with that. If you look at the markets again, it's the technology companies that have big runs. This time, you're participating in-- in Apple, which is one of those frontrunners. But is this a cyclical thing to you? Do you think there'll be another market downturn and then—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, there'll be a downturn—
　　BECKY QUICK: --Berkshire outperforms?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --sometime. There'll be a big—
　　BECKY QUICK: And-- and-- and Berk-- Berkshire outperforms at that point? Or?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, we'll outperform in a down market. But-- but that may not be particularly satisfactory-- to people. But, no, we will because we have these businesses that are making money and that-- I mean, we are-- we are not-- we're geared somewhat away from full market participation in either direction. But that's fine. We own-- if you think about it, we're 80-some-percent in equities. We may show $230 or $240 billion in equities, and that looks like we're against our market cap, we're 40%. But we own 100% of these other businesses. Those are equities, too. I mean, we own a railroad. And we-- we own insurance companies. And those are-- those are equities. So, we're about 80% in-- roughly in equities and about 20% in cash. And I'd rather-- I'd rather have that 20% in other good businesses. But, that is to some extent a curse of size. And it's to some extent the fact that, it's very hard. If interest rates stay at this level, we'll wish we'd-- for the next 10 or 20 years, we'll wish we'd been 125% in equities. I mean, it-- you know, equities are so much cheaper than bonds, long bonds, that-- you know, some-- something will change in a major way. I just don't know what. And I want to be prepared for anything obviously.
　　BECKY QUICK: So that's why you keep so much cash around. You want to be able to be prepared for a downturn. You want to be prepared for—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We—
　　BECKY QUICK: --a crisis.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We want to be prepared for anything, Becky. We want to be prepared for pandemics. We want to be prepared for-- anything comes along. Yeah. That is the chief job I have. I have people's money that gave it to me 50 or 60 years ago, and some of them still have 100% of their money essentially in it. And the one thing-- and I've got the responsibility for five foundations that presently are going to get $80 billion and I think will get a lot more over time probably. We don't want to permanently lose money. And-- you don't want to get that so that you go into a shell and don't do anything. But we have obligations to people on workers compensation claims and auto accidents they've had that go out 50 years. And you know, we have to run the place so that every check clears under any circumstances. And that's why we incident-- we own treasury bills. We don't-- we don't own commercial paper. We don't rely on bank lines or anything. When people get terrified, and they will occasionally, everything freezes, you know? And-- and you're going to have to stand on your own feet at a time like that. It won't happen very often, but it'll happen occasionally.
　　BECKY QUICK: I know you've developed a thick skin over the years, but does it tick you off when people start questioning whether you've lost it, whether you can still—
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I-- I'm sure I've lost some of it. I mean, I can tell you all kinds of things I've lost. No, that happens. But-- we haven't lost GEICO, or the railroads we own, or the--, Berkshire without me is worth essentially the same as Berkshire with me. I mean, I-- my-- my value added is-- is not high. But-- but I don't think I'm subtracting value, by the way. But-- the big thing is how our businesses do and what we get to add in the way of businesses over time. And we can add them through marketable securities. I mean, we own 5.5 or a little over percent of Apple. It's-- probably the best business I know in the world. And we own 5.5% of it. And that is a bigger commitment than we have in anything except insurance and the railroad. So it's-- it's our third-largest business.
　　BECKY QUICK: Yeah. Made the point that it was bigger than your biggest acquisition, Precision Castparts--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, for sure. It's our third-largest business.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. Let me test you on your thick skin.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Okay. Wow.
　　BECKY QUICK: Here was the kicker of that Barron's cover story. He said, 'There's reason to think that the company will be a market beater when he's gone. In the meantime, happy 90th.'
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, it's-- I-- I hope it is a market beater when I'm gone. I'm counting on it. I'm telling my estate and then the trustees that succeed my executors in the estate-- I'm telling them to keep every share of Berkshire they have until-- they have this pattern of giving it away. I mean, I want them to look back and say, "Gee, we should have made this change earlier." Because it's going to determine how much we buy in the way of vaccines, and-- you know, and-- and-- all kinds of things, education and all these things. And I feel terrific about Berkshire after I leave.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. We're going to continue this conversation with Warren in just a moment. In the meantime, Andrew, I'll send it back over to you.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Thank you, Becky. We're going to get back to-- Becky and Warren Buffett in just a couple minutes. But we do want to get you up to speed on this morning's news. Financial software maker Intuit is reportedly about to strike a $7 billion deal. Wall Street Journal reporting that Intuit, the company behind TurboTax and QuickBooks, will soon announce a deal to buy credit-monitoring service Credit Karma, which-- it will operate as a standalone business. But it will give them all sorts of data about your credit score. Some privacy concerns as well. Separately, PepsiCo has struck a takeover deal in China. It's buying Chinese snack brand Be & Cherry for $705 million. And there's a new challenger in the plant-based burger business. Cargill, one of the world's largest privately-held companies, is launching a new line of plant-based meat products. This would be a challenge to companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Now, new offerings will go on sale in April. Squawk Box is live, and we are back with Warren Buffett right after this.
　　JOE KERNEN: Markets are selling off on fears of the coronavirus, the spreading coronavirus and its impact on the global economy. Here's the latest. China reported an additional 150 deaths and 409 new cases overnight. South Korea raised its Coronavirus alert to the highest level after the number of cases there ballooned from 31 to more than 750 in less than a week. Stocks in Asia slipping overnight. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell just 1.8%, but South Korea's KOSPI fell nearly 4%. Shares of South Korea's two largest airlines were lower. They canceled flights to the city of Daegu, where many of the new cases were detected. And meantime, shifting to another part of the world, Italy's government is scrambling to deal with the biggest outbreak of the coronavirus outside of Asia. And stocks there dropped overnight. The government placed at least ten towns in northern Italy under quarantine and canceled the last few days of the Venice Carnival. Elsewhere in Italy, schools, museums, universities, and cinemas were closed, and major soccer matches were canceled.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We've got a lot more from Warren Buffett still to come on the broadcast. As we head to a break, here's another look at futures. Dow in the red about 773 points right now. We opened up NASDAQ down about- 266 points. S&P 500 off about 85 points. Here's a look at the biggest decliners in the S&P 500 in premarket trading. You're looking at-- Advanced Micro down 7%, Freeport-McMoran down close to 7%, as well. As a reminder you can always watch us live on the go on the CNBC app. We're right back after this with Warren Buffett.
　　BECKY QUICK: Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to a special edition of Squawk Box. We are live in Omaha, Nebraska with Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He's just released his-- shareholders letter that he writes every year, has been writing for the last 55 years now. And, Warren, thank you very much for being with us today--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, thanks for coming.
　　BECKY QUICK: We've talked about a lot of different issues. For people who are just waking up this morning, I want to once again point out that the Dow Futures right now are indicated down by about 767 points. That's not the weakest level that we've seen this morning. We have seen off more than 825 points at different various times. We'll be watching this very closely. Of course, this is because of what's been happening with the coronavirus, with the additional cases that have been picked up in additional countries and what that may mean for-- global growth. We'll talk more about that with Mr. Buffett in just a moment. We have been talking about that this morning. But, Warren, I want to talk about another issue that we have not touched on that. And that's politics here in the United States. We just watched the Nevada caucus. Bernie Sanders walked away with the most delegates after that. He-- looks to be-- the clear frontrunner for the nomination for the Democrats this time around. You have long been a supporter of the Democratic Party. What do you think?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think I'm going to wait and-- see who gets the nomination. But-- I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a card-carrying Democrat. And-- I've voted for Republicans. I've contributed to Republicans. In fact, I've only run for two offices in my life. One was head of the-- Young Republicans at the University of Pennsylvania, and the other time I was actually on the ballot running for delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1960. But normally, I vote for Democrats. And-- we will see what happens.
　　BECKY QUICK: Wow. That's the first time I've ever heard you say something like that.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it's-- I've kept it a secret for all these years, but now it comes out.
　　BECKY QUICK: You just said that you're not a card-carrying Democrat.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's true.
　　BECKY QUICK: You are a card-carrying capitalist. You actually have--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Absolutely.
　　BECKY QUICK: --one of those in your wallet.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: I've seen it.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know whether-- I'm a card-carrying capitalist, right. I don't think that's consistent with-- inconsistent with what I said on politics. Yeah, here it is. Yeah. I don't know whether that shows--
　　BECKY QUICK: For those who can't see, I'll show you on this camera right here.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Card-carrying capitalist. And--
　　BECKY QUICK: This is what you carry in your wallet.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And I think-- I think we will have some of those available at the annual meeting, too for our shareholders.
　　BECKY QUICK: I think Andrew's got a question that he wanted to jump in with here. Andrew?
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I was just going to-- follow up on that question, Warren, which was about a year ago we had asked you about Michael Bloomberg. And you had said that if he ever entered the race, he was somebody you would support. Would you support him? Is he your candidate?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would certainly vote for him. I don't think-- I don't think another billionaire supporting him-- would be-- the best thing to announce. But-- sure, I would-- I--would have no trouble voting for Mike Bloomberg.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And what do you think--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: And--incidentally-- well, I don't think I want to get into handicapping the race. But-- I-- would say this in terms of Sanders. I actually agree with him in terms of certain things he would like to accomplish. I don't agree with him-- in many ways. But-- in terms of the fact that-- we ought to do better by the people that get left behind by our capitalist system. I don't think we should kill the capitalist system in the process. I think we should make sure that the golden goose keeps laying more eggs. And it's worked wonderfully since 1776. But it doesn't work as well for people whose talents aren't-- really geared to a market economy. And I don't think anybody should be left behind by an economy that has over $60,000 of GDP per capita. And so, I'm a big fan of increasing the earned income tax credit. And-- I'm-- you know, I--think there should be some changes made. But--if given a choice, I would-- certainly vote for Mike Bloomberg as opposed to Sanders.
　　BECKY QUICK: There is-- a plan. Let's talk about some of Sanders' plans. You said you agree with some of what his intentions are, but let's talk about some of those actual plans. One of those plans would be to give 20% of company stock to employees and put workers on the board. What do you think about that? That would be for any company-- public company that has more than $100 million in annual revenue or a $100 million balance share--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I don't want to get involved in evaluating his whole plan, but I think that would be a particularly bad idea.
　　BECKY QUICK: Because?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I just-- I- don't think that-- I don't think putting 20% of the capitalists on a labor union is probably a good idea either. And I-- think the market system works very, very well in terms of developing more goods and services. I mean, when you flew out here to Omaha, if you'd flown out here in-- you wouldn't have been able to fly in 1776. You wouldn't have seen anything. Everything you see is the product of-- a system that's worked like nothing's ever worked in the history of the world. So, I--do not believe in messing up our system of developing output. I do believe that-- that anybody who's willing to work 40 hours a week and has a couple kids should not have to have a second job. And I believe in having a higher income for people. Not necessarily a higher minimum wage. But I--do not think it's at all unreasonable that the income tax credit produces at least $15 an hour, maybe higher in certain areas. So-- I'm in-- very much in sympathy with the fact that Senator Sanders believes that a lot of people are getting left behind and through no fault of their own. And there's all kinds of aspects of capitalism that can-- need in some ways to be-- regulated, but I don't believe in giving up the capitalist system.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. Let me-- slip in some questions that viewers have written in on this front. Michael Blank writes in-- "Please ask Warren if he thinks the market will sell off it if becomes clear that Bernie Sanders will win the Democratic nomination."
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I think-- I normally would never make a comment on something-- like that, but I would say that if you had Sanders and a Democratic House and Senate or if you had Trump with a Republican House and Senate-- there would be a significant difference. But I don't think I would necessarily vote on what-- in fact, I know I wouldn't vote on what I thought necessarily would affect the market the better. I--think it's a very poor yardstick. I-- would not want to cast my vote in a presidential election based on which would be better for the market in the next 30, or 60, or 90 days after the election.
　　BECKY QUICK: But your reservations with Bernie Sanders, I assume, come with your concerns about what it means for the economy. Not over 30, 60, 90 days--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I--
　　BECKY QUICK: Over a much broader period of time--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Certain aspects of the economy. And certain things, he-- you know, I'd like to see done. I would like to see the earned income tax credit change dramatically upward.
　　BECKY QUICK: Alan Buckey writes in a letter. He says, If Michael Bloomberg becomes the Democratic candidate, would you consider buying his company?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No. I can give you a categorical answer to that.
　　BECKY QUICK: Because of the price? Because of the--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: There'd be-- be something to pay more more.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. I think that gets us right towards the end of the hour. So, guys, we will send it back to you in the studio.
　　BECKY QUICK: Thank you, Joe. Again, we're sitting down with Warren Buffett. And-- Warren, we've talked this morning about the coronavirus. But there are people who are waking up across the country now, kind of tuning in at this hour. So-- maybe we should address this again. With the markets indicated down 750 points-- with concerns about coronavirus spreading and now-- worries about what that will mean for the global economy this year-- I know this is-- not something you look at a day by day basis, but how do you kind of wake up and read this and think through it?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't think it-- it--makes no difference in our investments. I mean, it-- there's always gonna be some news, good or bad, every day. In fact, if you go back and read all the papers for the last 50 years, probably most of the headlines tend to be bad. But-- if you look at what happens to the economy, most of the things happen are extremely good. I mean, it's-- incredible what will happen over time. So if the-- if somebody came and told me that the global growth rate was gonna be down 1% instead of 1/10th of a percent, I'd still buy stocks if I-- if I liked the price at which and I like the prices better today than I liked them last Friday.
　　BECKY QUICK: Do you like prices today? Will Berkshire be buying--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Sure.
　　BECKY QUICK: --stock today?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we'll certainly be more inclined to buy stock today than on Friday, yeah, yeah. Anything we were buying Friday, we would be buying today. And--feeling better about buying it.
　　BECKY QUICK: You know, one of the things you talked about in the annual letter was-- stock buybacks in Berkshire Hathaway. And for the first time, you told people to call Mark Millard in your office outright if they have $20 million worth of Berkshire shares and they're ready to sell. That's a really unusual move. Why did you do that?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we did it because-- it's very hard to buy blocks-- in the market. Berkshire, we practically never see blocks-- except we do see them from-- estates or-- occasionally. But if somebody's gonna sell 100 million share-- $100 million worth of Berkshire and we wanna buy it-- we-- we'd like them to call us and we'll if it's-- if we're buying at that price level, we'll be buying-- we'll buy it.
　　BECKY QUICK: Dan Mahoney actually wrote in with a very similar question. He just said, "Is it hard to buy back the shares-"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's hard to buy-- it's harder to buy back Berkshire shares than, say, Bank of America-- is buying back their shares. Bank of America bought back 8% or 9% of their stock last year. And they can really do it without moving the market. I mean, Apple's been buying back a ton of stock. They were buying stock at the same time we were buying stock. But it was easier for us to buy Apple stock even though Apple itself was buying a lotta stock, than it is to buy Berkshire. Berkeley is-- well, it's held by people that are really trying to keep it. They're-- I think the amount of speculation in Berkshire stock is relatively low compared to most stocks. And s-- and so it's-- well, we bought $5 billion worth last year. But that's only 1% of the market cap. And-- I would say with a great many companies, you can buy 4% or 5% of the company fairly easily a year without disturbing the market. American Express has been buying it every year.
　　BECKY QUICK: So-- with you putting out an ad in the letter to shareholders, does that basically mean you are eager to buy more shares back?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Depends on the price. But-- we'll let anybody know if they-- we told them to call us before the opening or after the close. But-- and only if-- only with blocks. And only if they're ready to do business. Yeah, there'll be a few people, probably try and call just to see whether we're buying or not. And we--will-- we will not show a lotta patience with those people.
　　BECKY QUICK: Let's talk about shares of Apple-- both from-- y-- you just mentioned it with the share buybacks, with it being such a huge holding of yours-- you've got more than 5.3% of the company right now?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I think it's 5.6%--
　　BECKY QUICK: 5.6%--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Goes up every day.
　　BECKY QUICK: Well, l-- let's talk about--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Goes up, but not because we're--buying
　　BECKY QUICK: --what we've seen with the slowdown with the coronavirus because Apple is one of the companies that has said it's going to have an impact, not only with the stores that they've closed there, with the behavior of-- Chinese customers, but also what happens with the supply chain.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Supply chain, sure.
　　BECKY QUICK: W-- how do you read through any of that? What are-- what are you hearing? Do you know more than we do on that front--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No. I'm. I don't know one thing more. I--see-- I may see Tim Cook at the annual meeting. I see him in Sun Valley once a year. No, I don't think-- I don't think I've placed a phone call to Tim Cook in two or three years. Or in-- I-mean, it-- - no, I-- it-- all kinds of things are gonna happen to Apple in the next ten years. The real question is-- you know, what is the degree of pervasiveness and strength of that product five or ten years from now. And I don't think of Apple as a stock. I think it's our third largest business.
　　BECKY QUICK: It's also a high flying technology company. It's one that's been at the forefront. But you've said in the past you didn't buy it because it was a technology company.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I think it's a consumer product. In fact, I think I said this on the program a couple years ago. I mean, it-- obviously, it's a consumer product company that uses technology. But we've got a lotta products that use technology that-- that-- at Berkshire. But-- it's an incredible company. And-- I should've appreciated it earlier.
　　BECKY QUICK: There's a question that came in from-- I guess the handle is @GPG. This is a question that came in on Twitter. And the writer asks, "You've said that you can do fair value estimates of companies you follow at any time in your head. So please do one now for Apple. What went wrong with your estimate for IBM? And how was that miscalculation different than for Apple?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: IBM's a entirely different business than Apple. I mean, it-- I-- Apple doesn't resemble IBM any more than it resembles-- but it resembles See's Candy way more. I mean, it is a incredibly useful product for people. It grows more useful as the number of people-- are involved. I mean, it's really interesting. You know, we call them smart phones. If you go back and look at the old telephone, that was an incredible, useful product-- it changed my mother's life and my dad's l-- it changed lives in every day. And they-- took a long time to become pervasive. And it was very expensive initially. But-- it-changed the world. And the smart phone-- is part of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people's lives in all aspects of their lives. They-- it's used for-- has all kinds of utility. It's a consumer product.
　　BECKY QUICK: Are you a consumer of its products at this point? You've had a flip phone for forever.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I'm glad you brought that up. I am now using-- not very often. I'm-- I'm using the latest model. And-- - I'll give you a little preview of our-- movie for the annual meeting-- we haven't done it yet. But-- we'll probably show-- me crushing with my foot my old flip phone, while cozying up to the new smart phone.
　　BECKY QUICK: When did you get the smart phone?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I've been given several of them. But-- in-- in-- including by Tim Cook.
　　BECKY QUICK: One finally stuck?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: What? Pardon me?
　　BECKY QUICK: One finally stuck?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, I- my flip phone is permanently gone. The number's been changed. Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: That's impressive.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I mean, you're looking at-- an 89 year old guy that's barely beginning to be with it.
　　BECKY QUICK: What do you like best about the phone? And what do you like least?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I don't use all its facilities like most people-- I mean, most people are living their lives around it. And-- I use it as a phone.
　　BECKY QUICK: As a phone and nothing else--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I--use it as a phone.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. We're gonna continue our conversation with Warren Buffett coming up in just a few minutes. In the meantime though, guys, we'll send it back to you in the studio.
　　JOE KERNEN: All right. Thank you. What are you doing with your phone right now since Warren Buffett just uses it--
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I was just--
　　JOE KERNEN: --as a phone?
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: --tweeting out some--
　　JOE KERNEN: On your--
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: --Warren Buffett had just said on air.
　　JOE KERNEN: And you're it on your phone, not on your des--
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Computer. Easier-- I think--
　　JOE KERNEN: Easier for you?
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: --the phone, yeah.
　　JOE KERNEN: Okay. I wonder if-- Warren probably doesn't use Google Maps. I wonder what he does besides-- I-- that was a good question. I wanna look if there's anything else that he does. Games, anything, on that phone, besides using it--
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: After the break.
　　JOE KERNEN: After we-- I k-- well-- as-- Becky asked him. Coming up, much more-- with Warren Buffett live from-- Omaha, Nebraska. First-- at-- Apple Music. I mean, you think he-- he-- he's got Air Buds, I wonder.
　　CHARLIE MUNGER (PRE-RECORDED): (IN PROGRESS) --see, I don't like it when investment bankers talk about EBITDA, w-- which I re-- translate as (BEEP) earnings.
　　BECKY QUICK: That was Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger about a week and a half ago when he was speaking at-- the annual shareholders meeting for his other company, The Daily Journal, answering questions, giving his-- usual straight answers when things come up as questions. Warren, that was Charlie talking about EBITDA earnings, calling them BS earnings, although he-- said it a little-- more explicitly. You in your shareholder letter for Berkshire Hathaway also wrote about how you don't believe in gap earnings. What-- how do you guys come about this? What do you think? You still have to report these numbers. But you're basically telling shareholders don't listen to them?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the-- yeah, it's two different principles. I mean, the gap numbers would show us earning $80 billion, which is more than any company's ever earned in history. And we explain why that really isn't the relevant statistic, because a lotta that was just the stock market going up, which now gets counted in our earnings. And Charlie was expressing an opinion we both have. Charlie's the shy, reticent one of the pair. But-- Charlie is the best partner anybody could possibly have. We've been partners now for 60 years. And-- you could not have a better partner. He, at 96-- a woman since that meeting actually-- in the last couple weeks, a woman said to him, "Is it true- Mr. Munger, th-- you have eight children." And Charlie's reply was, "So far." So-- Charlie is very much-- an active partner, we'll put it that way. Next time I see him, I'll get an update on to see what-- so far.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Let us know what happens.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I will.
　　BECKY QUICK: Well, you know, we watch pretty closely Charlie's shareholder meetings at The Daily Journal. We send cameras out, we watch it. I've been out myself. Do you watch that meeting too to see what he has to--say
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I watched it all on YouTube afterwards. But my sister and my-- one of my good friends and my niece were all there. And-- no, I end up watching it. And I actually end up reading it-- usually too. But-- I wouldn't miss it. But I don't go out for it.
　　BECKY QUICK: Was there anything he said that surprised you this time around? I'm just looking through some of his soundbites--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Actually, nothin' Charlie says can surprise me.
　　BECKY QUICK: Was there anything that enlightened you or changed your opinion on something? Maybe something--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No--
　　BECKY QUICK: --you thought--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --but I learn from Charlie every time I talk to him. Charlie has the best 30 second mind in the world. So I can go to him with-- a new question, new problem of any kind, and it goes through about eight filters in his mind in-- in ten seconds. And he gets to the essence of any problem. It-- there is nobody better to talk to than Charlie at age 96.
　　BECKY QUICK: Is there anything you've talked to him about recently that you might be able to share? I don't know if you wanna share the conversations you guys have privately, but anything where you've bounced something off of him and he--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I bounced—I we talk about a lotta things. W-- and we talk a lot-- we talk particularly about things we don't know the answer to. And-- you know, we find the whole scene so interesting, whether it's politically or economically, the world. I mean, it's incredibly interesting to us. And--we're particularly interested in each other's view, although I think I'm more interested in his view than he is in mind. And that would be a correct decision to make for somebody overhearing us.
　　BECKY QUICK: What's something you guys don't understand right now?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh-- we--do not understand at all what the outcome will be-- in a world where $13 trillion is being borrowed at less than zero. And even-- Greece went on short term and-- I think Greece, the ten year bond is 1%, for example. And- at the same time, in this country we're having-- under very good business and market conditions we're having a 4.5% federal deficit and nobody is concerned in the least. And we're talking about massive new programs and so on. Everybody talks about-- pay form. But that really-- you know, their deficit's gonna widen. So we don't know what world comes out of something where you start with extremely low interest rates and high rates of growth. And then what you do for stimulus-- later on. But the whole game, I mean, the game always unfolds differently than you expect. And that's what makes it so interesting.
　　BECKY QUICK: You know, the ten year, speaking of these low rates-- just a little bit ago hit its lowest yield since July of 2016 this morning. I think it was 1.377%. We're back at 1.396%. But ten year rate's below 1.4%. Would you have anticipated this?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: W-- it-- it makes no sense to lend money at 1.4% to the U.S. government when it's government policy to change to have 2% a year inflation. I mean, you've got-- you've got--the government is telling you, "We're gonna give you 1.4% and tax you on it. "And on the other hand, we're gonna presumably devalue that money at 2% a year." So these are very unusual conditions. And-- classical economics, it-- doesn't appear-- that, you know, what do people do under such circumstances? Does everybody buy a mattress and stick their money under the mattress or what? And it particularly seems-- unusual when the world is generally prosperous and, you know. But that's-- the game is always changing. But it always looks logical in retrospect. And it-- - always looks puzzling prospectively. But there's always things to do that make sense too.
　　BECKY QUICK: Like what?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I hope that's what we're doing. It's buying good businesses at decent prices, whether all of the businesses or parts of the businesses through the stock market.
　　BECKY QUICK: You know, you told me a year and a half ago, maybe longer, that when you went out to try and buy whole businesses right now, it just looks too expensive, which is why you started buying pieces of companies, more stocks, particularly--in places like Apple. Is that still the case? Is it still a huge premium to try and buy a company outright?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: There's quite a premium. And part of the premium is because you can borrow so much money so cheaply in buying those businesses. Obviously, you can pay more for-- a business if you can-- borrow a very high percentage of the purchase price and of the future cash flow committed to it. And you can borrow low rates with very little in the way of restrictions-- restrictive covenants or anything of the sort. I mean, that's gonna bring higher prices. And the demands of that is huge. And people look at those rates on the 30 year or the ten year and they say to themselves, "Gee, I can't live on that." And so they stretch and buy four credits. But that's-- just part of the human cycle over time. And that-- leads to something else. And that leads to something else. In the end, if you own good businesses at the right price, you're gonna do fine.
　　BECKY QUICK: You're often quoted-- as saying-- that you don't know who's skinny-dipping until the tide goes out, who's swimming naked till the tide goes out, whatever it may be. You get the sense with the high tide right now there's a lotta skinny-dipping--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we-- we're--
　　BECKY QUICK: --taking place?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --certainly doing-- we're allowing people to borrow money on much weaker terms than we were five or ten years ago. You couldn't borrow money at all, for a period ten years ago. I mean, y-- literally-- you could-- Berkshire couldn't borrow money. I mean, - everything stopped. And-- now we've-- the pendulum has swung b-- dramatically. And yet, we still have-- you know, we have very, very, very-- all right, so it's hard to believe that ten years or 20 years from now we will have a substantial continuation of negative interest rates. But I've already seen things I didn't think could happen. So who knows what could happen? That's what makes it interesting.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Guys, we will send it back to you at headquarters right now. We'll continue this conversation in just a moment.
　　JOE KERNEN: Right now, let's get back out to Omaha where Becky Quick is with Warren Buffett. And there's a lot of important things happening. But don't forget that March Madness is right around the corner, Becky. And I know—
　　BECKY QUICK: You should see what he's doing right now, Joe. He was rubbing his hands as you said that. Now you're talking his language.
　　JOE KERNEN: Now – well Creighton. It was 70 to 35 at one point and I had Creighton yesterday. I don't know if you were paying attention to that. Were you watching that at all, Warren? Nebraska plays tonight.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We pay attention to Creighton out here.
　　JOE KERNEN: They're good.
　　BECKY QUICK: We talked about it earlier this morning off-camera.
　　JOE KERNEN: They're peaking. I think they're peaking. I mean, they're getting better, and better, and better. The three-point shooting was – I think that one guy was seven for seven at one point yesterday, which is – I'd be, like, seven for 10,000 for three pointers I think.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Not bad.
　　JOE KERNEN: Anyway, get back to business. I just I'm looking forward to it, Warren. And I know we always have our own personal bet. If I get them all right, you give me Berkshire Hathaway, which would be cool for me.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I'll tell you, if you get it all the way, I'll give you my Berkshire Hathaway shares, all the way to the 64.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Wow. Wow.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Fill out a bracket.
　　JOE KERNEN: A giving pledge.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I guess that's the ultimate giving pledge.
　　BECKY QUICK: That's how sure he is that you won't be able to do it.
　　JOE KERNEN: I'm pretty sure.
　　BECKY QUICK: Andrew, I hear you have a question too, Andrew?
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I actually have a couple. And I thought – I read the letter like everybody else over the weekend and was fascinated by so many of your comments, Warren. Specifically, I wanted to ask you, you talk about diversity on boards in this letter. And one of the things I wanted you to weigh in on, if you could, is I don't know if you saw, but David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, on our air actually announced a couple weeks ago that he won't be taking any companies public, Goldman won't – unless they have at least one diverse board member and are likely going to push that to two. You know, in the state of California, they put a law into place saying that you needed to have a female board member. And I'm curious what you think of not just the push towards more diversity on boards, but the requirement because I also note in your letter that you have very specific thoughts about what it means to be a board member, what it means to be an independent board member, how wealth is involved in all of that. What are your thoughts?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, at Berkshire for decades we've given the three factors in addition to integrity, but for board membership. And we want people who are business savvy, we want them to have a strong personal interest in Berkshire itself. And we've got directors who really represent shareholders basically at Berkshire. And I think they do a great job. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't think that we should delight our customers, that we should treat associates well, that we should behave well in our community, both local and national. But our directors represent the shareholders.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So Warren, just to follow up on it though, what's your thought about both the requirement that maybe banks and others investors are going to force companies to have diverse candidates on their board, laws, as I mentioned, in California?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. actually, there may be – there's been sent to us a proposal which, unless it's withdrawn, will be on our proxy. I can't tell you precisely what it says. But that relates to this issue. And we will get our shareholder's view on it. I personally I want shareholders – I want directors that represent the shareholders. And, you know in terms of my estate you know, with maybe currently $80 billion worth of shares to give to philanthropy, I hope that we have – and we do have a group of directors that I think will be very conscious of doing the right thing.
　　ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: The reason I asked the question is because the other point you made, which I think is a very smart one, and is often misconstrued in the corporate governance land, is that an independent director these days isn't always independent, in large part. And you make the point that those that don't come to the table with some form of wealth often need the job. They need the money. They want the money. And therefore, that makes them less independent. And the reason I ask this is one of the things, as we've been trying to get more diverse candidates on boards, more women on boards – as you know, there are fewer CEOs. Fewer people who have made enormous amounts of money. And people therefore, then can question their independence. It becomes a very tricky issue. And that's what I was hoping you might weigh in on.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, Andrew I've been on 21 publicly owned – boards of publicly owned companies. And I've seen them in operation. And I would say that people that I have often seen, and that's perfectly understandable, I have often seen people who are classified as independent directors. And they are getting $300,000 a year for a job that takes them a couple of days, maybe six times a year, maybe four times a year. And the company flies them to their office. And it's very enjoyable and the company's good. And who wouldn't want a job like that? I mean it's an incredible job. And people – I get calls from head hunters, I get calls from CEOs. And they ask, you know, who I think would make a "good" director. And what they are asking is, you know, who's not going to cause too much trouble and who is going to reflect – who their name is going to reflect credit on the institution. And they are not looking for somebody that I would regard as really independent. And I don't blame them. I mean, and if I had spent my life being, you know, a teacher or whatever it might be, I mean my IQ is just as high as the average or higher than the people on the boards and all that. But on the other hand, I want to get on a board. I mean, 300,000 bucks a year would look terrific. And you don't even have to retire probably in most cases at 65 or anything of the sort. So, to call them independent is ridiculous. And if you're on one board like that, you want to really go on another one and make $600,000 a year. And you are not going to do things that irritate your present CEO. So, when he or she gets a call and says, "Would this guy make a good director," that the answer is, "No." I mean, it's just ridiculous to ignore the factor of compensation with board members.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, let me ask a follow up question that is similarly related, Warren, and that's just having to do with sustainability, all these issues that are out there. Guys in the control room, sorry, this is not where I told you I was going, with but Abhishek Bhardwaj wrote in a question. He said, "Larry Fink recently said that our investment conviction is that sustainability and climate integrated portfolios can provide better risk adjusted return to investors. What's your view on sustainable investing?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I don't happen to make that decision when I'm buying the stocks in our portfolio. What their individual policies are, I think they're all pro social, I mean, obviously. You've got to be in tune with your society. But if you think that I look down at a bunch of stocks and decide whether to buy Apple or whether to buy JP Morgan or – I am not using the factors that he lays out.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. I want to run through a series of questions that have been in. These are kind of all over the map so forgive me. We'll bounce around. But these are questions that came in from viewers that I thought were good ones. Lucas writes in. He said, "Did Justin Sun change your mind on cryptocurrency?" For anybody who doesn't know, Justin Sun bought the dinner or the lunch that you just had from the last Glide Foundation fundraiser. He is actively involved in Bitcoin. After that meeting, his PR people put out some notes saying that, you know, you kind of listened to cryptocurrency and maybe you're a little more in tune with the idea of Bitcoin now.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say this. When Justin and four friends came, they behaved perfectly and we had a good three and a half hour dinner and the whole thing was a very friendly exchange of ideas. But cryptocurrencies basically have no value. And they don't produce anything. So, you can look at your little ledger item for the next 20 years and it says you've got X of this cryptocurrency or that. It doesn't reproduce. It doesn't deliver. It can't mail you a check. It can't do anything. And what you hope is that somebody else comes along and pays you more money for it later on. But then that person's got the problem. But in terms of value, you know, zero.
　　BECKY QUICK: So, it sounds like he did not change your position.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No, but I didn't change his either. And I had a very pleasant dinner. And those people were – they behaved more than well. And they gave four point – or Justin gave $4.6 million to Glide. And that will buy a lot of meals and provide a lot of beds for people in San Francisco. So, I thank him.
　　BECKY QUICK: He gave you some Bitcoin. So, what does it feel like to be a Bitcoin owner?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I don't have any Bitcoin.
　　BECKY QUICK: You don't?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No.
　　BECKY QUICK: You don't own Bitcoin?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: No, I do not own one – I don't own any cryptocurrency. I never will. And, you know, in the end, I may start a Warren currency. You know, maybe I can create one and I'll say there's only going to be 21 million of them and you can have a little ledger sheet from me and everything that says you have it. And you can have it after I die but you can't do anything with it except sell it to somebody else. And the interesting thing, of course, is that Bitcoin's been out there a long time. And people talked about how it would be used in various kinds of exchange. But none of our companies are doing business in Bitcoin or anything. Bitcoin has been used I think to move around a fair amount of money illegally. So the people that—
　　BECKY QUICK: Or maybe in countries where you have —
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. So, the logical move from the introduction of Bitcoin is to go short suitcases because the money that was taken in suitcases from one country to another, suitcases will probably fall off in demand. I mean, so you can look at that as the economic contribution of Bitcoin to the society.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. Let's talk about a question that comes in from Rusty Thomas and he has-- he's got a question on baseball. He said, "Given Warren's love of baseball and the contrast between his deft management of the Salomon Brothers scandal and Major League Baseball's inexplicable mismanagement of the Astros' sign stealing debacle, what advice would Warren provide MLB Commissioner Manfred to restore confidence and integrity in the game?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, it survived the Black Sox scandal back around 1920. And people will continue to love baseball. But, you know, it was one thing to steal signs if you were on second base. But it's bad. But baseball will get past this.
　　BECKY QUICK: You're a huge--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: People love--
　　BECKY QUICK: --baseball fan. Were you--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Pardon me?
　　BECKY QUICK: You're a huge baseball fan. Were you surprised to hear about--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I was surprised to hear about it, yeah. But-- but then I find out that Bobby Thomson's--somebody just stole the sign I think off, I think, Ralph Branca or somebody, you know? It-- so-- people are going to-- in any games, include the stock market game, you know, certain number of people cheat. And, generally, we have people that administer things to try and minimize the cheating. And-- and I'm sure that Major League Baseball will-- will address the problem.
　　BECKY QUICK: Should the Astros players get off scot free?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, I-- I'm not going to-- make a judgment on that. But-- Joe Jackson certainly didn't. Yeah. Yeah.
　　BECKY QUICK: Let me ask you about-- a question that came in from several viewers actually-- and that's about the ETF. Dmosley Management wrote this version of the question in: 'News agencies have reported that Berkshire Hathaway purchased two ETFs. So, can you talk about if this purchase happened? And if the purchase happened, who purchased the ETF for Berkshire Hathaway? And how was the decision made to purchase it?' Small numbers.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, it wasn't---me-- it wasn't me or it wasn't Todd or it wasn't Ted. And-- it-- it happened in some pension fund. And we have a few pension funds that aren't actually managed by us. But I-- all I can tell you is that nobody that-- nobody that manages money at Berkshire is buying ETFs. Nor do I see any possibility that they will.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Another purchase that came up recently, Kroeger. And Jason Escamilla writes in, "Was that one of yours, or-- or a lieutenant's pick?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It was one of the others. And-- you know, I-- I know Kroeger. Kroeger-- Kroeger's done a good job, but it's in a very tough business. I mean, when you have-- when you have-- Amazon and Walmart slugging it out and Costco taking a special part of it and everything, it's a tough business. But-- they've done a good job. And one of our managers decided to buy that.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. And then Kraft Heinz. This comes in from David Hall. He says, "Mr. Buffett, while Kraft Heinz continues to whittle down their total debt, do you feel that the current dividend payout is appropriate? Or should it be reduced further to free up more cash flow to reduce debt more rapidly?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I think Kraft Heinz should pay down its debt and it should-- but I think-- under present circumstances, it appears that it can pay the dividend and pay down debt at a reasonable date. And it has too much debt. But it doesn't have some-- it doesn't have debt it can't pay down. And the debt owners are going to get the interest. And the debt should come down year by year. And I think it will and I think it can with the present dividend. But who knows for sure in the future?
　　BECKY QUICK: TheoFilos Theo writes in a similar question and says: "Do you still believe in the company and management at Kraft Heinz?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's still a great business, in the sense that it earns we'll say $5 billion after depreciation pre-tax. And on $7 billion of tangible assets, it uses about $7 billion of fixed assets. It – working --. I mean, it's a very valuable business, but we paid too much for Kraft. And we-- we took on more debt in that. And-- but we paid too much.
　　BECKY QUICK: Another question comes in from Beale (PH) again on Kraft Heinz. And this person writes in: "Private labels have performed very well against brands like Kraft Heinz. But they haven't made a dent against other brands like Coca Cola or See's. Why do you think that is? And how do you think about brands' modes, given your experience with Kraft?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Brands are always going to be in a fight with the retailer. And it varies by country enormously. It varies by product category. If people -- I worked in a grocery store in 1941. Charlie worked in the same one in 1940. People would call and they'd ask for a can of peas and I'd write down, "A can of peas." They'd call and they'd ask for Heinz ketchup, and I-- I'd better give them Heinz ketchup. They didn't care which brand the peas were. They didn't care that much whether the two quarts of milk we sent them were this brand or that brand. But they cared whether it was Heinz ketchup. That was in, you know, 1941. Some brands are terribly strong. You can't bring out-- a private label Cola and do very well with it. And people have tried for a long, long time. On the other hand, you can bring out private labels and lots of products and-- and they sell very well. And-- you know, you take Costco with their own Kirkland label. I mean, that-- that label grows dramatically. It cuts across categories. It, you know, it's done since 1992 or whenever it was introduced, what-- other people spend 100 years, you know, with huge amounts of advertising and special displays -- all kinds of things. So, the battle goes on. I would say that the retailer has gained ground against brands to some degree. But brands are still terribly important. I mean, try – give me a $10 billion budget and ask me to bring out another Coca Cola that makes a dent in Coca Cola and I can't do it.
　　BECKY QUICK: Right. All right, we're going to continue this conversation. Coming up, we'll have the final moments of our interview with Warren Buffett. But-- right now, Joe and Andrew, we'll send it back over to you guys.
　　BECKY QUICK: Good morning, everybody and welcome back to a special edition of Squawk Box. We are live in Omaha, Nebraska with Warren Buffett, the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He's just completed and put out his 55th annual shareholder letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. And that came out over the weekend. And we are with him today, answering questions from lots of viewers. Warren, one of the questions that did come in, and it was something that you wrote about in the annual letter, was-- the role that Greg and Ajit play-- Greg Abel, Ajit Jain, the two Vice Chairmen who were recently added as Vice Chairmen, the role that they're going to but playing in the annual meeting with shareholders. You said that they will play a larger role in the shareholder meeting. How will that work?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it will mean that any shareholder or any of the journalists there who are presenting questions from shareholders that have been sent to them, can direct those questions to either Ajit or to Greg. So, if they were insurance questions, they might want to direct them to Ajit. And not insurance questions, to Greg. But they will be there. And-- we'll have 60 or so questions. We don't know what they're going to be. And-- if anybody says, "I would like Greg to answer this," or, "I would like Ajit to answer this," then they're right there, adjacent to us.
　　BECKY QUICK: They'll be sitting onstage with you and Charlie?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there's this-- yeah, there's-- there-- we'll -- sitting in front of the crowd, there's two different levels of-- of tiers there.
　　BECKY QUICK: Yeah. And you said you did this because you've gotten a lot of questions from directors, shareholders, other people who had kind of advised you that they thought it was good for them to be playing a bigger role--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, everybody-- I-- I heard from quite a few people. Now, we directed questions out to them when they were sitting with the directors-- out in front. And the spotlight went down. But this may encourage more questions directly of them. And that will be terrific.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Jim Beam writes in a question. He says, "In the past, both you and Bill Gates have stated that half of the board meetings are spent discussing succession. How has this changed since Ajit and Greg are on the board? Do they leave the room?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: They leave the room. But, if I die tonight, the board tomorrow morning knows exactly what they're going to do. But, I hope they're polite about it. Let the body cool off. Basically, they know what they're going to do. And the-- the interesting thing about it is we own-- you know, the Apple and JP Morgan and all those things. I don't know who's going to succeed-- the CEOs of any of the companies I think that we own stock in. But-- we're well prepared for succession. It's almost going to be embarrassing how well.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right, let's get to a few more shareholder questions. Chip Crook writes in a note and says: "It was reported that Boeing was looking for a large cash loan. Were you approached about Berkshire loaning the money, kind of like the Goldman Sachs deal from years ago—"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: I think-- I think Boeing's raised about $13 billion. But that's bank type money. In other words, my memory is that-- that maybe 1%, you know—post--. They're looking for-- they're-- they're looking for traditional bank loans. And we don't make traditional bank loans.
　　BECKY QUICK: You also talked in the letter about how Berkshire Hathaway has-- Berkshire Hathaway Energy, I should say, has the ability and the talent to manage big investments. $100 billion and more. I think you wrote, "We stand ready and willing and able on such opportunities." California Governor Gavin Newsom asked you at one point to bid on PG&E. Is that such an opportunity?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: PG&E, we've obviously, I mean, we work with them for decades and been familiar with them. But-- but-- that doesn't-- that doesn't fit Berkshire. But if-- if there were 100 billion transmission lines or whatever it might be, Berkshire could do it. I mean, and we would love it. That happens to be a very tough thing to do because you cross all these states and everybody says, "Not in my backyard" and all that. But-- but-- there can be huge, intelligent investment made in the utility energy area. And no one is better equipped to do it than Berkshire in both talent and resources.
　　BECKY QUICK: Why does PG&E not fit that bill?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: It's too tough. I don't-- I don't know the answer to it. I mean, it-- rearranging that utility. And-- I think-- I know Governor Newsom. I think he's a very, very, very smart guy. And-- and in terms of solving this problem, it's just not easy. You've got so many constituencies. And they're at each other's throats. And there's lots of money involved. And-- I don't want to be the guy to try-- I don't know how to solve all that.
　　BECKY QUICK: Okay. Let's go onto a question that is posed by Ken Ducey. He says: "You sold 31 newspapers after buying them over 40 years as a self-described newspaper addict. You said recently that most newspapers were toast." I know that's not exactly what you said--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: That's not-- yeah, that's not true, actually.
　　BECKY QUICK: But this is in his question. You can answer that, too. "Do you believe the problem with local newspapers is a lack of demand or a lack of innovation and a new business model?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, bottom is that-- well, getting back to the toast comment, Andy Serwer actually is the fellow that said those things interviewing me and then I repeated it. But the problem is, and-- even-- every day the circulation of the papers in every -- print circulation goes down. And the interesting thing about it, of course is that the three survivors so far that look promising online are The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, all three of those papers sold their smaller papers. The New York Times sold I think 11 papers about seven or eight years ago. The Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal, now is owned by News Corp, they sold the Ottaway Newspapers, eight papers. Washington Post sold the Herald. So, they all saw the handwriting on the wall before I did. And they all sold their papers. That was their reaction. They did not-- they did not try and figure out the online solutions. They got out of them. And, unfortunately, I bought some. And we-- we're still-- you know, I mean, we are financing Lee. And we think Lee has by far the best opportunity to continue print as long as anybody and to find an online solution for these papers. So, we put new money into the newspaper industry here, or we've committed to doing it. It will close in a month or two.
　　BECKY QUICK: And then finally, very quickly, we are in the Berkshire Hathaway's headquarters building here in Omaha. Strom writes in a question that says: "Why did you decide to rent your offices for all these years instead of buying the building or building your own office building?"
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we only use one floor of the 15 floors here. But we have signed a lease for the next 20 years on one more floor. So, it shows just how flexible our thinking is about the future here--
　　BECKY QUICK: How much wealth--
　　WARREN BUFFETT: --at Berkshire.
　　BECKY QUICK: --you're anticipating?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah-- w-- we don't want a big headquarters office. If we had a big headquarters office, we'd fill it. Believe me. I mean, if we had 15 floors of our own, we'd have 15 floors worth of people.
　　BECKY QUICK: Warren, before we let you go, let's just go back to the Futures again this morning. Because right now the Dow is indicated to own down about a hundred and-- or 830 points. Weakness again on concerns about coronavirus and what that means. So-- what's your mentality today as you kind of go out and look at the stock market and look at what you're going to do?
　　WARREN BUFFETT: We're buying businesses to own for 20 or 30 years. We buy them at whole, we buy them in part. They're called stocks when we buy in part. And we think the 20- and 30-year outlook is not changed by coronavirus.
　　BECKY QUICK: All right. Warren, I want to thank you for your time today. We really appreciate it, your generosity with your time. And we hope to see you again soon.
　　WARREN BUFFETT: Come every year.