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Warren Buffett backs Obama
19/05/2008 20:15 - (SA)
Frankfurt - Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, is backing Barak Obama for US president and thinks current US economic policy will push the dollar lower against other global currencies
Buffett told a press conference here Monday he had offered support to both Obama and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton but that since it appeared Obama would win the party's nomination, "I will be very happy if he is elected president.
"He is my choice," Buffett said.
Commenting on the US economy, the 77-year-old investor known as the "Sage of Omaha," stressed that the country's fiscal, monetary and trade policies were of great importance.
"I think that the US has followed and is following policies which will cause the US dollar to weaken over a long period of time," he added.
After voicing support for Obama, Buffett noted the US economy has managed to do "awfully well" despite a depression, two world wars and many financial crises.
'An idiot can run it'
"I think the US will do fine over time, if either the Republican or the Democrat gets elected, but I strongly prefer that it be the Democrat," he added.
"They say in the stock market ... buy stock in a business that's so good that an idiot can run it because sooner or later one will," he added.
"Well, the US is a little like that. We can take a little mis-management from time to time," Buffett said.
Buffett also said he thought the US would continue to face fallout from the credit squeeze that had been set off by a housing crisis that exposed practices of unrestrained lending to people who were ultimately unable to repay their mortgages.
"I'll talk about the US. I don't think the effects of the credit crunch are far from over at all. I think there will be plenty of rippling secondary, tertiary effects," he forecast.
Buffett, who heads up Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company with 76 businesses, said he was ready to add one or two more, on condition they were well-run and had annual pre-tax earnings on the order of $78m, he added.
"The bigger the better," Buffett said.
Most of his companies are in the US but after investing in the Israeli industrial group Iscar, he was visiting Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy to spread the word that Europeans were welcome to give him a call too.
"I kind of go the the office everyday and wait for the phone to ring and hope it isn't a wrong number," he quipped to describe his strategy of letting companies come to him rather than searching them out.
- AFP
- AFP
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US Elections Special Report
