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Billionaire Warren Buffett said unemployment will likely climb a lot higher depending upon how effective the nation's policies are, but he remains optimistic over the long term. Buffett said the nation's leaders need to support President Barack Obama's efforts to repair the economy because fear is dominating Americans' behavior and the economy has basically followed the worst-case scenario he envisioned. "It's fallen off a cliff," Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on CNBC. "Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen." ... He predicted that unemployment will...

After saying the economy has “fallen off a cliff,” legendary investor Warren Buffett this morning rapped political leaders for not being united enough in dealing with what he called an “economic Pearl Harbor” about six months ago. Buffett, who supported Barack Obama in the election, didn’t let Democrats skate, but he particularly singled out the GOP. “They really do have an obligation to support things that are clearly designed to fight the war in a big way,” Buffett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning. “I think that the Republicans have an obligation to recognize this as an economic war...

Warren Buffett, the US investor dubbed the Sage of Omaha, continues to be a cheerleader for equities despite recent spectacular misjudgments on the timing of his buy and hold philosophy. In a wide ranging interview with the CNBC television todayhe insisted that over 10 years, "you will do considerably better owning a group of equities" than US treasury bonds. This echoed his comments to the New York Times in Oct­ober that he was buying US equities. Since then the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen by over 26% and more than 2,300 points as it tests lows which have not...

[VIDEO] Excerpt: Then came Warren’s big but (which is totally unrelated to Michelle Obama’s big butt): “…Job one is to win the war, the economic war. Job two is to win the economic war. And job three. And you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I would, I would absolutely say for the, for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are, you know, are contentious. And I also, I also would do no...

When Warren Buffett speaks, it’s usually worth paying attention. This time, the Oracle of Omaha is voicing concerns about the ability of some battered local and state governments to pay off their debts. The idea of cities and states facing insolvency is alarming for sure, and Buffett isn’t alone. Moody’s recently assigned a “negative outlook” to the creditworthiness of all the nation’s local governments. The agency has rarely made such a sweeping generalization but said the magnitude of this recession warranted the move. The comments are the latest to have shaken the once-staid world of municipal bond investing. Traditionally, muni...

Don't think that cap-and-trade legislation comes at a cost? Well, think again. In a June 9 interview on Bloomberg as the U.S. House of Representatives was considering the Waxman-Markey bill, David Sokol, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (NYSE:BRK.A) MidAmerican Energy Holdings and a contender to succeed Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, explained capping carbon dioxide (CO2) would be a policy decision his industry would deal with, but trading emission credits was another matter. “Let me break it in two parts,” Sokol said. “The caps – trying to reduce CO2 by 83 percent by 2050 and then some interim steps...

When I was 14, Warren Buffett wrote me a letter. It was a response to one I’d sent him, pitching an investment idea. For a kid interested in learning stocks, Buffett was a great role model. His investing style — diligent security analysis, finding competent management, patience — was immediately appealing. Buffett was kind enough to respond to my letter, thanking me for it and inviting me to his company’s annual meeting. I was hooked. Today, Buffett remains famous for investing The Right Way. He even has a television cartoon in the works, which will groom the next generation of...

We have all heard plenty about Government Sachs but very little about BO supporter Warren Buffet. Since this WELFARE QUEEN just made another Fortune I thought you should see this. As a side note remember when Durbin said "Frankly the banks own the place?" He should know a thing or two about that on a personal level! Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s earnings picked up sharply in the second quarter, reversing a first-quarter loss as the company rode a wave of gains in its vast stock portfolio. The Omaha, Neb., conglomerate run by Warren Buffett posted net income of $3.3 billion, or...

Arthur Laffer said-- "You can't raise taxes on the rich. These people know how to get around taxes," says Laffer. "Warren Buffett pays no taxes because all of his wealth is in unrealized capital gains. There's no tax on unrealized capital gains, so how do you get it? You have to tax poor people." LINK Warren Buffet sure talks about taxes a lot for someone who essentially doesn't pay any since the vast bulk of his wealth consists of unrealized capital gains. Appreciation of Berkshire Hathaway stock that he just sits on and never sells anyWarren Buffet lives modestly...

You might think that Warren Buffett's $34 billion bid for the rest of Burlington Northern Santa Fe ( BNI - news - people ) is the most eye-catching investment decision of the day. While the Oracle of Omaha's bullish bet on America is hardly insignificant, I would like to direct your attention half a world away and ostensibly in a different investment medium: spot gold. India's central bank bulked up that nation's gold reserves by 55% with the purchase of $6.7 billion worth of gold from the International Monetary Fund, which is selling gold reserves to raise funds for lending...

Bill Gates is known as the world’s most successful capitalist and is less famous for being the world’s biggest philanthropist.

Finally I recalled the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: Let them eat cake. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1769 According to noted economist David Rosenberg, since the multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street began over a year ago, we have lost 6.2 million jobs, auto sales are down 23%, housing starts are down 30%, bank credit is down $500 billion, household net worth is down $7 trillion, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have failed or are near failure. Yet Wall Street is booming. Bonuses on Wall Street are...

The economy has made a sharp U-turn in the past couple of months, and better days for American businesses and workers are around the corner. But don't take my word for it. Take Warren Buffett's. And Jamie Dimon's. And Jack Welch's. All three tell me that in the past four to eight weeks, they've seen a real change in their businesses, and that indicates better news for the nation's economy. They should know. Warren Buffett has been focusing on the data from BNSF Railway, which he recently acquired. At the start of the recession three years ago, Burlington Northern felt...

Warren Buffet lost $950 million in Goldman Sachs (GSI) options today as the bank's stock tanked as a result of the SEC filing fraud charges against the firm

Warren Buffett may understand the complex derivative at the heart of the fraud suit against Goldman Sachs (GS: 149.11*, -0.42, -0.28%) “better than most,” as he put it this past weekend, but I’m not sure he understands the securities laws or the legal definition of fraud. Buffett mounted a vigorous defense of Goldman, the embattled firm in which he is a major investor, arguing that the identity of the investor betting against the collateralized debt obligation — hedge fund manager John Paulson — would have been irrelevant to the investor betting on the underlying subprime mortgages. “For the life of...

The two billionaires' request that the rich give 50% of their net worth to charity is misguided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In its latest issue, Fortune magazine reports that "Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are asking the nation's billionaires to pledge at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetime or at death." Gates told Fortune that 50% of one's wealth would constitute the "low bar" for giving, while Buffett has pledged to give 99% of his wealth away. At first glance this is something to celebrate, for it rightly confirms that capitalism is, at its core, quite compassionate....

Thirty-four U.S. billionaires pledged Wednesday to give away at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity as part of a campaign by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Among the billionaires joining the campaign are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller and investor Ronald Perelman. Gates and Buffett launched "The Giving Pledge" in June to convince hundreds of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune during their lifetime or after their death

A supporter of Obama's economic plan and a Keynesian disciple, Warren Buffett seems unable to decide if we are still in a recession. On September 13, Bloomberg reported that Buffett announced he was "a huge bull in this market." He seemed self-assured that the economy was in no longer contracting and that "we will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board." Buffett blamed the negative perception of the economy mostly on the media, which did not reflect his view of the business environment. The current economic doldrums apparently are a...

Warren Buffett. We could jot down the nearly endless list of descriptives that would just begin to protray his followers’ feelings towards him. But it’s time consuming, so let’s just put this as a constant: He’s The Man. We know. But let’s just explore this a bit further. Ordinary investors follow every step Warren Buffett makes. But so do the seasoned professional money managers. They even invest their clients’ funds in Berkshire Hathaway stock. Everybody knows that if they had invested $1000 with Warren Buffett back in the day, they would have been a zillionaire today. We can’t go back...

Warren Buffett hired 39-year old Todd Combs, a former Connecticut hedge fund manager with $400 AUM (assets under management), to oversee Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio. From FOXNews: "For three years Charlie Munger and I have been looking for someone of Todd's caliber to handle a significant portion of Berkshire's investment portfolio," Buffett said in a statement. "We are delighted that Todd will be joining us." Combs previously worked at Castle Point Capital, where he managed just $400 million. Under Buffett, Combs will manage a “significant portion” of the investment portfolio, according to the firm. What caught his eye? The Wall Street...