Howard Warren Buffett
Howard Warren Buffett
Howard Warren Buffettis a faculty member at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and was previously the executive director of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that funds initiatives aimed at improving the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations. He previously led agriculture-based economic stabilization and redevelopment programs in Iraq and Afghanistan while at the United States Department of Defense, and as a policy advisor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth14 October 1983
CountryUnited States of America
war mean epidemics
We had the great depression, we had two world wars, we had the flu epidemic. We had oil shock. We had all these terrible things happen. But something about the American system unleashed more and of a potential to human beings over that hundred years so that we had a seven for one improvement in - there's never been any - I mean, you have centuries where if you've got a 1 percent improvement, then it's something. So we've got a great system. And we've got more productive capacity now than we ever have.
country mean average
The ingredients that made this country, you know, the miracle of the world - I mean we had a seven for one improvement in the average American standard of living in the 20th century.
lying thinking years
If you really think that houses prices are going to go up next year and the year after, you feel if I don't buy it this year, I'm going to have to buy it next year. And when somebody makes it very easy for you to do it by saying you don't really have to put up my money, you can lie about your income a little, or we'll give you 100 percent mortgage, you're going to do it, because everybody that's done it has been proven right. You have what they call social tools, and, you know, you're going to feel like an idiot if you didn't do it, because the house cost more.
mean people greed
I mean people, people don't get ,they don't get smarter about things that get as basic as greed and you can't stand to see your neighbor getting rich. You know you're smarter than he is, and he's doing these things, you know, and he's getting rich, and your spouse is getting unhappy with you because you aren't doing pretty soon you start doing it. And so you get what I call the natural progression, the three Is. The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots.
years cost assets
The U.S. Treasury has got borrowing costs like nobody else has. They can borrow basically unlimited amounts. They can stay there for years and years. These assets will be worth more money over time.
blood paper body
The commercial paper market, when that dries up, you know, that's just like sucking the blood out of the economic body of the United States.
ecosystems soil capacity
Soil is a living ecosystem and is a farmer's most precious asset. A farmer's productive capacity is directly related to the health of his or her soil.
country crazy thinking
I've never had it so good in terms of taxes. I am paying the lowest tax rate that I've ever paid in my life. Now, that's crazy. And if you look at the Forbes 400, they are paying a lower rate, accounting payroll taxes, than their secretary or whomever around their office. On average. And so I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax. I think the rest of the country should be paying less.
country thinking done
We are trading away a little bit of our country all the time for this access consumption that we have over what we've produced. That is not good. I think it's terrible over time. But our country's productive grows enough so we actually can do that, and we'll still be better off. We just don't be as well off as if we hadn't done it.
country years good-things
The good thing is, we have household formation in this country. We have a country where I don't know whether it's a million households a year or more, but good form.
crazy thinking would-be
I don't think it would be crazy to have a model or an entity model on the Reconstruction Finance Corp. That goes back to 1932, although it was really implemented in '33 under Jesse Jones, and it invested in mostly banks initially and preferred stock and that sort of thing.
crazy next-day people
You could have these crazy Internet valuations in the late 1990s, but they prove themselves out in the market. The next day they were selling for more than they were the day before, and people said, you know, you're crazy if you don't get in on this. So it's very human.