WarrenGreece presents an interesting problem, of course. What's happened is that the past conservatism of a place like the United States gave it wonderful credit, a combination of success and conservatism. And we use that credit to win World War II and help revive Germany and Japan and one of the most constructive and intelligent foreign policy decisions ever made in the history the world. And we've used that credit to help assure prosperity for all these decades in which Berkshire has flourished. And now, of course, the government does not have quite as good a credit as it had before started using it so heavily. And that's happened pretty much all over the world. And so Greece is just the start of a very interesting period. And of course, it's more dangerous to civilization when governments push their credit so hard because if you need credit to help civilization function and you've blown it by your own aggression and using it in the past, that's not a good thing. And I think in this country and in other countries, too, responsible voices are now realizing that we're nearer trouble from lack of government credit than we've been, well, in my lifetime. You should always just, everything you read about country credits, currency, you always want to make a, you always want to distinguish between countries that are borrowing in their own currency pretty much exclusively like Japan has for the United States and countries that are being forced for one reason or another, because the world doesn't trust them, to borrow in other in other countries. countries. I mean, in the past, you know, if you were some South American country and you were borrowing in your own currency, I mean, you could, you never default. You just buy a new printing press or work it a little harder. But the world doesn't like that sort of thing. So with weaker credits and countries with poorer reputations, they force those countries to borrow in other currencies, frequently the United States currency. And And that can really put you out of business very quickly, because you can't, if you're some South American country, you can't print U.S. dollars, although you can print your own currency. And that's what's caused failures among countries. The European Monetary Union, I mean, it's a really interesting situation because Greece, you know, they are a sovereign country in terms of their own budget, but they can't print their own currency.
[3:11]
WarrenThey've got the Euro. And this is, you know, Euro was regarded as quite an experiment 20 years or whatever it was ago, but, or less than that. But you may be seeing sort of a test case play out here of a country that is not using its own currency, in effect, or using a common currency, and yet is sovereign in terms of making its own promises to its citizens. And I don't know how this movie ends. That doesn't mean I'm forecasting disaster or anything. I really just don't know how this movie ends. And I try not to go to movies like that if I can. But I'll be watching it. I really, this will be high drama in my view, what happens here.