WarrenGood morning. Good morning. And thanks for coming. Palma loves it. I love it. Charlie loves it. We're glad to have you here. When I woke up this morning, I realized that we had a competitive broadcast going out somewhere in the U.K. And they were celebrating a King Charles. We've got our own King Charles here today.
QuestionerIf Silicon Valley Bank's deposit had not been fully covered, what do you think the economic consequences would have been to the nation?
WarrenI would just simply say it would have been catastrophic. And that's why they were covered. And even though the FDIC limit is $250,000, that's the way the statute reached. But that is not the way the US is going to behave any more than they're going to let the debt see cause the world to go into turmoil.
QuestionerDo you ever make bad investment decisions because of your emotions, and what do you do do to try to keep that from happening?
WarrenWell, we make bad investment decisions plenty of times. I make more than Charlie, because I like to think it's because I make more decisions, but probably more batting average is worse. But I can't recall any time in the history of Berkshire, we made an emotional decision.
QuestionerAs AI and robotics continues to advance, what do you believe will be the positive and the negative impact of this technology on both the stocks market and society as a whole?
WarrenI am personally skeptical of some of the hype that is going into artificial intelligence. I think old-fashioned intelligence. works pretty well. What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things. And I would say that, well, the 58 years we've been running Berkshire, I would say there's been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things, and they do big dumb things. And the reason they do it to some extent is because they can get money from other people. so much easier than when we started. You couldn't get the money to do some of the dumb things that we wanted to do, fortunately.
QuestionerAnd in my family, I do not sign a will until my three children have read it, understand it, and made suggestions. Now, my children are in their 60s, and that would not have been a great success if I'd done the same thing at their 20s. same thing at their 20s. It depends on the family. It depends on how the kids feel about each other. But I do think that it's, if the children are grown, and when the will is read to them, it's the first they've heard about what the deceased thought about things. The parents have made a
[3:46]
Warrenterrible mistake. My dad was in Congress back in the 1940s, and it looked like a mess then. All it was unified by the war to some degree. But it was still very partisan. Now, the problem we have, I think, is that partisanship, it seems to me, has moved toward tribalism. And tribalism just doesn't work as well. I mean, when it gets to tribalism, you don't even hear the other side, and tribalism can lead to mobs. So we have to refine in a certain way our democracy as we go along. We deal with the world. them. But if I sell out a choice of any place to be born in the world, I'd want to be born in the United States.
WarrenWell, there's been some tension in the economic relationship of United States and China. I think that that tension has been wrongly created on both sides. I think we're equally guilty of being stupid. If there's one thing we should do, it's get along with China. And we should have a lot of free trade with China in our mutual interest. You've got one kind of a system that gets its leader one way, and you've got another system that gets his leader another way. And keeping either side from trying to play the game too hard and thinking the other side will go along, you know, it's like playing chicken, you know, and driving toward a cliff. And it's imperative. It's imperative that China and the United States both understand what the game is and understand that you can't push too hard. But both places are going to be competitive. And both can prosper. That's what really is. That's the vision that is out there that China will have a more wonderful country. The United States will have a more wonderful country. And the two are not. just compatible.
QuestionerGiven the reason challenge faced by the major U.S. Bank, what is your overall outlook on the banking industry? How do you assess the risk and the opportunity in this section? Are we likely to face a time in the future when the U.S. dollar is no longer the global reserve currency?
WarrenWe are the reserve currency. I see no option for any other currency to be the reserve currency. And I think that nobody understands the situation better than Jay Powell. And I, but he's not in control of fiscal policy. And every now and then he drops a few hints. And there was no question that when the, when the pandemic broke out, I mean, it was a semi-wifference. a semi-warlike situation, but nobody knows how far you can go with the paper currency
[7:13]
Warrenbefore it gets out of control, and particularly if you're the world's reserve currency. Nobody knows the answer to that. And you don't want to try and pick out the point of where it does become a problem, because then it's all over. And I think we should be very careful. Vicki Hollab is an extraordinary manager of Occidental. Her first job was with the city service. That was the first stock I bought in 1942. She knows what happens beneath the surface. I know the math of it, but I wouldn't know, I wouldn't have the finest idea what to do if I was in an oil field. You know, there's speculation about us buying control. We're not going to buy control. We've got the right management money. We wouldn't know what to do with it. Charlie wouldn't mind know what to do at oil field, but we love the shares we have. We may or may not own more in the future, but we certainly have warrants on which we got as part of the original deal, on a very substantial amount of stock at around $59 a share. And those wants last a long time, and I'm glad we have them. I thank you for coming, come next year, and maybe we'll figure out the answer to a few more of these questions.