Warren Buffett: 'Something different' is happening in the economy right now

Warren Buffett: 'Something different' is happening in the economy right now

 

Warren Buffett is noticing a unique phenomenon right now in the global economy: negative interest rates and low inflation.

Andy Serwer. “So we've never seen it before. I think, now, there's still $11 trillion, at least, of government debt around the world that's at a negative rate,” Buffett told Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer. “So we've never seen it before.”

’For example, the yield on Germany’s 10-year Bund is negative. That means investors have to pay to hold government debt.

“I don't think there was any economist I've ever read that talked about negative interest rates for long periods of time,” he said.

”Buffett added, referring to the economists John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson, “If you go back and read Keynes or you read Samuelson, or you read any of them, they do not get into a negative rate environment.”

’Another quirk in today’s economic landscape is the lack of inflation given ultra-low interest rates.

 

“And we've never seen, at least, the conventional wisdom on a sustained period of long and growing deficits, while the economy's getting better. Extremely low interest rates, and really, very little inflation. So something different is happening, but something different happens all the time,” he said.

’Still, Buffett, who is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A), doesn’t make decisions based on economic predictions.

“Charlie Munger, my partner and I [for] 54 years now we've never made a decision based on an economic prediction,” Buffett added.

’Buffett believes economic data doesn’t tell him how the economy will perform in the future.

“I like to get numbers  so I'm getting reports in weekly, in some businesses,” he said. “But that doesn't tell me what the economy is going to do six months from now, or three months from now. It tells me what's going on now with our businesses.”

When Buffett buys a business, he plans to hold it over the long-term, which he says decreases the efficacy of economic data points.

“If we buy a business [we’re going to] hold it forever  so we're going to have good years, bad years, in between years  maybe disastrous years,” Buffett added. “And we care a lot about the price. We do not care about the next 12 months.”

Happy Investing

Source: Yahoofinance.com