Together. Kwaer very excited to have them join us this morning. Tweet us with questions from them, as well. Joe, back over to you for some headlines. Okay, becky. Ill read these headlines with maybe a little bit of an echo. I mean, im its like so alone here. But, you know, its okay, i guess. Youre kind of with me, right . Hey, joe, guess who i have with me. Besides warren . Yeah. Can you take a shot, jerry . Oh, i know, i know, i already asked. Ive already asked for mac, yeah. You know how that take a shot of yep. Hi, joe. Ive told you, he completes me. Ive said that to him before. Yes, thats why i took him. Is it a leaky roof . I never know what it is. Sick dog, what is it this time . Its okay on, but i found out he was with you and at least hes doing something. Right. Usually hes just you know, let me get on to these stories here. I almost said some anyway, the major story dominating the markets are morning is coming out is ukraine. Russian forces have seized the Southern Area of crimea after Vladimir Putin secured permission from his parliament to use military force in his words to protect russian citizens. Western governments are promising to isolate and punish russias economy. Secretary of state john kerry will be going to kiev. This weekends developments are playing out in the markets. Big time this morning. Well see. 132 points. Lets look at europe. All the major averages are under pressure today. Russian markets took a hit. The dollar this morning, probably doing a little better. The ruble hit an alltime low against some currencies. The price of gold, get a quick look at where that is trading today. Up 22 points or so. Becky, we talked about last week. I just think its a different time. You know, tanks in hungary. I think i was like 19 while when i was born, i think, the late 50s or early and whether this was going to be similar. I dont know how this works now. Is this like a territory grab . Similar things happened in georgia. What can we do other than try to punish the economy . No one is talking about confronting russia at this point militarily. Then the markets would be down, god knows. Did you see the headlines wondering about his whether or not you could actually negotiate with him at this point. Warren buffett is here and i wonder what youve been thinking about this. I really i mean, this is unfolding and who knows whats going on behind the scenes. Merkel made some kind of comment that hes living in lala land or something, right . I guess these are comments that she ahead in a conversation with president obama suggesting that hes not living in reality. I dont know. For putin, within 2,000 square miles of russia, i wouldnt argue with him while i was over there. Standing by in kiev with the late latest, steve sedgwick. Hey, joe. Weve heard the foreign minister from ukraine saying theyre calling it ultra nationalist, saying we should refrain from supporting this group because they are infringing the human rights of native russians within crimea and the ukraine. The response locally here is is robust. And i want to play a little bit of sound from an mp i just spoke to who is on the secretary of Foreign Affairs committee. Listen very carefully to what she says. Anyone said that russia is an empire without ukraine. Ambitions. And in the world will excuse him such an advance and it would betray ukraine and you will have a new heading for europe and heading for world domination. You can stop him. You can stop him here in crimea, in ukraine. We have to unite all these goals. The rhetoric on both sides, joe, is absolutely immense, calling mr. Putin the new hitler of the 21st century. John kerry has been pretty aggressive. Hes due to touch down in kiev this evening. The aurm here is on full military alert. But in is the key. They have told the military personnel throughout the country in the crimea and in the east of the country especially with a lot of major russians not to engage the russians, not ta fall for that georgia made in 2008. Do not engage the russians. At the same time, of course, the government is trying to shore up both military support internationally, which there seems to away distinct lack of appetite for and Economic Health. Theres an economic crisis here, as well. Back to you. Thats what we focus on now to maybe were lucky just to be focusing on the economic crisis at this point and it doesnt escalate to i dont know. People dont use the h word very much, steve. So hitler . Thats what i thought i understood that it was kind of you know, i couldnt understand everything she said, but i thought i picked that up. Thats something. Yeah. The russians have been using hitler analogies, as well. We were the start of the war in the first world war. We were the cause of the start of the second world war. Both sides have been using western analogies. The kremlin have accused the pro western government of the exact same kind of treatment. I came into kiev thinking i was going be talking about a huge, huge economic crisis after decades of mismanagement. Of course, events have overtaken. This new government here, this is incredible. Had government had two days of peace before we had the russian invasion of that crimea region. Behind me, lets take a look at this. In is the headquarters of the protesters who were trying to get rid of yanukovych. Just to me left here, as well, 97 people lost their lives in that 1250ud studio. Just hitler, world war three, words that theyre just staggering. I guess we have to at least admit, steve, thanks, i guess the possibility of a cold war coming back to some extent. Its already here, i guess. Were going to be monitoring the markets throughout the morning. Lets get back to becky now with warren. World war three . I mean, you know, becky, really. It would go home on friday there was a hockey game last night and now im hearing the this. Its staggering to me. I guess the cold war, at least, we have to think at least as a cold skirmish at this point. Yeah. Again, joe, you point d out, the ruble is at an alltime low versus the dollar. It fell drastically today, not only versus the dollar, but against the euro. Investors are sitting up and taking notice. The micex index in russia is under quite a bit of pressure, as well. But there are some major moves happening as investors trying to figure this out. We are here in omaha because Berkshire Hathaway went out saturday morning. So a very hefty annual letter that gives people a lot to think about. As you do every year, you laid out a lot about your stocks about investing in general. I would ask you for your mac roy row view in the markets. In your letter, you pointed out you dont give much credence to people offering macro views. No. Ive been buying stocks and businesses for a lot of years. Ive never bite becaused on macro figures. The First Business i bought was in the spring of on 92. The macro factors were not looking good. We were it was right up at pearl harbor and we were getting clobbered in the South Pacific and the war does not look good. I think almost every american thought we were going to win the war. But when i bought my fist stock, i spent all my 120. I was not doing it based on headlines. I did it for what i was get forth my money. When you bought into it, you say you havent looked at macros. I can think of times when you have looked add macros. Stocks are demonstratablely cheap. I remember an early in 1974 or i did an interview with forbes and in 2008 i wrote an article for the times. Occasionally when theyre ridiculously cheap. But most of the time, theyre good value. But there have been a few times when i i thought they were so cheap that i i should b say something. People have pointed out obviously stocks have come a long way since then. People have been annualizing your report and realizing that you didnt say anything like you said in years past, you said one time a few ago that stocks were a much better value than gold. This time, what people have been focusing on were on roadway. One that you bought here in nebras nebraska, another you invested from nyu, new york university. That has people speculating. No, thats theyre speculating wrong. I use those illustrations because i dont know that much about real estate or farms. And yet it was still possible to successfully invest in them. You can have a great lifelong experience in stocks and not know the ins and on outs of capital structures. I was probably more ignorant of the realities of farming, the realities of that building in new york than most people are of stocks. Yet it was perfectly reasonable to come to an intelligence decision that you were probably going to make quite a bit of money. I wonder because there have been a lot of people recently who have raised questions about the stock market, who have worried that it is a fools game to try to get involved. I heard people like bill oreiley say this recently, he doesnt trust the stock market and think its rigged. What do you tell people . It isnt rigged at all. Its pretty hard to rig 20 plus trillion. And the maybe we should forget about calling it the stock market. Its American Business. For some reason, you think American Business over the next 50 years is likely to do well in its production than it has been in the past, then you can come to that solution that it was likely to do more pop so whether youre buying a productive asset, you dont want to categorize it by some name and read in the paper that this or that is going to go up or down. You want to look at the business. If you bought the house next to you to rent somebody, you would look at the rent you were going to get, what you thought the neighborhood would do over a long period om time and measure that against the purchase price. The stock market offers so many opportunities, thousands and thousands of different businesses. You dont ever to be an expert on every one of them. You have to have some conviction that either a Given Company or a group of companies and i would suggest for most people it should be a group of companies that those companies are likely to earn 5 to 10 earnings from what theyre learning now. I read something about the terms of your will. What you set aside for your life. I didnt lay out my whole will. But i did explain because i i laid out what i thought the average person was not an expert on stocks should do. And my widow would not be an expert on stocks. I want to be sure she gets a decent result. Since all my berkshire share res going to philanthropy, the question becomes what does she do with the cash thats left to her . Part of it goes outright, part of it goes to a trustee. Theyre invested 10 in re shell do fine with that. Anybody will do fine with that. Its low cost, its in a bunch of wonderful businesses, and, you know, that takes care of itself. You specifically said a Vanguard Index. Right. Its a very, very low cost index fund. And there are others. There are others that arent so low cost. And keeping costs to a minimum is enormously important in investing, whether its farms or buildings in new york or but particularly in stocks. It is if youre in effect paying out 1 or 2 annually of your portfolio, thats a big, big tax that you dont have to pay. And people who are at home listening to this, they need to look at the suspension ratio. You could probably get one for 20 to 25 points. Yes, i think thats actually, 25 points. Now, if theyve traded around like crazy, they pay people to tell them what to do with it and everything, their returns become our returns with expenses. So you should look for very, very low expense way of participating and incidentally, at berkshire, our expenses are very, very low in relation to the 100 plus billion of investments that we had. We do have the opportunity for viewers to write in and ask you their questions. One viewer did write in the question asking about whether did you lay out that you had said he set this mon aside for your wife instead of being put back into berk share shares. Berkshire would be fine. But i wouldnt want to be doubting berkshire to people generally. I have no problem touting the s p 500 at the low cost. Lets talk a little bit about what you see in the economy rite now. Because through your businesses, you have an incredibly good idea about whats happening. You have not only the big five that are doing things, you have massive investments, retail operations, just in general, where do you think the American Economy is headed right now . Its from what i see, and i do see figures on at least 80 some companies or so, and i like to get them and i get them fast. Exactly whats been going on ever since the fall of 2009 and 10, weve had this moderate but consistent growth now for 4 1 2 years. Every once in a while, we worry about it spiking up and double dipping. Its been remarkably consistent. And the gdp figures bounce around a little been in terms of what we see, i would say that its been almost a straight line, but not the kind of slope that people would like, but not flat, either. And thats exactly what i see to this point. So were we overly optimistic in the Fourth Quarter and now were overly pessimistic in the First Quarter . Probably. Well know for sure, later on. But its been that waves of we havent been wildly optimistic and gotten wildly pessimistic. Over that period, its the small wave of optimism and pessimism. Its been pret darn steadily improving. How much has weather played a role . In fact, the numbers weve gotten over the last few months have been lousy. Yeah. The markets have been writing it off saying dont worry about it, its been bad around the country. Our rail road doesnt who whether its cold. Those things compound on themselves. So theres no question, its just been some factor. Every time we brick up weather as an excuse, somebody will point out, yes, but if you look at housing numbers and the Housing Market in california, thats been slower and it hasnt been because of weather there. What do you tell people . I cant tell you for sure. We have a couple of large real estate properties, for instance, in california. The largest one in the lower three counties. Were buying another one in san jose. Its okay. And the prices, the prices have really been quite strong. But you always in the winter have less activity and real estate. We bought several Real Estate Brokerage firms last year. Weve bought one this year. Well keep buying them. I like the business. Were going to continue this conversation with Warren Buffett. We have him for the next three hours. Joe, ill send it back to you in the studio. I know we have a break we have to get to, too. Yes, we do. I have often thought about warrens wealth. How do you spell your name again, joe . I mean, saying that i think of you as a father figure or calling you dad is probably too much, but, you know, in the past, youve given me you gave me a couple of bottles of ketchup. You gave me a brick. You gave me a little card, a net jet card that was absolutely useless. It had no money on it. And im just thinking, are you youre sort of waiting for the big surprise, arent you . Am i going to find my name in there, got forbid, when absolutely. No, ive been testing you, joe. What youll see in my will, it will say to joe who wanted to be mentioned in my will, hi, joe. You know, dad, that would be enough for me. Id just like to say that. That would im not looking for anything else. That would be im going to make that on the record. Youre on page 6 today. I think maybe ill talk about that little bit later since ill use my will uhoh. Yeah, hes on page 6. Hes liable to do anything at any time. So its on the gossip column. Lets save that for later, beck. There is a good tease. Coming up, a special osbourn edition. Ive just asked him to include me in his will. And taking a look at the futures, what would it matter, really . 60 billion . Really, is it that big of a deal . Anyway, squawk box with Warren Buffett will return in a moment. Welcome back, everybody. Right now, it is time for the executive edge. This is a person edition of the executive edge. This is the ask warren edition. We are joined this morning by legendary investor Warren Buffett. He is answering some of your questions. We have a lot of questions coming in from people. Id like to focus on some that take a look at berkshire and some of the on things you pointed out in the letter. One thing is from ron rogers in ridgewood, new jersey. He says in the fall 2013 news came out that you were ever so close to a major multibillion dollar acquisition of what would have never been another elephant. Would you tell us what Industry Group its in . Yeah, i better not even say what industry it was in. Because there arent that Many Companies in the industry. And by the size of it, you would probably narrow it down to two or three companies. It didnt happen. But theres were always seeing the leaves russelling if nothing else. There has to be something behind those leaves. We will theres nothing hot at the moment, but we have things were working on. You said in the annual letter to shareholders that when it comes to taking a look at what happened with heinz, that this is a temporary plate for things that berkshire might do in the future. Have you spoken with 3g about doing another type of acquisition like heinz . Weve talked about generally we dont have a name, but both Georgia Power lemon who is my partner in that and i would love to do another one. And they have an appetite for making acquisitions. And so do you. Yeah. Were is a good pair that way. Everything thats happened with heinz, everything has been satisfactory and i look forward to working with lemann again. Weve got to zero based budgeting. As i said in my report, i would expect the earnings of heinz to be significantly better this year than any year in history. You pointed out that youre not somebody the difference between this and a private equity deal is that speshg shire plans on holding this for a long, long time. Forever. Forever. Would you be surprised, though, to see a heinz ipo sometime in the next five to seven years. That could happen because the 3g people did that with burger king. They have a number of investors. I dont know how many. The primary investors i know. But they no, i just dont know the number. But some of those people undoubtsedly will want to get out. They might have a chance to get out under a significant profit. When they do, we have no obligation to they have no obligation to sell their shares to us and we so it would be totally voluntary on their part. But if they were going to sell their shares, and i pound the price acceptable, i would buy the share for them. And we