Fighting in ukraine grew more widespread as the key of government stepped up a campaign to quell a prorussian insurgency. Meanwhile, germany is pressing for another round of talks in geneva to bring russia and ukraine together and the u. S. And european union. The german chancellor Angela Merkel and russian president putin discussed the crisis in a phone call on sunday. Joe . Chinas factory activity remains stuck in contraction for a fourth straight month in april. The hsbc purchasing Managers Index came in at 48. 1 and thats lower than the preliminary reading of 48. 3ment and below the 50 mark to separate expanding activity from a contraction. That shows a much bearer picture of manufacturing than the official pmi released by the National Bureau of statistics. Last week it crept up to 50. 4 from 50. 3. Lets take a quick look at the futures right now. And becky, as i know you are probably listening, watch the tenyear note go by every once in a while. Its i dont know whether you checked it today, but there you can see that we are looking down about 65 points. Theres the tenyear at a little thats sporty, isnt it . 2. 572 now. What . What happened . Do you think thats ukraine . I dont want know what the heck it is. I dont know, what was it last time . The death cross was right around 2. 6 and we had to get below that to where people started i think we needed 2. 3 before people really wonder. You know, the jobs number, 288,000, was strong but not much wage growth. And then we went to another low on the Participation Rate and got the 6. 3 on the Unemployment Rate and we were wondering, does that make people think we are any closer to rates actually being or going up. But you also had comments from fisher overnight talking about how he expects tapering to be finished by october. He said they wont start thinking about when they raise rates until then, but october out may surprise a few people, too. They certainly have cover to do things at 257. I saw that this morning and i wondered what the heck happened, too. But maybe it was all this youre partying out there, other people are partying in washington. Meanwhile, the tenyear, nobody is paying attention because we are too occupied, right . With all the was there any alcohol . No, no alcohol. I mean, it is around and about, but not in washington. Wait a second, andrew is lying. I saw him drinking. I may have shared some with him. A glass of wipe doesnt count. You can tell when hes lying. Or disassembling if you want a softer word. Thank you, sir. This is what warren drank all weekend long. Look at that. Hes got to drum up some revenue for the rich compensation packages at that joint. Becky how long did this last . Im not sure what the voice thing, it goes away at night. The voice leaves at night and comes back in the morning. Well, i will tell you i still get a cough at night when i get tired around 8 00 or so. I got some toxic stuff. Thats when its fighting a lot of whatever it is that and i havent had a chance to sleep, really, that much. We got back late. A little nap is in order. One final headline. Maybe right now as you read the headlines. You could get caught up on this headline. Joe mentioned this, the small Court Victory in apples battle with samsung. The jury ordering the Electronics Giant to pay nearly 120 million to apple in their Patent Litigation fight. That was far less than the 2 billion apple was seeking from the case. Apple accused samsung of violating patents on the samsung features including universal search while samsung denied wrongdoing. They had apparently infringed on two apple patents. They have been in this legal battle for three years and this is still continuing with a number of patent battles. Both companies would probably like to press a button to try to get rid of all the patent cases, i think. At this point, the patent cases have been going on for so long that but if there was a button to push they would push the button. Britains Opposition Labor Party wants an independent assessment of pfizers potential takeover of astrozeneca. They are adding that into the total number of deals already to make it the fastest start ever. Thats how they do it. So it will be done. So it is going to be done, we are going to lose pfizer. We should talk to warren about that because we asked him a question about inversions during our time. The party wants to know what the longterm impact of this bid on the science and Industrial Base on the country. Astrozeneca rejected the bid from pfizer on friday. The dow is expected to roll out Quarterly Results during the 7 00 a. M. Hour. I cant imagine that britain and the u. K. Isnt going to eventually welcome the whole id idea. And they are going to convince astrozeneca. Lets get back now to becky in omaha. Im going to i got the selfie, im warming up to the whole idea. I tweeted more yesterday, becky, than i ever have in my life. I dont know. Joe, i have to tell you, this is the year of the selfie here. We were talking about it here. This was at the annual shareholder berkshire meeting on saturday. This is a selfie someone took with warren and bill gates. I think never seen anything like this. Warren, the year of the selfie we were talking about. Its all the rage. The College Students come out and all want to take them. You walk out of a restaurant and people want to take them. Its caught on big time. I have yet to take one, however. You havent taken one yourself but a bunch of people have taken one with you. I have participated, yeah, but not taken any. So well see a lot more of those, but lets get back to our guest host for the next three hours. Berkshire chairman and ceo Warren Buffett. We are live from Nebraska Furniture Mart, one of many berkshire businesses, warren, this business, in particular, really sees a huge surge of business on the shareholders weekend. What kind of numbers have come through here and how many shareholders do you think were actually here this weekend . Well do over 40 Million Dollars in one week here at the furniture mart. And thats a lot of business. Most Furniture Stores dont do that in a year. And its our biggest week of the year. In fact, its a normal month. We do about 450 million a year at this store. So its a normal month. And we do it all in a week. And the stockholders get more excited every year. They i run into people in the elevator that a month or two ahead of time say thank you for holding the meeting. You know, they are patting me on the back for the meeting and explain they want to come out to furniture mart. So you had told us before that you expected maybe 38,000 people this year. What do you think the numbers were . Not any less than that. This was the biggest meeting by quite a margin because we filled utterly the main auditorium and all three overflow rooms and had spillover to the hilton and people were in the exhibition hall. So we never can get a perfect count, but im sure we beat anything in the past by at least 3,000 and wouldnt be surprised if we beat it by 5,000. So someone between 38,000 and 40,000 is what youre getszing . Yeah. I have not seen the tenyear yet this morning at 2. 75 . Why do you think that is . Is this a sign of concern about whats happening . What would be your guess . I dont know. Im no good on Interest Rates, but one thing i know is ten year from now they wont be at 2. 57 or 3. 57. Does that catch your attention, though, when you see the tenyear continuing to decline . Most people thought it would definitely go up this year. Well, its surprising but im used to getting surprised in markets. And we issue bonds from time to time, so the lower rates are more of an issue and the longer we like to issue them. Would a tenyear at this level change any of your behavior in the business . Would you do anything differently . No, we dont do anything differently. If it moved up 50 or down 50 basis points, we wouldnt do anything differently. We dont react to apple factors at berkshire. Our macrofactor is that the country will do better over time and that guides us in everything we do. Again, i know its not something you spend a lot of time on, but if you had to make a guess now, would you guess the tenyear will end above or below 3 . I really dont think about that, but yeah, if you told me i had to pick a figure, i would pick higher. I want to talk about one of the issues that came up repeatedly at the Shareholders Meeting a couple of times, but i did get a lot of questions related to it in my email box where shareholders were sending things in. Cocacola, joe eluded to that already this morning, and well talk about what has happened. Weve had a lot to say, but there was criticism, some people didnt understand why if you thought cocacolas equity plan was excessive you didnt Say Something before the vote and didnt take your 9. 1 at the outstanding shares and vote no. Yeah. We had no desire, never will have desire to go to war with cocacola. They are a Wonderful Company that have treated us wonderful. The management has been candid with us. Im sure we have the right leader there, so we had no desire to go to war, but we did think the program was a success. And with those two beliefs, we thought the best way to do was to express our opinions privately to the management who will listen carefully and to abstain from discussions with cocacola between now and any equity plan. There was an article in the back of this from carl i ccon, t this article says why buffett is wrong on coke. Hes got a different style than you do. I hope so. Do you think that, first of all, what do you think about what carl said and secondly do you think your style is effective in this situation . Yeah, i do think our styles will be affective. And i think our style actually would be more effective than might be proposed by carl, but carl goes into other types of businesses where often at least he goes in where theres a problem. There isnt a problem with cocacola, but there was a plan proposed that was excessive. It is very easy to make it nonaccessible. Spread the authorization. Whether it turns out excessive, they have not locked into stone that they are using stone for the next few years. Frequently carl was working with managements for different attitudes and probably have a different attitude toward him. Have you spoken to muchar kent at this point . I have not talked to him since the cocacola meeting which was on the 23rd. Okay, about a week and a half ago. One other pointed question that came from a shareholder this weekend, and i got several illiterations of this in my box. Your son Howard Buffett is on the board voting in favor of this plan and some people were question i questioning howard says shareholders need an ability to protect the culture when he voted for a plan he himself did not like. Yeah, i voted for plans over the years and have been on board for 55 years. I vote for plans and have voted for acquisitions i didnt like. Im opposed to it. And if you start objecting to this and this and this, pretty soon people dont Pay Attention to you. And you want to save your bullets for one they really cant. And i have never seen a Cop Committee come into a boardroom and all my time that i had with a recommendation, the board delegates to a committee and say, you go out and work on this. They may say that the governors committee, you work on getting directors and all kinds of things. Once the board is delegated to a community and they spent hours working on something and reported with 20 other items on the agenda, the german calls on the cop xhooi committee. It gives it 30 seconds to report. The it never gets old. And a short fuse. I have a better idea. I havent talked to compensation person in a little while, but it will happen. I dont think stunned by what you have said but just that you have said it. Theres been this idea that boards are clubby and basically came out to say thats the case. Ive ridden that for 30 years and have seen bars operate. It should be no surprises. Its always interesting to hear the academic discussions on board. Like you read in the movies or something, but boards are in part business organizations and in part social organizations. And people walk into those with their behavior formed by dozens of usually you hear people say some standing, so they have learned how to get along with other people. And they dont suddenly change stripes when coming into a Board Meeting, so theres a great tendency to behave in a socially acceptable way and not necessarily in a business m maximization way. People like to get along with other people. Most people. Do you, carl . Is that a gene . And i do enjoy battle. But generally you dont get invited on board if you have a person who actually loves a fight. And your point, i guess, people will say this is not too much different than the rest of the world. I think thats very true. And it doesnt mean because you dont get into fights that you cant get things done. And it doesnt mean there arent certain issues that ive been involved with in a couple situations where a proposal to buy a company has gone to the board and been shot down, but what happens is that one person finally pipes up and its a little bit like the kids saying the emperor is wearing no clothes and everybody comes on board. But at first person to speak, you know, its a belt shake at the dinner table. And sometimes other people start belt shaking and will move farther from you. But there are some people who have enough bravery to be followers in a situation like that but not initiate that. We have seen that in other aspects of the human behavior. Andrew has a question from cnbc headquarters. Andrew . I would say its remarkably honest what warren is saying, but the question is whether or not it should be this way . From the outside, theres a sense that people are more strident and more brave or more willing to come forward or that the social issues arent supposed to impact the way people behave and think, even though of course they do. So i hear you saying this is what happens, but my question is should it happen this way . Well, no, obviously, everybody would speak freely and all of that sort of thing and dialogue would be encouraged and the chairman would love to hear reasons why its ideas are no good, but it isnt quite that w way. And i think youll get some of that, but ill give you a good example. We have bought 700 million worth of solomon preferred. Our convertible was a 38 in the mid30s. We went to the very first Board Meeting and it was right after october 19th, 1987. Two brand new directors. One of the first items on the agenda was to change the option price of all the options outstanding in solomon from prices in their 30s down to 15 a share. But the 35 option, the employees were all getting change down to 17 a share. Charlie and i voted for it, we probably marbled our vote, but those things happen. And we later on cant object a lot of people. This is important. This money is important to them and what they really hope is that they get invited to go on the trip. If they say, well, she just raises trouble when bored. She has another 300,000 a year job, that is the real world. 12k one quick followup about a comment you made in 2009 speaking out on the most egregious cases of ceo compensation and said the way to get big shots to change their behavior is to embarrass them. Explain the distinction between what you were talking about then in 2009 and perhaps this cocacola situation today. Yeah. Well, i dont really want to embarrass cocacola company. I mean, i like the people and everything, but i think we have some people that, i dont know if they would use the word embarass, but they would frefr that i didnt do it. I guess i used to have word before 2009, so i was not looking to embarrass him and was certainly looking to reexamine it because they are in a great position to reexamine it as they have not used a share in this authorization yet. Even though they said in the proxy statement they expect to use it over four years. But they generally issue their options in either january or february. So they have a lot of time to think about what is best and they are, the one thing i can guarantee you, they are decent highgrade people. And i think they will do what is right, but i dont believe the best way to do that is to go to war with them. Warren, if i could ask just quickly, you said in the past there have been dealing that youve shot deal down and fi mirs thought is to this. There was a meeting hastily called in new york, and the directors we want into the room. I was not the first one to say that giving away 11 or so in the cocacola company, although primarily a bunch of other foods came with it, but the girls didnt want food but just gatorade. We just didnt think that the first proposals would or opposed opposition to it i should say, i just departmeidnt think it mad. And i had come into the meeting feeling the same way, i just didnt speak first in the case. And then i spoke and by the time i finished the deal did not go through. And the whole table was belching. Most of them were belching. It was sort of a belching contest there for a while. And the company, the whole thing was a breeze with the press there. It was an evening. Everyone was on deadline to get this done. Theres usually that sort of momentum attached to any deal. And you cant impose five in a row. I mean, it just you become totally ineffective at that point, but that was a big deal. And a number of the directors had reservations about it. And that became apparent as the first director spoke up. But the other ones probably wouldnt have i think i probably would have, and that was not something that made sense to me. Warren, bear with us. We have to take a commercial break, but we do have much more to come with Warren Buffett. Well be back after that very quick break. Also, starting at 8 00 a. M. Eastern time, berkshire vice chairman charlie mongor and bill gates will be our special guest. All three of the gentlemen will be with us live. Andrew, back over to you. Thank you, becky. Relax. Can you think of, as far as contrasting styles, buffetts approach to like dealing with the company . You are bored. Just think of the an analogy or something to add up. Think of the way carl goes in there. Guns blazing, morons, the accusations about ceos in government. Think about the way warren does it. And most are pretty successful and get the jingle