United states, has to agree on certain fundamental principles, and that is the bill of rights. That is basically freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, everyone agrees with that. If you go much beyond that, you have to be willing to compromise on all other positions, because you cannot have a functioning society unless people recognize they have differences, recognize that they do wish to live together, because of the fundamental things in which they agree. Rose buffett, buffett, buffett, and Alan Greenspan when we continue. Funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. Additional funding provided by these funders. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose three generations of buffetts are with me, Warren Buffett is chairman and ceo of Berkshire Hathaway way and long time free of mine and his. His investors have made him one of the wealthiest men, he plans to donate 31 billion to the bill and Melinda Gates foundation in 2006 and encouraged his children to engage in philanthropy. Chair and ceo of the howard g. Buffett foundation and author of a new book, it is called 40 chances. Finding hope in a hungry world. His son, howard Warren Buffett, is elect frat of Columbia University and trustee of his Fathers Foundation and contributed to the book with his own experiences and plans to make philanthropy a part of his life, it is good to have all of them here at this table at the same time, grandfather, son and grandson, how does it feel. It really does. It feels great. I am very proud of them. Rose you talk about that in your introductory remarks, let me start with the book. Clearly because i knew your mother and understood how what is involved here is what you have learned, but also what you learned in addition from them. Give me a sense of what it was that you were trying to accomplish with 40 chances. Well, you know, both my mom and dad were phenomenal in terms of the opportunity they have given me and my brother and sister, and in my case, i spent a lot of time traveling around the world and met a lot of people, seen a lot of things and i just felt that, you know, those experiences are something that hopefully are worth sharing. I start out with the idea of doing a textbook and howie told me, dad you have to think a little bigger than that. So i just thought that, you know, sharing some of the experiences and, you know, we have tried a lot of Different Things and we have failed at more than we have succeeded and i just feel that is an important message. Rose you can learn from failure . Absolutely, yes. Rose why the title 40 chances . Well, i was going to something that most of your viewers will not get too excited about it is called planter school and you go in the winter time and go to the john deere dealership and sit down and different speakers will try to tell you how to improve how you do on the crop. Rose right. And, you know, he kind of talked about how you only really have 40 seasons, 40 growing seasons to do the best job you can and i kind of then translated that into thinking about well you really have 40 really prime years, i was joking and say he has 80. laughter. rose this time. Yes, but, you know, a little eveready battery but, you know, the truth is most people have, you know, in their prime they have about 40 years to really change things or achieve their goals or whatever they want to set their sights on. Rose you still consider yourself first and foremost a farmer. I love it, yes, i would never want to give it up. Rose when you were last here and talked with warren, you said you were in the middle of a transition to an impact Decision Maker more effectively, is this book the culmination of this . This book is a big part of that. Yes, i learned a lesson particularly working in conflict areas, and there is, that is where you really need to have government engagement that if you dont impact policy, you know, if you are working you can have great people but if you are working under really poor policy they are not going to succeed so we really started to embrace advocacy as part of our tool. Rose and you believe that we can do a significantly better job at trying to eliminate poverty . Absolutely. I think one of the things is we have been living too much in history, and, yo, you know, technology has changed but also i think thinking has to change and thinking is changing, you know, the younger people in philanthropy today think differently today, they are more innovative and more focused and those people that are thinking and driving that way, i think have to help change some of the bigger organizations. Rose i am amused at what warren once said it is better if you give your money away while you can make the decisions before you are 90 and drooling and have a blonde sitting on your lap. laughter. i think i got the drooling part down, where is the blonde . Rose there is also your mom, and as everyone i think knows, we did a wonderful conversation with her before she died, and here is an excerpt of that in which we see her and her impact on the family. Here it is. I think he hopes that people remember how much he liked to talk about he does that, and i believe that so deeply like he does, and if he can make young people realize and take it a step further and what can i do for people that are not so lucky including people here, i know that means a lot to him. Rose so you say this, warren, in the introduction, in this lottery my children received some lucky tickets, many people who experienced such good fortune react bien enjoying their position in life and make sure their children enjoy similar benefits, this approach is understandable but it can be distasteful when accomplished by smug if i can do it why cant everybody else attitude. Emphasize or help us understand the significance of the zero varian lottery, because, ovarian lottery because it says something about being lucky to be born in this country. I was born in this country and the odds were 30 or 40 against it in the 1930, if i was born some place else my life would have been nothing like it has been here. I would be wandering around in bangladesh and looking for a job. Rose and sign up for and i was fortunate with my parent, i was fortunate at the time i was born. You know, i happen to be wired in a way that works very well on a big capitallific system capitalistic system. I have had all kind of good luck, it could have been dramatically different. Rose many people havent havent had that havent had that ovarian lottery. He got a certain amount of criticism when he said people have not done it alone. I have not done it alone, there are 10,000 crosses in normandy and they will need to be where i am today. They are people of gettysburg, i mean, none of us do it alone and i have been very, very lucky to be sort of signed for this time and this place, but a lot of people arent lucky a the and the market system showers things on me and it leaves an awful lot of people behind. Rose i should take note of the fact son and grand son are named howard. Yes. Rose your dad a is named howard as well, your hero in life. Absolutely. Yes. Rose the idea is that you can do what . If our goal is to eliminate poverty, to a large extent. What is the step that we ought to take . And i will bring in your son in a moment. Yes, i think part of what i try to write in the book is use our experiences and talk about some of those answers, i think when fill situate. Philosophy clashes with reality, which we have seen in congress, living in reality, the People Living in reality kind of lose, so we need to have more serious leadership in terms of addressing this issue, so when people talk about cutting the snap program, you know, those people dont suffer the consequences from that action, and they need to understand who does suffer those consequences. So, really, awareness and advocacy are a key thing in terms of the policy and then, you know, another thing we need to do is i always say, you know, historically, business has been kind of the bad guy, and in philanthropy people have looked at it and say, you know, they are doing this or they are doing some things so i cant really partner with them, the truth is businesses create jobs and jobs are what permanently bring people out of poverty, it is not that simple in a lot of cases but we have to have a different mindset about what some of the solutions are. Rose tell me about you and what you have learned and your role in this book. Well, i am just honored to be involved and over the last 15 years i have been able to travel with my dad around the world and take in so many experiences and that is a part of what we have tried to capture in 40 chances but for me growing up i have had the two most incredible role models anyone could ask for and, you know, we sit around at dairy queen at family brunch and have conversations but they are still unbelievable conversations. My grandfather built one of the greatest fortunes and turned it into one of the worlds greatest gifts and empowered my dad to be able to change the world and that opportunity is what my dad has used to chair with me to try and improve lives everywhere. Rose tell me about your visit to prague in 1969. Yes, that was a big change in my life and one of the best things i ever did and i wouldnt have gotten it done if it werent for my dad because my mom didnt want me to go and we argued and argued. Rose at the time yes, i had no concept of what was going on in prague, i just know vera who stayed with us as an Exchange Student said come on over so i said i want to go over and i am flying in, i one of the kids the mood changes quite quickly because i am flying in and i love big machines and you are landing and have all of these tanks and, this is really cool and then when i am standing face to face with the soldiers and looking for id i am going boy this is not so cool, and so, you know, but i learned so much, you know, i didnt get three meals a day, we boiled hot water on sundays to take a bath. I mean, you know, it was just so different, and you saw people who were subdued, people who were beat up by secret police, i mean, i saw all of this and to see it different is different than reading it in a book so it really changed, you know it is the first time i felt helpless and i felt like i really should be doing something but i cant do anything and i think later on in life that really stuck with me. Rose what is it that makes you most proud . I am proud of all three of my children but they dont have to do what they are doing, i mean, they dont have unbelievable amounts of money but they have enough so they can spend their time in a country club or something of the sort. Rose right. And i dont know how many countries he has been in, howie, but he is trying to help his fellow human being, unfortunately, i have got somebody, fortunately i have somebody who can help him do that but the energy and the imagination and learning from mistakes and all of that belongs to him. Rose one other thing you have other than this sort of instinct for farming and agriculture and experience and learning is photography, and we will see a couple of things here, several things, tell me, your wife introduced you to kearments, yes . Yes. Rose and what did it do for you . What did it turn you into . I think for one thing, the first thing she would tell you it taught me some patience. If you want to get a cheetah on a kill you have to wait. And. Rose they are not waiting for you. Thats right there is no remote control. So it did, it taught me some patience but i just saw i started seeing things, you know, on the farm originally that i just wanted to capture and then when i started traveling and originally we did a lot in conservation so it was a lot of fun, you know, elephants and cheetahs and lions and all of those things that kids like to see and we all love, but, you know, then i learned that photography is a really powerful tool to change peoples minds, to make them you cant if you have a Strong Enough photograph, people cant turn away from it, you cant deny that it is happening and so to me, i think i write in the book if i remember right it is look a, like a truth gun it really forces people to deal with the reality. Rose as somebody said effectively a picture is worth 1,000 words. Yes, absolutely. Rose take a look at some of these. I want you to describe the photograph. This is a emaciated veteran saluting a flag. Yes this is everett in west virginia. This is one of those circumstances where i had not gone to really photograph everett but we saw him and came out to get his mail and i saw his ribs and knew he was malnourished so we turned around and went back and that picture is really interesting because i was on the other side of a very busy road waiting to cross, my colleague went off and went to the bottom of the stairs there and i yell across the street, ask everett if he is a veteran and immediately what he did is he saluted and then we spent quite a bit of time talking to him but he is an example of somebody who served this country and hasnt been treated fairly. Rose here is a picture of a boy you photographed in senegal who was what is this story. There is where my camera almost got me in a lot of trouble. We got in, i was able to take one camera, it was am amazing we got into this area about 40 or 50 young boys in shackles, and chains and they basically are caught in a religious system that their parents give a child to the head of the religion there and basically those children beg for money, if they dont get enough money on the street then they are treated like this. Rose the third slide is a picture of a woman in armenia, 82oyearld anna. I think howie should tell you this story. We had been driving through the country side in armenia for hours at this point and i think almost by happenstance we stopped at this house and we were invited in by anna and she told her story about her sister who was mentally ill that she had to lock up at night because her sister tried to kill her and what you are seeing is you are seeing her standing in both her kitchen and her bedroom and her porch all in once there and it was one time that i had an incredible difficulty with it, because whatever it was about the situation it just it hit me so hard emotionally and, you know, my dad and i have seen indescribable instances around the world and annas story just touched me in a way i was not expecting. If i could add really quickly, i told howie we are in south on the way home we are going to go armenia. Dad, i dont want to go to armenia and i said i was just there. And i said Rose Generation difference there. And, you know, i said you are going to see something you have never seen. I have taken him to bangladesh and all around africa and Central America and what i wanted him to see is a society that when you talked to people, you know, this is this was a situation where people had good jobs, we talked to professors out of work and, you know, they have lost cars and lost houses, they cant send their kids to school anymore it is a very different environment than what we see in a lot of countries we work and i wanted him to have that experience. Rose that is one of the thing bill and Melinda Gates have done and is travel and firsthand experience with their own eyes and visit. Yes, you cant sit in a building on park avenue and really understand this. Rose yes. You believe, what ought to be the debate about philanthropy now because they are having meetings as part of that in which they try to understand how to give more effectively, but do we need a bigger debate about philanthropy and how it can be applied and why you should be engaged . Well, philosophy. Philanthropy does not operate with a market system, when we sell the dilley bars at dairy queen we find out if they want dilley bars, capitalism is wonderful in the eyes of ideas and products and philanthropy if you are handing money to people, they are going to say keep handing it one way or another and flatter you and do all kinds of things so you do not have a market system test and that makes it much more difficult, and you can do the wrong thing for a long time and nothing will stop it. So it requires, it requires more ability than it does business. Rose it requires more ability to give money away than make it . Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There is no comparison. Rose yes. In fact thats why you gave the money to bill and Melinda Gates. And the children. Rose because you were admiring of the fact you could be effective the ability and intelligence and energy, the lifelong commitment, that is important. Rose so what is your role that at the bill and Melinda Gates foundation . Writing checks. laughter. actually it is i just endorse them. But it is the same role i have with my children. Rose but it is more than that. No, no. Rose you bring a sense of wanting to inspire. Well, and but i wouldnt have joined with them if they didnt have the same goals there. Their philanthropy is grounded around the proposition that every life has equal value and my children believe the same thing, and they are young and they are willing to devote their the rest of their lives to it as my children are doing. So i have got these the people working for me that are doing it far better than i would do it and i happen to love what i do, and fortunately that tends to increase the amount of Resources Available for philanthropy. Rose still tiptoeing to work, are you . Tap dancing, tap dancing to work, i am doing hand springs. Rose foundation was famous for the green ref loose and support of that. Are you, do you think Something Like that in agriculture . I think today where i call it the brown revolution, we have got to start protecting our Natural Resources, soil is the key, you cant you know, it is like if you want to go somewhere in a car you have to put gasoline in it or diesel fuel, you have to have soil to grow anything and we have not done a good job of recognizing it is not sexy, soil isnt sexy so people dont think about it but rose bill gates thinks it is sexy. I gave bill this book called dirt i said rea read this and yu will understand why soil is more important, but, you know and, you know, it is a challenge, because it is not what everybody thinks about but we do have to pay more attention to how we are treating our Natural Resources and we want to be able to farm the way we farm in 1