巴菲特称有必要推出第二轮经济刺激措施
http://www.sina.com.cn  2009年07月10日 01:26  新浪财经

　　新浪财经讯 北京时间7月10日凌晨消息，股神巴菲特在接受电视采访时表示，美国的失业率有可能升至11%，鉴于经济仍在奋力摆脱衰退走向复苏，可能有必要推出第二轮经济刺激方案。

　　一手缔造了伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的巴菲特指出，美国人因去年最后一个季度的经济困境而遭受了“系统性冲击”，但目前经济已开始反弹。

　　他在ABC的《早安美国》节目中表示：“我们的经济并未处在自由落体式下跌中，但我们也没有处在复苏之中。去年最后一个季度我们的经济确实直线下滑，这场危机肇始于金融市场，然后扩散至整个经济，这促使我们的行为方式做出了巨大改变。”

　　去年大选中曾支持奥巴马的巴菲特指出，可能有必要推出第二轮经济刺激方案。奥巴马政府曾表示，尚未看到推行第二轮刺激措施的必要性。

　　巴菲特认为：“我想第二轮刺激可能是有必要的。它不是什么万灵药，但给经济一个刺激是正确的。你当然希望刺激作用不被冲淡。”

　　他还将国会通过的第一个7870亿美元的刺激方案比作“半片伟哥加一些糖果，这并不具备足够的刺激作用”。

　　巴菲特还称，失业率可能继续上涨，在经济复苏前失业率达到11%并不会让他感到惊讶。他在解释11%这个数字时表示：“我并不是做出这样的预期，我只是说如果真是这样我不会感到惊讶。”

　　巴菲特最后指出：“我们将摆脱危机，活得比以往更好，美国人的好日子就在前头，但这不是下周或下个月的事情。”
Warren Buffett Backs Second Stimulus
The Legendary Investor Is Critical of the First Stimulus Package, Comparing It to Viagra and Candy
By ALICE GOMSTYN and BIANNA GOLODRYGA

As debate grows about a possible second stimulus package for the flagging American economy, at least one legendary investor is giving the idea his guarded approval.
The "Oracle of Omaha" believes a second stimulus may be called for.

"I think that a second one may well be called for," Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told "Good Morning America" today. But, he added, "you hope it doesn't get watered down in many ways."

Buffett cautioned that a second stimulus package, like the first, won't be "a panacea," because stimulus packages take time to work. He criticized lawmakers' work on the first stimulus package, which contained $787 billion in spending.

"Our first stimulus bill ... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in ... as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents," he said. "It doesn't have really quite the wall that might have been anticipated there."

Buffett also criticized the government's public-private investment plan, through which private investors are supposed to buy so-called toxic assets off the balance sheets of ailing banks that received billions in government aid.

"I do not like the idea of any kind of a plan involving the government where Wall Street makes a lot of money. My plan provided that they would make no money whatsoever, and the American public would make the money. I just think that Wall Street owes the American people one at this point," he said.

Nebraska native Buffett, known as the "Oracle of Omaha" for his long history of prescient stock picks, said that despite the talk of recent economic "green shoots," he couldn't predict when the flagging economy would bounce back.

"We are not in a freefall, but we are not in a recovery either," Buffett said. "We were in a freefall really in the last quarter of last year, starting in the financial markets and spreading to the economy, and we had this huge change in behavior. That change hasn't changed."

The U.S. unemployment rate, which currently stands at 9.5 percent, still "has a ways to go" before it peaks, he said. His own company, he said, had to lay off 500 people.

"We didn't want to do it, and if we saw things coming back we wouldn't do it," he said.

Warren Buffett: Recession a 'Shock to the System'

Buffett said he's never seen a recession affect consumers the way the current one has.

"I have never seen it quite happen like this, but what happened was in late September, the American public … saw money market funds break the buck. They saw commercial papers stop, they saw all kinds of things that they hadn't seen before," he said. "It was a shock to the system."

Still, Buffett remains optimistic.

"I want to emphasize, we are going to come out of this better than ever," he said. "I mean the best days of America, by far, lie ahead. But not next week or next month and then, I don't know exactly when we will come out, but we will come out big time."

Second Stimulus Debate Grows

Talk of a second stimulus has grown, as the economy shows limited signs of improvement.

"It looks like the economy is weaker than expected. Why not begin to think about over the next several months whether we need a stimulus package and what it should include," Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Obama's economic adviser said recently.

Some, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, support the second stimulus idea, but Republicans doubt it will yield any results.

"All of this talk about a second stimulus bill has been rather interesting," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday at a news conference with other House Republicans. "I think it's an admission on the part of the administration that their stimulus plan is not working."

Other stimulus critics say another recovery will only worsen the situation.

"Even though the president on the first of July had said that the stimulus bill had 'done its job,' my constituents see it differently," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. "The only thing the stimulus plan has stimulated is more government and more debt."

Obama hasn't said directly whether he would approve of a second stimulus plan, but he also hasn't rejected it altogether.

"The question that some have argued is, OK, what next? Maybe you stop the freefall, but you still have close to 10 percent unemployment, and, you know, this is something that we wrestle with constantly," Obama said in an interview with ABC News' Jake Tapper Tuesday. "The more that we can do to stimulate the economy in the short term, the challenge we've got as everybody knows is that we inherited a big deficit, and it is at a certain point potentially counterproductive if we're spending more money than we're having to borrow."

The president said supporters like Buffett have "legitimate concerns" about the economy, and hence his administration wants to make sure that "those pillars of long term economic growth get put in place."

With reports from ABC News' Jake Tapper and Huma Khan.