Charlie Rose interviewed Warren Buffett on October 1 about the financial crisis. Here are a few of Buffett’s comments:

“You want to be fearful when others are greedy.”
“People don’t get smarter about things as basic as greed. You can’t stand seeing your neighbor getting richer. You know you're smarter than he is. And he’s doing these things. He’s getting rich and your spouse is getting unhappy with you because your aren’t doing it. Pretty soon you start doing it. And so you get what I call the natural progression – the three “I’s:” The Innovators, the Imitators, and the Idiots. That’s what happens. Everybody just kinda goes along. And you look kinda silly if you disagree….Its very human.”

“As long as you have market’s you’ll have excesses. You’re not going to change the human animal. And the human animal doesn’t get a lot smarter. You can have institutions that put curbs on that in various ways.”

You can view the 54 minute video on the Charlie Rose web site.

Related Interest:
  Fixing the Financial Crisis Once and For All

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