Billionaire investor Buffett told
CNBC the U.S. is facing an economic crisis equivalent to “
Pearl Harbor” event. Buffett supports the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s proposal to stem the crisis.
Buffet said Paulson’s $700 billion to support the U.S. financial system is absolutely necessary, and without it the market would suffer far worse.
Buffett told CNBC:
"The market could not have taken another week...I think it was the last thing Hank Paulson wanted to do, but there's no Plan B for this.''
Buffett, himself, is rescuing another failing investment bank; his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Paulson and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke are pushing congress to quickly approve the plan to remove liquid assets from the banking system. But both Democrats and Republicans are wary of the proposals and want to alter the pre-conditions in them.
Buffett is urging congress to sign the approval quickly. He said the economy is everybody’s problem and it can’t be dismissed. The public agrees; a majority 81 per cent of Americans surveyed said the economy is bad or worse according to a
Washington Post/ABC survey.
