Why Warren Buffett Never Bets Against America | Berkshire 2025

[Transcript]

BECKY QUICK: Alright, this question comes from Jessica Poon who says,
“You’ve long been a strong believer in the American tailwind and the resilience of the United States, and history has proven you correct.

Today, the US appears to be undergoing significant and potentially revolutionary changes. Some investors are now questioning the concept of American exceptionalism.

In your view, are investors being overly pessimistic about the US economy or is the country indeed entering a period of fundamental change that requires a reassessment from a new perspective?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say that Jessica, who I believe is — she is the step-granddaughter of one of our managers that I mentioned in the annual report. It may not be the same one.

But in any event, America has been an insignificant, and revolutionary change, really ever since it was developed. I mentioned that, you know, we started out as an agricultural society. We started out as a society with high promises, and we didn’t deliver on it very well.

And we said all men were created equal, and then we wrote a constitution that said blacks counted as three-fifths (of a person). In Article 2, you’ll find male pronouns used 20 times, and no female pronouns used.

So you know, it took till 1920, I should say, until the 19th Amendment was passed saying, “Oh yeah, we promised the women just back in 1776, and now we’ll do something about it.” And then we didn’t do something about it for a long time.

So we're always in the process of change. We’ll always find all kinds of things to criticize in the country.

But the luckiest day in my life is the day I was born. You know, I was born in the United States, and at the time about 3% of all the births in the world were taking place in the United States.

And I’d like to say that if I had something to do — you know, listen — send messages out to my parents, for God’s sake, move to the United States before I was born or anything. But I was just lucky, and I was lucky to be born male, I was lucky to be born white, and all kinds of things.

But if you don’t think the United States has changed since I was born in 1930, we’ve gone through all kinds of things, and we’ve gone through great recessions, we’ve gone through world wars, we’ve gone through the development of the atomic bomb that we never dreamt of, you know, at the time I was born.

So I would not get discouraged about the fact that it doesn't look like we solve every problem that comes along.

And if I were being born today, you know, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said, “You can be in the United States.” (Laughter)

So we’re all pretty lucky. (Applause)

Do you want give any — We’ve got two non-United States guys here just to get the other side. (Laughter)

GREG ABEL: Who now live in the US. (Laughter)

Source: https://buffett.cnbc.com/2025-berkshire-hathaway-annual-meeting/

 

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