When Warren Buffett is worried, it is safe to say we should be too. In an interview with CNBC, the famed investor voiced concerns over the sluggish U.S. economic growth due to a slow-to-recover housing market.
He said that the overall economic growth is “more or less flat” now. Buffett has traditionally looked at the general health of Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK.A) extensive and highly diversified holdings to assess how the overall economy is doing.
Buffett expressed worries that Europe has started to “slip pretty fast,” although he appeared more optimistic over the longer term.
But he was definitely not optimistic about the euro, as he suggested that it may not even be around a decade from today.
Bloomberg reports:
“Europe is really, it’s headed downward in the last, I don’t know, six weeks or so,” Buffett said. “It wasn’t going that way before. It wasn’t doing that well, but it hadn’t really hit the skids.”
Buffett criticized Robert Diamond, former CEO of Barclays (NYSE: BCS), stating that his resignation was the only proper choice, and that the interest rate manipulation scandal “shakes your faith in certain institutions.”
On the other hand, Buffett reaffirmed his longstanding support of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), who he has called “one of the best bankers” around despite that company’s recent financial fiasco.
Read the CNBC interview transcript here.
