US and global businesses to be ‘far better’ in 2-3 decades, says Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett has said he can firmly conclude that US and global businesses will be far better in the next 20 to 30 years.

Buffett was speaking with CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” on Monday.

“…I can come to a pretty firm conclusion that 20 or 30 years from now American business and probably all over the world will be far better than it is now,” said the billionaire investor, according to the interview’s full unofficial transcript US and Global News received from NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC through its television arm.

Quick had asked Buffett what he was seeing around the world, particularly when the coronavirus is making headlines.

“Well, it – affects various businesses,” replied the US business magnate. “I would say that I received commentary – I get some commentary monthly with – from – from almost all of the companies. And – a good many of them had some comment about how it was affecting them and how it was affecting them at.”

Saying that businesses get affected by other things as well, Buffett argued, “But they’ve been affected by – they were affected by tariffs, they’re affected by taxes, they’re affected by – the most thing is they’re affected by competitors and supply and demand over time.”

Responding to the question’s part that mentioned he had access to a lot of economic data from the businesses that his company owned, Buffett stated that he had no idea what the Berkshire Hathaway businesses would be doing in the near and not-so-near future, but he said he did think that not only his company’s businesses, but US businesses in general would be performing superbly better 30 or 20 years from today.

“And I don’t have the faintest idea what our businesses will be doing six months from now or 12 months from now,” stated Buffett. “I do think that not only our businesses but American business generally will be doing fabulously better 30 years from now or 20 years from now.”

Watch the full, long (2+-hour) interview of Warren Buffett on CNBC’s website, here.