CNBC Transcript: Keeping America Great

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us tonight. This has been, as you know, an extraordinary year. This is a year where the rules have been completely rewritten, where we have thrown out the rule books, and we have seen icons collapse. This is also a time when a lot of people have probably wondered about our way of life. People in this very room. That's going to be our focus in just a minute. Gentlemen, before we get to that, the two of you may seem like an odd pair. For anybody who doesn't know you two well --

BUFFETT: You'll think more odd when we get through. [LAUGHTER]

BECKY: What brings you two together tonight? Why you two and why here with these business students here at Columbia?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we enjoy working together. Actually, when I left Columbia, they told me I would probably have to come back and repeat a few classes. So here I am.

BECKY: Bill, what about you? You are ready to go with the students?

BILL GATES: Yeah, it will be a lot of fun. Warren and I love getting the questions and talking about our optimism. [APPLAUSE]

BECKY: The reason you two are here tonight is this is a pivotal moment in history. People have questions about the economy, about our entire system of capitalism. And, gentlemen, let me ask each of you, over the course of the last year, was there ever a time that you had doubts about capitalism and about our way of life?

BUFFETT: No, there was not a time. If there had been, last September when we invested a lot of money, that was when the country was looking into the abyss. The money was flowing out of money market funds. The commercial paper market died and everything. We put $8 billion to work in just a matter of a few days then. So I never lost confidence in the system. This country works, you know. We've got 200 years of proof. And it's going to continue to work. [APPLAUSE]

BECKY: Bill, what do you think, Bill?

GATES: Well, we have a complex financial system which we have proven that we can make mistakes. But more fundamental than that is the innovation, the fact that you can create new companies, that people are willing to take risk and invest, that there's great science going on. This country still has the best universities, the best science, and we're going to tune our system of capitalism, you know. The idea that you have a lot of short-term loans covering long-term needs, the amount of leverage that was there, there are definitely some lessons. But the fundamentals of the system, a marketplace-driven system where we invest in education and a great infrastructure for the long-term, that's continued. And, you know, I'll bet there are some inventions that took place in that fall in the darkest hour: People were working on new drugs, new chips, new robots and things to make life better for everyone in the decades ahead. [APPLAUSE]

BECKY: All right. Tonight is all about the students and why don't we start out and get right to it. Why don't you start out. You ready to go?

QUESTION: We are honored to have you here at the university. [APPLAUSE] My question for you is directed to both of you, Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett. I'd like to know your perspective on whether greed and immoral behavior, unethical behavior, were key causes of the recent financial crisis.

BUFFETT: You went out toward the end, Becky.

BECKY: Just wondering whether greed and corruption were behind what happened.

BUFFETT: It certainly played a part. We have always had greed. That didn't get invented in the last few years. And greed, fear in the third quarter -- I mean, the American people were really panicked there for a while. And it affected their -- it started out on Wall Street but then spilled over into the general economy subsequently. But we're never going to get rid of greed. We're never going to get rid of fear. What we do have is a system, as Bill said, a market system where we have the quality of opportunity and the rule of law combined to unleash human potential in this country over the last couple of hundred years to the degree nobody would have believed possible a few centuries before that. There's nothing that's gone wrong with that system. Our economy was sputtering and still is sputtering some. But we've got the greatest engine ever devised. And it's just beginning. Greed will continue. Don't worry about that. Oliver Stone is putting out a second film here pretty soon. Probably get mentioned again in this one with Gordon Gekko making a return. But that is not what drives the American system. What drives the American system is the quality of opportunity in a market system and the knowledge that when you get out of here, you're going to enjoy the fruits of the knowledge you have gained. And it will keep working. I'd love to trade places with any of you.

BECKY: Bill, do you have any extra thoughts on that?

GATES: Well, the best systems are ones where you have good short-term metrics, great accounting, looking at profits, looking at risk and willing to do things long-term. Investing in new research, letting people build new companies. I was a huge beneficiary of this country's unique willingness to take risk on a young person. And, you know, I got to hire people who were older. I got to sell to people who were older. And it was kind of a dream come true. And that kind of thing is -- other countries have seen it and they are trying to create that same dynamic. And that's good for the world. It's excellent that China and India will borrow our ideas about universities, about entrepreneurship, simplification of business. None of us want to borrow this extreme leverage that we got into. But in a sense, that's kind of a -- I don't want to say minor, but it doesn't speak to the heart of why things have worked so well.

BECKY: All right. Let's get to another question. How about right here?

QUESTION: Hello. My name is Accosia Bagima. I am from the Northern Virginia area and I'm a first-year student here at Columbia. And I want to thank, once again, both of you for coming. It's an honor. My question is directed toward Mr. Gates. Mr. Gates, I know you're not in the finance industry, but can you tell us what you were feeling when you first heard that Lehman was filing for bankruptcy?

GATES: I don't follow investment banks, you know, very closely. So it didn't strike me as fundamentally a terrible thing. In the technology business, the two companies I admired the most, Wang Industries and Digital Equipment, had both basically gone bankrupt. Digital actually got bought. And so the fact that there's these ups and downs, certain firms get knocked out, I didn't have any sentimentality over that particular firm. Now, this knock-on effect where other people had debts to them and those were going to be very hard to settle and that complexity might cause things to freeze up, that I called up Warren and I said, "Should I be worried?" And he said, "A little bit." [LAUGHTER]

BECKY: Warren, was it a mistake for the government to allow Lehman to go under?

BUFFETT: It may have been. But I would say overall, the officials in Washington did a terrific job of dealing with really what was an economic Pearl Harbor, as we talked about. So I would say that if Merrill hadn't been bought by the B of A, Merrill would have gone very quickly. And the dominoes were really lined up. And I don't think it was fully appreciated, perhaps, what a big domino Lehman was or how close it was to the next big dominoes. But overall, I give (former Treasury Secretary Henry) Paulson, I give (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben)Bernanke, I give (FDIC Chairman) Sheila Bair, I give (Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner, I give them very high marks for the fact they took unprecedented action. [APPLAUSE]

BECKY: Let's get to another question. Right back here at the microphone. Go ahead.

QUESTION: I hope this works.

BECKY: It does. It sounds like it.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Greg Letter. I grew up in Ohio and I'm also a current student, obviously. My question was with Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, this relates to Mr. Buffett, you had the opportunity to invest. I was wondering how you chose to invest in Goldman Sachs [GS 153.98 1.28 (+0.84%) ] and why you chose not to maybe invest in both, or what made you not decide to invest in Lehman Brothers.

BUFFETT: I had more confidence in both the numbers and the management of Goldman Sachs than any other major firm in Wall Street at that time. Now, there could have been things happened that would have made Goldman Sachs be next in line. (Goldman CEO) Roy Blankfein had said I worked 30 seconds behind Morgan Stanley. This is covered very well in the book called "Too Big To Fail" by Andrew Ross Sorken. But I did not think the system was going to go under. I felt Washington in the end would do the right thing. I thought if they did the right thing, Goldman Sachs was -- I thought it was the best-run operation. I thought its figures were the most solid and I thought they would prosper the most in the future ahead. Plus I liked the terms, too. [LAUGHTER]

BECKY: Warren, you said at that time they had the best management and a lot of other things. Did you change your mind since then?

BUFFETT: Pardon me?

BECKY: Have you changed your mind since then? You said at that time they had the best management.

BUFFETT: Goldman, my experience with Goldman goes back to when I met Sidney Weinberg in 1940. I followed the company a long time. They have a discipline around there that I think particularly in their marking to market and all of that, I think probably is the best among the firms in Wall Street. And I thought Roy Blankfein had a very strong appreciation of risk. Now, if the system went down, everybody gets hit. But I felt to a great extent they had factored the best people into the business. So they were my number one choice. I had a few other choices that were offered to me. [APPLAUSE]

BECKY: Let's get to another question, everybody. Another question.

QUESTION: It's a pleasure to be here with both of you today. My name is John Lemley. I'm originally from Scarsdale, New York. Given the severity of the economic downturn, which some attribute to systemic breakdown in risk allegation and underwriting standards, a fiercely partisan debate has ensued regarding the appropriate role of government. Can this role be positive and if so, how?

BECKY: What do you guys think about big government?

GATES: Well, there's clearly a role for the government in business cycles. And over time, that's been tuned, you know, mistakes have been made. Now, the question is -- and that's largely measured through inflation and interest rates. Now, there's a question of could there be a measure of risk that would cause them to step in and maybe tax transactions, make the bigger firms put more money aside. That is still really a question of whether you can recognize these situations and actually have government play a very positive role. Now, as things start to fall apart, we know there are ways that taking firms that are going down and handling those in a more expedited way -- there's a lot that can be done there. But the basic idea of, can you spot bubbles? Can the government spot bubbles? That's a great question. Some great economists have some ideas. But it is not a proven territory.

BUFFETT: Last September, only the government could have saved things. The whole world wanted to deleverage. And they were deleveraging under conditions of extreme haste and with guns to their head in some cases. And the only entity that could possibly leverage up at the same time that everybody else wanted to deleverage was the Federal government. And when 200 billion flowed out of money market funds in a couple of days, when commercial paper stopped, only the Federal government could act then. And fortunately we had the people there who recognized that and acted promptly. The government has a huge role. And now going forward, it's a very tricky thing to figure out how to prevent excessive leverage and prevent off-balance sheet arrangements from getting in trouble or for just having people at the top of major institutions that run risks they shouldn't be running. But we're wrestling with that right now. There should be more down side to the head of any institution that has to go to the federal government to be saved for reasons of the greater society. And so far, we have been better at carrots and sticks in rewarding CEOs at the top. But I think some more sticks are called for.