US ECONOMIC FUTURE IS BRIGHT

Well known and deeply respected investor Warren Buffett — along with some of the biggest names in business — declared in the last few weeks that the country and world will not fall into another recession. 

“I am a huge bull on this country.  We are not going to have a double-dip recession at all,” said Buffett, chairman of Omaha, Nebraska based Berkshire Hathaway Inc.  “I see our businesses coming back across the board.”

According to Buffet, the banks are lending money again and businesses are hiring.  “This country works,” Buffett said at the Economic Development Summit in Montana. “The best is yet to come.”   

Buffett, along with Steve Ballmer of Microsoft Corp and GE Chairman Jeff Immelt, told the gathering of almost 2,000 business leaders, government officials and others at the summit that the economy is improving. 

Ballmer said that advancement in technology and invention will soon overtake the Internet era, and that it would drive growth in business.  “I am very enthusiastic what the future holds for our industry and what our industry will mean for growth in other industries, ” Ballmer said.  “All areas of science today are moving forward more quickly,” Ballmer said. “The speed of scientific breakthrough is accelerating.”

Ballmer foresees new technologies that will eventually tie together computers, phones, televisions and data centers and will create new products.  He says that the pace of innovation will speed up as new technologies make workers even more productive.

He believes new technologies that move beyond the Internet to tie together computers, phones, televisions and data centers will create amazing new products. And the pace of innovation will increase as technology makes workers more productive.

Immelt said that the rage in the political sphere is unhelpful and that the media is too focused on finding negative indicators.  He states clearly that the GE business, which is one of the world’s largest companies, is improving.

He said that manufacturing is the key to the future for our economic growth, and that we need to reduce the trade deficit.  Immelt said that America will need to adjust and move from a consumer-credit driven economy, and away from the service economy we had drifted into.

“It was just wrong. It was stupid. It was insane,” Immelt said of the push for a service-based economy. “The future of the economy has to be as an exporter.”

More investment is needed.  We need to grow technology innovation, exports, and both clean energy and affordable health care need to be at the top of the list of concerns for our leaders.

Immelt also said that the polarizing political environment makes it more difficult for our nation to develop a national energy policy.  He urged business leaders and local governments to come up with their own local solutions.

“Anger is not a strategy. Anger does not create growth. Only optimism creates growth,” he said. “Be the contrarian. Everyone is mad today. Be happy.”

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