Warren Buffett: It would be 'asinine' if US defaults

Economy

Alex Crippen, Executive Producer
CNBC

25 minutes ago

Warren Buffett said Wednesday the threat to not raise the nation's debt limit "after you've already spent the money" is a "political weapon of mass destruction" comparable to poison gas and shouldn't be used by either party.

"I know it's been used in the past, but we used the atomic bomb back in 1945 but we decided we weren't going to do something like that again," he said hours before the government's midnight deadline to raise the debt limit or possibly default.

Buffett called on both sides to pledge not to use the debt limit as a weapon. "There are plenty of weapons that can be used," like filibusters, he said.

In a live interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman said he doesn't expect the U.S. will do anything to damage its 237-year reputation of paying its bills on time, but if it does it would be a "pure act of idiocy" and "asinine."

He also said the ongoing crisis in Washington over spending and the debt limit is no reason to avoid buying securities, pointing out that Berkshire subsidiary Marmon Group just paid $1.1 billion for a British drinks dispensing business. "We did not buy it with a condition that we could call off the deal" if there was no vote to raise the debt limit, he said.

He added that in his 54-year career, he has never put off a deal by a few weeks to see what might happen in Washington.

(Read more: Berkshire Hathaway's 15 Biggest Stock Holdings)

Buffett also said Berkshire's spending rate on acquisitions this year is as "high as ever."

He told Becky Quick he had been working on a big acquisition, a $12 billion "elephant," but the deal didn't come together.

Moments after Bank of America announced better than expected earnings, Buffett said "the banks are in the best shape I can remember."

He also defended JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie DImon amid the bank's many legal problems, some of which are the result of its acquisition of Washington Mutual at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you're going to get a ticket. And believe me, you've had a lot of cops" following JPMorgan, he said.

On the economy, Buffett said he continues to see slow improvement and pointed out that "two percent a year growth with less than one percent population gains means one percent real growth per capita. In 20 years that's 20 percent. If every generation lives 20 percent better than the generation before them, that's not terrible."

Buffett wouldn't comment on reports the CEO of Berkshire subsidiary Benjamin Moore was fired due to sexual harassment. "Recently we had to make a change for reasons I can't get into," he said, but pointed out the paint company is still making a lot of money.

- By CNBC.com's Alex Crippen

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