Warren Buffett’s son Howard: I agree with the Fed that Russia has stymied the inflation fight

Folks, we’ve got some breaking news coming out of the Milken Institute 2024 Global Conference in Beverly Hills, CA. New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams, during a conversation there, blamed Russia’s war on Ukraine for much of the stubborn inflation consumers are facing, saying, quote, inflation would have retreated more swiftly had Russia not attacked its neighbor. Ukraine is known as the world’s bread basket, so you can understand where he’s coming from. As the war drags into its third year at this hour, Ukraine is getting much needed infusions of help. The first installment from the congressionally approved $61 billion in military aid and weaponry has arrived on the front lines, but help for the besieged nation is also coming from another quarter. The Howard G Buffett Foundation is on track to spend more than $800 million by the end of 2024 in humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. The eponymous CEO and son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who also serves as a director on Berkshire Hathaways board, has visited Ukraine 11 times since the full scale invasion began. Howard Buffett, who is also a lifelong farmer, joins us now in a Fox Business exclusive. That’s a pretty powerful comment by the New York Fed president. You know, when he blames sticky inflation, Howard, on Russia’s invasion? How much of that has to do with the interruption of Ukraine’s farming and its exports of wheat and soy and corn? Well, I would agree with him 100%. Ah, if you look at the beginning of the invasion at the time in in 2022, ah, it only took a few months to drive a basic food basket in Western Africa up by almost 50%. And obviously you can’t recover from someone who is such a major exporter of corn and soybeans and barley and wheat. I mean, there just isn’t any way. You can’t just turn that around right away. So in terms of his comments, I would agree with him 100%. People need to understand something about Ukraine. The soil there is the best pretty much on the planet for farming, but we’re showing video of missiles and weapons that have Russian missiles and weapons that have cut huge holes into a huge part of the the farmland there and contaminated it. Plus it’s incredibly dangerous right now to farm because the Russians planted hundreds of thousands of mines. Correct. So what? How do you make sure your money is going toward farming but also safe farming? Well, so we’ve both supported agricultural efforts as well as de mining efforts. And so we’re very well informed on what’s happening. And and I think that the key thing is to understand that there’s a lot of that farm around that just isn’t getting farmed. And of course that goes back to the original comments about affecting inflation, food inflation and the fact that less food is available at A at a normal price, what would have been a normal price. So in terms of agriculture, you know it it’s there’s it’s kind of twofold. One is you have a large area that isn’t being farmed and then the other is you have Russia with almost 20%, close to 20% of Ukraine occupied and they are taking all of the production from that area. It was estimated last year with last year’s wheat production that Russia took almost 28% of the total wheat production in Ukraine from the occupied areas. And then, I mean, this is just, you know, it’s kind of a double slap in the face, if you can put it that way is they’re taking that 28% of the wheat production and they’re using it to fund the war. So Ukraine has 10s of thousands of hectares that cannot be farmed. And some of it’s because it’s too close to the front line. Some of it because it, I mean, much of it is because there’s land mines all across it. Yeah. Yeah. And and it’s not just you. I mean, there’s not enough even $800 million by the end of this year in philanthropic efforts from your foundation. Not going to be enough to rebuild Ukraine. You are capitalist. Your dad is certainly the king of capitalism. Make the case to business viewers and investors right now that they should be investing in Ukraine. It’s a little bit of a tough sell at the moment. Well, it’s a tough sell at the moment because obviously it would be a tough sell with any country at war. But I would actually work it backwards a little bit and I would look at it and say that what are the consequences? I’d ask what are the consequences if Ukraine fails and Russia succeeds? The consequences are huge and they’re economic as well. So I think you can look at it in two different ways. One is what’s happening during war now. And if you look at the new package, it was just passed, you know, almost 90% of the allocation for weapons is actually spent in the United States. A lot of people don’t think of that or understand that they think we’re sending money to Ukraine, but we’re spending $45 billion of that package roughly in the United States producing weapons U.S. jobs, keeping plants open. And and then I think if you look at the other direction and you say we’re we’re, look, we’re in this war no matter what, we’re in this war, whether we want to be in this war or not. So in terms of how that affects us, you have to look at it economically as well. The NATO countries represent about 31% of our exports. So it will affect 31% of our export activity. It will affect, it’s got to affect everything, including interest rates, inflation in the stock market. I mean, any time that our country would be at war, it’s going to affect our economy in a number of different ways. If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, we will be in this war through NATO. And anybody who says we can’t respect NATO and stay in NATO and meet our obligations of NATO is not thinking about the economic consequences or the long term security consequences. We have to have partners and we have to have friends in this world and if we abandoned Europe, we’ll have no one that’s going to stand by us in the future, abandoned Europe, abandoned Sweden and Finland who just joined NATO in the past year. So I I completely agree with you. It seems really smart if you’re just looking purely at a jobs and economic standpoint that being part of this is really important. Howard, I’m sorry that I I missed you over the weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting. I’ve been, I’ve been there 16 different times and I’ve always been able to speak with you and your siblings and to me it’s it’s always a fascinating study of everything that goes on. You will be non executive chairman once your dad leaves. What does that mean? Can you explain that to our viewers what that role, how you define it will be? Well, I’m only not Executive Chairman if the board votes that way. So I’m not, I’m not assuming anything, but what it really means is I won’t be able to go to Ukraine very often. But you know, it just means I’m going to help maintain the culture of the company and support Greg and his efforts and the G and his efforts and do whatever I can in terms of, you know, I it. It’s not a management position. It’s not a position where you’re actively engaged in managing the company, but you are overseeing the board, but you’re also supporting the culture and maintaining the type of culture that we that my dad has built over many years. And that’s probably a pretty important thing to be able to do. Well, the Berkshire stock is up today. People like what they heard over the weekend, record profits for the quarter. Howard, it’s wonderful to see you keep doing the good work you’re doing in Ukraine. Thank you. Nice to see you too, Liz. Howard Buffett.