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LIU: ...that would you to start hiring?
WARREN BUFFETT, CEO, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY: Well, it's a stimulus plan. And fiscal stimulus is one piece of the pie in keeping a recovery going. We have a recovery going. We are not in any double-dip recession or anything like that.
I mean, I've got 70-some businesses and most of them are doing very well including Cathy. So fiscal stimulus, monetary policy, those are the conventional tools.
We've used them big time already. I don't think that fiscal stimulus or monetary policy from this point forth will do a lot to be frank (ph).
I do think that the natural, regenerative uses of capitalism will do, at our doing, plenty and will keep doing it.
LIU: Cathy, what are you seeing in your businesses? I mean, you know, essentially, what would get, you know, from your own business, what would get CEOs to start hiring?
CATHY BARON TAMRAZ, CEO, BUSINESS WIRE: You know, CEOs are sitting on a lot of cash. And I think they've got to take a leap and start hiring. We're doing that at Business Wire.
They need to push out new products and you need to continue with R and D.
LIU: OK.
Warren, I've got to turn, of course, to what we've been talking about this morning which is the Buffett rule, the millionaires' tax increase.
Now, I know you've had some pretty strong political and social views in your lifetime that you've expressed very publicly. This, though, has become the hot-button issue.
Why step out so much in the public this time around on this?
BUFFETT: Well, it (ph) isn't have the rich pay more taxes. It's to have the ultra-rich who are paying very low taxes pay more tax rates.
There's all kinds of ultra-rich who pay normal taxes. But there is a small segment but you can find them very easily who pay very low taxes including me.
People who make money with money only pay very low taxes at very high levels of income. People who make money by having a job like yours or all those around us, they pay perfectly normal taxes.
So what I'm talking about would probably apply to 50,000 people out of 310 million in the country. I want it (ph) to apply to all kinds of people who think it would apply to them.
It would simply mean that if you made tens of millions of dollars and your tax rate was 16 or 70 percent, you would start playing like the person who made a hundred thousand or 10 million who paid normal tax rates.
An athlete making $10 million - he would not have a change in his tax rate at all or $20 million or $30 million even.
But somebody that buys a stock index future and sells it 10 seconds later and gets 60 percent by long-term gains, he would have a different world to live in.
LIU: Well, Warren, out of those 50,000 people, have any of them written you, disagreeing with you, saying why are you still out here in the front saying that (ph) I should pay more taxes?
BUFFETT: Oh, sure, I get some letters like that, although I get more letters saying thanks, you know, basically. So you got lots of letters. A lot of people misunderstand it, too.
But it would really apply to about 50,000 people. That's the size of Council Bluffs, Iowa, which you may not have ever heard of, you know. And all the rest of it would be unchanged.
But it would raise, perhaps, as much as $20 billion a year. And that's a thousand dollars to $20 million families.
So if you'll give me a choice between taking a thousand dollars from 20 million families or hitting 50,000 people who shuffle money around all day, I'll take it from the people to shovel money.
LIU: Warren, I was talking with Ted Turner a few weeks ago who, by the way, is a fan of yours or a supporter of your giving pledge.
But he did say, look, it's easy for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to say, I'm going to give away my money and I want to pay more in taxes, you know. But he says, you know, if you want to do that, why not just write a check to the government?
Why not write a check for billions?
BUFFETT: If you've got a trillion-dollar-plus deficit and you have this child-like faith that people will just solve that by paying (ph) checks to the government - you know, I sort of admired - I mean, I heard that Senator McConnell sort of suggested that.
And I think it's wonderful that he has such faith in the American people. They want to solve the trillion dollar deficit problem by people voluntarily sending checks to the government.
I actually think that if something is a good policy, it should be enacted as a policy.
LIU: But Warren, have you ever thought, being that you are a large proponent of this, have you ever thought, why not I write a check to the government for, you know, several billion dollars just to prove that I can or to underscore a point...
BUFFETT: Well, I would say this. If there will be a group of awful (ph) rich people, you know, your boss, Mike Bloomberg, Dow Jones' boss, Rupert Murdoch, if they want to take that out as a program, I'll join with them.
LIU: You will? OK, well, we have that right here, then.
BUFFETT: Absolutely.
LIU: We will ask them.
BUFFETT: The first on Bloomberg.
LIU: Warren, I want to just quote you something that Governor Rick Perry had said, you know, of course one of the Republican presidential candidates.
And I'm sure, you know, you're quite familiar with the criticism that's come out on this millionaire tax. He says quote...
BUFFETT: It isn't a billionaire's tax.
