Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett said Thursday that the U.S. needs to take care of people who have been left behind despite overall economic gains.
The billionaire investor told CNBC that the U.S. should be doing more to help poor people, saying that it is “the obligation of a rich country.” Buffett said people in their 50s have had their economic lives ruined, and won’t be retrained or relocated.
A country with $65,000 gross domestic product per capita has to care for the people who “have become roadkill,” Buffett said. “We are prosperity. We should take care of people who’ve become roadkill because of something beyond their control.”
Speaking at a luncheon in Texas, Buffett also defended free trade, but said its benefits are not necessarily evident to the average American consumer.
“I’m 100 percent for free trade. I think it has benefited the country enormously and will continue to benefit it. But the benefit of free trade is invisible,” said Buffett. “… There’s nothing in Walmart that says you saved 8 percent because we bought this somewhere other than American manufacturers.”
