(Bloomberg News) Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, said Wall Street bankers don't believe they've been embraced by President Barack Obama and are consequently withholding their support.
"Wall Street certainly doesn't feel loved," Buffett told Charlie Rose in a Sept. 30 interview broadcast on PBS. "I think there was some rhetoric that contributed to that."
Buffett, 81, is seeking to draw backers for Obama's re- election and planned to attend a fundraiser for the president last week in New York. Obama has been accused of "class warfare" by Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner for seeking to close the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy. Obama has asked Congress to enact a so-called Buffett rule, requiring those earning $1 million or more a year to pay taxes at a rate similar to that of middle-income Americans.
"You take the number of people making a million dollars or over on Wall Street and you can fill a very large auditorium," Buffett said. "I think the president felt, 'My God, look at all the things we did for business, and they're unappreciative, and I'm all that stands between them and the pitchforks.'"
Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., did at least five television interviews Sept. 30 on topics ranging from Berkshire's investments and Bank of America Corp.'s struggles to politics and Europe's debt crisis.
Berkshire added about $4 billion in common stock to its investments during the third quarter, Buffett said in a Bloomberg Television interview. That compares with $3.4 billion in the second quarter and was the most since Omaha, Nebraska- based Berkshire plowed a net $3.6 billion into stocks during the third quarter of 2008, the height of the global credit crisis.
'Ready to Buy'
"We're ready to buy lots of things," Buffett said in the interview with Betty Liu on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Berkshire's program to purchase its own stock "won't keep us from investing billions and billions and billions in plants and equipment, in new acquisitions."
Berkshire, which had a $67.6 billion equity portfolio as of June 30, announced its stock-buyback plan Sept. 26. It is the firm's first repurchase in four decades.
"If the market is weak, we could buy a lot of stock," Buffett told Charlie Rose, according to a transcript of the interview. "We'll buy the stock if we think we're doing a favor for the people that are staying in the boat."