Warren Buffett has a balanced view on muted current economic reports, such as last week's jobs report.
Buffett says he is not surprised there were no more jobs created without a more meaningful pickup in residential construction. "When we see a million residential units constructer annually," he told CNBC's Squawk Box in a live interview, "only then will we see more decent numbers on jobs growth."
All is not bad in his eyes, however. Switching to GDP, Buffett does necessarily yearn to see a 4 to 5% print. "That would be unsustainable in the long term," he says. On the other hand, he believes that a 2.2% GDP print is not as abysmal is is being made currently. "If you have a 2.2% growth in annual GDP and have a 1% growth in population, that would be 1.2% increase in real per-capita growth."
That, according to Buffet, equates a generational growth of ~20 percent. "That means that every succeeding generation has a 20% better standard of living than the preceeding one," which Buffet thinks is not shabby in the least.
"If we were guaranteed 2.2% for the next 100 years," Buffet concludes, "that would be Nirvana!"
(c) 2012 Benzinga.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published in its entirety or redistributed without the approval of Benzinga.
(c) 2012 Benzinga.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published in its entirety or redistributed without the approval of Benzinga.
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