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Now, despite the warning signs, Warren Buffett says the U.S. is doing just fine.

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The so-called Oracle of Omaha spoke to CNN's Poppy Harlow earlier this week.

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We're seeing some recent cracks in the U.S. economy, right?

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You've got retail and auto sales down.

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You've got forecasts for first quarter earnings looking lower than has been expected to fall for the first time since 2012.

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Is this a blip? Or is this the beginning of a bigger shift?

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I don't see any real weakness in the economy.

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Home building has been slow and it continues to slow,

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but the economy's been improving since the fall of 2009, and it continues to improve.

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So, I just don't see it.

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And I've seen the February figures for our companies, and, you know, [there're] parts that are a little stronger than others.

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But, that's been the case ever since the fall of 2009.

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We've been on an upward course, and people talk about double dips and they talk about acceleration.

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In the end, it just keeps moving ahead.

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And I think it's quite a tribute, actually, to our policymakers --

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all the way back to the fall of 2008 --

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that we've recovered like we have from what was an incredible panic.

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Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday, "If underlying conditions had truly returned to normal, the economy should be booming."

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Where's the risk?

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Well, I don't think there's a particular risk in the economy over time.

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We will have recessions from time to time and we had a real doozy in the fall of 2008 and early 2009,

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and that has had more consequences than other recessions have had post World War II.

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But, the American economy is a wonderful machine.

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It really works. It's worked since 1776, and it'll continue to work.

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But, we will continue to have ups and downs.

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Because for some Americans, they listen to that and they say it's not working for me.

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Yeah.

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And they see stagnant wage growth, and they feel like it's getting increasingly hard to get by year by year.

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So, who's winning? Wall Street? Main Street?

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Well, the extreme rich are clearly winning.

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I mean, if you look at the Forbes 400, they had an aggregate net worth of $92 billion in 1982.

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It's $2.3 trillion today, 25 times as much.

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So, the very rich have done exceptionally well in this economy.

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Other people have done OK on balance, but it's certainly the super rich. It's really been concentrated.

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You can just look at that figure from $92 billion to $2.3 trillion.

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Right.
