Business

Warren Buffett says the pandemic has affected small businesses, Covid-19 not over yet

By Deblina Munshi

Warren Buffett has said that the economic impact of the pandemic is affecting small businesses disproportionately and that Covid-19 is not yet over.

In an interview on CNBC on Tuesday Buffett said, “The economic impact has been this extremely uneven thing where… many hundreds of thousands or millions of small businesses have been hurt in a terrible way, but most of the big companies have overwhelmingly have done fine.”

The pandemic hit small businesses worst, with them having to close down and their customers were consumed by e-commerce and retail giants. America’s Gross domestic product dropped 31.4% in the first quarter last year.

WIth regard to the pandemic, Buffett was heard saying, “It’s not over,” the 90-year-old investor said. “I mean, in terms of the unpredictability…it’s been very unpredictable, but it’s worked out better than people anticipated for most people and most businesses. And it’s just, for no fault of their own, it’s just decimated all kinds of people and their hopes.”

He also added, “There’ll be another pandemic, we know that. We know there’s a nuclear, chemical, biological, and now cyber threat. Each one of those has terrible possibilities. And we do some things about it, but – it’s just not something that society seems particularly capable of fully coming to grips with.”

The biggest lesson Buffett learned during the pandemic is how unprepared the world is for emergency situations like this.

 

 

 

Tags: COVID-19 warren buffett

Deblina Munshi

Deblina is a graduate of English Literature and Economics, currently working as a writer at USAnewshour.com. Deblina is passionate about reading and procuring knowledge from everywhere.