Buffett speaks at journalist's urging

In Steve Lohr‘s piece in the Monday New York Times that compares billionaire investor Warren Buffett to J.P. Morgan, he notes that it was journalist Charlie Rose who convinced Buffett to talk about his role in the bailout plan.

Lohr writes, “Mr. Buffett still speaks to the press only occasionally, and he declined to be interviewed for this article. But after the House of Representatives rejected the rescue plan last Monday, Mr. Buffett got a call from Charlie Rose, the television interviewer, who has known Mr. Buffett for years. He urged Mr. Buffett to appear on his PBS interview show as soon as possible.

“‘I told him, ‘You have to do this,’’ Mr. Rose recalled in an interview on Saturday. ”No one has your credibility, and people want to hear what you have to say.”

“Mr. Buffett agreed to do it, and Mr. Rose flew to San Diego, where Mr. Buffett would be on Wednesday. The hourlong interview on Wednesday night was vintage Warren Buffett: calm, plain-spoken and wry.

“He called the current crisis an economic Pearl Harbor, requiring immediate action. Its biggest single cause, he explained, was the real estate bubble. ‘Three hundred million Americans, their lending institutions, their government, their media, all believed that house prices were going to go up consistently,’ he said. ‘Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things.'”

Read more here.