3:39 pm: Q - Thoughts about being the world's richest man on the Forbes 400 list?  Buffett says it hasn't changed the way Charlie treats him.  "It doesn't mean anything."  He points out its unlikely that its 100 percent accurate anyway. "It changed nothing in my life.  It didn't even change the mail much."  He says he's happy when Berkshire is doing well, not when he's high on the Forbes 400 list.  "It's vastly overrated to be rated number one on Forbes."  Charles jokes he has no new respect for Buffett.

3:45 pm: Q - How widespread are real estate problems around the country?  Buffett says data from the Berkshire businesses connected with homes shows particular weakness in some areas, including Nevada, Arizona and California.  Las Vegas furniture stores have been hit harder than stores in other places.  "What you read in the papers is accurate."  There is a mild contagion effect.  "The land rush thing wouldn't happen now" in real estate.  Munger points out that even if real estate in your area is not hit hard, it still causes problems for financial institutions around the country.

3:52 pm:  Buffett sometimes has difficulty hearing the questions, especially when the reporter has an accent.  Charlie has been repeating some of them for him.

3:53 pm: Buffett says he think its kind of crazy when companies have their constantly updated stock price on display in the lobby or something like that.

3:56 pm:  Buffett says he doesn't think the recession will have a long-term effect on the value of his home-related businesses.  He accepts there are going to be ups and downs.

3:59 pm: Buffett says he's surprised Asian currencies, including the Taiwan dollar, haven't appreciated more.  Munger points out that some Asian countries don't want their currencies to appreciate.  Buffett says Taiwan is a "perfectly sensible place to buy a company" but most of them aren't big enough.  He's not worried about buying a company in Taiwan from a currency perspective. 

4:05 pm: Buffett says a lot of the mispricing of risk has been corrected, although "they'll make the same mistakes again" in the future.  Banks are "Cleaning up their act because they're being forced to."  Munger says he's rather have all his money in Berkshire than in any bank.  He thinks banks take too many risks.  "We try to behave as if Berkshire stock was all help by crippled relatives of whom we are the guardians."  Says some big bank executives take on big risks due to ego.  "Testosterone is the most dangerous substance in the world."  Munger criticizes "swashbuckling" practices.  Buffett points out that bank executives are encouraged to take risks by their compensation.

4:10 pm: Buffett recalls when he and Munger were running Salomon in the early 1990s and the number of times he was told that he was out of touch for insisting on conservative practices.  "Everyone else is doing it is the code of Wall Street" and it's hard to go against it because employees will simply go somewhere else where they are able to take great risks and make more money.

4:15 pm:  Buffett says just because China gets richer it doesn't mean the U.S. will get poorer.  China may grow faster than the U.S. but no reason to get paranoid.  But he notes that some will find it convenient to blame China for problems in the U.S.  "There's likely to be a lot of scapegoating of China.  It's easy to do" especially in bad economic times.  Buffett says there's a lot of potential for an increase in tensions between U.S. and China.  He thinks it shouldn't happen but fears it will.   "Very dumb" to scapegoat a country will nuclear capability. 

4:21 pm: Munger praises China for reforming itself.  "Hats off to China."  Crazy to criticize it for not changing fast enough.

4:22 pm: Q - Why do so many people come to the annual meeting?  Buffett says because they have a lot fun and they feel like they're part of the act.  We treat them like partners and they feel like partners.  "It's a real company to them."  We're proud of the companies we've bought and the products they make and we want our partners to feel proud, too.  Munger: We're sufficiently peculiar so people don't have a lot of other options."  Buffett says most shareholders don't come to make an exposition or advance a cause.  Good shareholders drive out bad shareholders.

4:27 pm: Q - How much of your wisdom comes from being in Omaha?  A - I spend most of my time in Omaha.  I like being here.  There's a good community aspect to Omaha.  Anything that adds to an "ease of life" will make you more effective.  Munger, who lives in Los Angeles, says, "I'm an Omaha boy.  They got the boy out of Omaha.  They didn't get the Omaha out of the boy."

4:30 pm: Buffett - When you send $250 billion a year to China you shouldn't be surprised when they use that money.  Hypocritical for the U.S. to get upset about sovereign wealth funds.

4:33pm: The news conference has ended.

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