“People go crazy occasionally. We don’t get smarter when it comes to emotion. That’s what got us into this mess.”
— Warren Buffett last Thursday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO was explaining the root of the turmoil in the global financial markets: “Virtually every American…came to believe that home prices could do nothing but go up.” Buffett went on to note that U.S. housing is “a $20 trillion asset class,” and that giddy optimism led to “bubble pricing” and “crazy lending.”
Subscribe to Well Adjusted, our newsletter full of simple strategies to work smarter and live better, from the Fortune Well team. Sign up today.
