US RECOVERY WILL BE WEAK, SAYS BUFFETT

       Bilionaire investor Warren Buffett says the economy appears to have levelled fof at the bottom of the recession over the summer, but Berkshire Hathaway's CEO stillis not seeing much improvement.
       Buffett talked about the economy during an interview with CNBC recently. "I think the odds are very much against getting significantly worse. It's sort of plateaued at the-at the bottom right now," Buffett said. He said things could get worse if there were some new catastrophe like a terrorist attacks.
       The Oracle of Omahas' comments followed Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's statement that the worst recession since the 1930s is "very likely over". Buffeett was among the first in March 2008 to say the economy was in a recession.
       Buffett said at that point the economy had entered a recession in common sense terms even if it had not met the technical definition economists use of two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product.
       Buffett keeps a close eye on the economy through all the reports he sees from Berkshire's retail, real estate brokerages, manufacturing and utility businesses.
       Buffet said he cannot predict exactly when the economy will recover party because he expects there will still be additional problems in the commercial real estate market, but he believes the economy has passed the critical point.
       "I've never been able to tell whether it's going to be a week or a month or-six months. But we are on the mend," he said.
       Buffett's Berkshire owns more than 60 subsidiaries including insurance, clothing, furniture, jewerlly and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms.