--- title: 'Buffett: The economy needs Viagra' description: On Thursday morning, Warren Buffett said that a second stimulus package to help the economy might be called for. I'm not going to go into… authors: - name: timestaff url: https://money.com/author/timestaff/ articles: 459 covers: - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes former_staff: true published: '2009-07-09T21:43:19.000Z' modified: '2009-07-09T21:43:19.000Z' section: Economy and Politics word_count: 256 canonical: https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Buffett: The economy needs Viagra](https://money.com/img/logo-social.png) On Thursday morning, Warren Buffett said that a second stimulus package to help the economy might be called for. I'm not going to go into all the pros and cons of a second stimulus (you can read all about that [here](http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0907/gallery.economy_stimulus_viewpoints.fortune/index.html)). But the metaphor that he used to break down the idea on *Good Morning America* was a little...how should we say it...[odd](http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8039910). Buffett said, "Our first stimulus bill, it seemed to me, was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in as everybody was putting it into their own constituencies. It doesn’t have quite the wallop." (Credit to *The Wall Street Journal*'s [MarketBeat blog](http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/07/09/warren-buffett-on-first-stimulus-bill-like-taking-a-half-a-tablet-of-viagra/) for picking this up.) ![These Money heroes help retirees and members of the armed forces with their tax returns, and assist people caught up in legal problems with the IRS.](http://content.money.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/warren_buffett_090502a-032.jpg) *These Money heroes help retirees and members of the armed forces with their tax returns, and assist people caught up in legal problems with the IRS.* Buffett can't be blamed for struggling to put the stimulus into terms that the reporter and average Americans can understand. In fact, since the economic crisis started, there have been a few famous occasions where politicians tripped over themselves when trying to explain what was going on. In addition to [Buffett's Viagra analogy](http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8039910), President Obama has fumbled over the definition of price/earnings ratios (fast-forward to about 1:50 into this clip): [Watch video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C36YOxhTUE) And Treasury Secretary Geithner dumbed down his response to questions about the safety of the U.S. dollar and Treasury investments so much, that his audience of Chinese students [broke out laughing](http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0906/gallery.dumbest_moments_midyear2009.fortune/8.html): [Watch video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2AEiYEei3o) I don't envy these guys. Trying to boil down an extremely complicated situation into a TV news bite is impossible. But I wonder what the Cialis folks think about Viagra getting all the attention? ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Economy", "item": "https://money.com/economy/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Buffett: The economy needs Viagra" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/", "name": "Buffett: The economy needs Viagra", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2009-07-09T21:43:19.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/buffett-the-economy-needs-viagra/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2009-07-09T21:43:19.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Buffett: The economy needs Viagra", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://money.com/img/logo-social.png", "width": 300, "height": 300 }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://content.money.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/warren_buffett_090502a-032.jpg", "width": 220, "height": 141 } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "timestaff", "url": "https://money.com/author/timestaff/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/timestaff/#author" } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2009-07-09T21:43:19.000Z", "description": "On Thursday morning, Warren Buffett said that a second stimulus package to help the economy might be called for. 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