The following video (below jump) is an interview that Charlie Rose taped with Warren Buffett on Wednesday, shortly before the Senate vote on the bailout package.

Excerpt:

“In my adult lifetime, I don’t think I’ve ever seen people as fearful economically as they are right now…. This is really an economic Pearl Harbor. That sounds melodramatic, and I’ve never used that phrase before, but this really is one. When $40 billion of Treasury bills are sold, like they were last week, 7-day Treasury bills, at a yield of 1/20 of 1 percent, that means the whole country, or a lot of the country, is at the point of putting their money under the mattress. You’re only 1/20 of 1 percent away from where it’s better to put the money under the mattress. You don’t want 300 million Americans putting their money under the mattress. This economy doesn’t work well without the lubrication of credit. And trust. And that’s been lost.”