May 4 (Reuters) -

Warren Buffett took the stage at Berkshire Hathaway's ( BRK/A )

annual meeting on Saturday, paying tribute to his

longtime business partner Charlie Munger, outlining the expanded

roles of the executives who are designated to eventually succeed

him and discussing Berkshire's opportunities.

Greg Abel, 61, designated Buffett's successor as chief

executive in 2021, sat on stage with Buffett.

Here are some remarks during the meeting on various topics

from Buffett and Abel:

BUFFETT ON SUCCESSION

"I don't really do much and I don't operate at the same

level of efficiency that I would have thirty years ago or forty

years ago ... when you've got somebody like Greg and Ajit

, why settle for me? It has worked out extremely well."

"The number of calls I get from managers is essentially

awfully close to zero and Greg is handling those. I don't know

quite how he does it, but we've got the right person, I can tell

you that."

"We will own Apple and American Express and Coca-Cola when

Greg takes over this place."

(On capital allocation in the future) "If I were on that

board and making that decision, I would probably, knowing Greg,

I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. He understands

businesses extremely well, and if you understand businesses you

understand common stocks."

ABEL ON SUCCESSION

Abel said "as we go through any transition, it's important

to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire

lives by today will continue to survive."

"We'll always look at equities as if we're investing in a

business, 1% or 100%."

BUFFETT ON CHARLIE MUNGER

Munger was the "architect of today's Berkshire. The

architect is the person who dreams of and designs, and finally

supervises the construction of great structures. The carpenters

and the beavers, that's me, are needed, but the architect is the

genius of Berkshire."

"Charlie, in all the years we worked together, not only

never once lied to me, ever, but he didn't even shape things so

that he told half lies or quarter lies to sort of stack the deck

in the direction he wanted to go."

BUFFETT ON BERKSHIRE'S OPPORTUNITIES

"We made the commitment in Japan ... five years ago and that

was just ... extraordinarily compelling ... but you won't find us

making a lot of investments outside the United States."

"I understand the United States rules, weaknesses, strengths

... I don't have the same feeling for economies around the world,

I don't pick up on other cultures extremely well."

"We will be American oriented. If we do something really

big, it's extremely likely it will be in the United States."

"The goal of Berkshire ... is to increase the operating

earnings and decrease the shares outstanding. It's that simple

to describe, it's not quite so simple to pull off necessarily,

but that's what we're attempting to do."

BUFFETT ON CASH

"We have a lot of fixed, short-term investments that are

very responsive to changes in interest rates, so that figure is

up substantially and I can't predict that one will be up for the

year."

"Our cash and Treasury bills were $182 billion at the

quarter end, and I think it's a fair assumption they (could) go

up to $200 billion at the end of this quarter."

"I don't mind at all under current condition building the

cash position. When I look at the alternatives, what's available

in equity markets and the composition of what's going on in the

world, we find it quite attractive."

BUFFETT ON TAX

"Almost everybody I know pays a lot more attention to not

paying taxes than I think they should, we don't mind paying

taxes at Berkshire."

"In fiscal policies something has to give and I think higher

taxes are ... likely. If the government wants to take a higher

share of your income or mine or Berkshire's, they can do it.

They may decide that someday they don't want the fiscal deficit

to be this large because that has some important consequences so

they may not want to decrease spending so they may decide

they'll take a larger percentage of what we own and we'll pay

it."

BUFFETT ON APPLE

"We own American Express which is a wonderful business, we

own Coca Cola which is a wonderful business, and we own Apple

which is an even better business."

"Unless something really extraordinary happens we will own

Apple, American Express and Coca Cola."

"At the end of the year I would say it's extremely likely

that Apple is the largest common stock holding we have."

BUFFETT ON COCA-COLA

"No company hardly does business around the world like

Coca-Cola. I mean, they are the preferred soft drink in

something like 170 or 180 out of 200 countries. Those are rough

approximations from a few years back probably, but that degree

of acceptance worldwide is almost unmatched."

BUFFETT ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

"I do think.. it has enormous potential for good and an

enormous potential for harm."

(Compiled by Davide Barbuscia, Gui Qing Koh, Jonathan Stempel,

Ira Iosebashvili, Megan Davies; Editing by Josie Kao)