Warren Buffett should be called sage of Tokyo as well as Omaha

"I find very few wonderful businesses in Japan at present."

That's how Warren Buffett explained his lack of interest in the second-biggest economy to students at the University of Florida. Buffett's gripes include "very low returns on equity" and a corporate culture that's unresponsive to shareholders.

Japan's markets have been battered of late by the global crisis, and the Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell more than the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2008. Stocks in the US, the epicenter of the credit crunch, fell 34 percent, while Japan's dropped 42 percent.