Nebraska ? Billionaires Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger said Sunday the most important lessons of the recent financial turmoil are that companies should borrow less and build a system that imposes severe disincentives for failure.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s top two executives offered that frank assessment of what led to the current recession at a news conference held a day after 35,000 attended the company’s annual meeting in Omaha. The two men also said most of the nation’s biggest banks are not too big to fail, but consumers shouldn’t be worried about bank failures because of protections built into the system.

Buffett said having severe disincentives for failure and proper incentives for success is key to ensuring large financial institutions are run well. He said people didn’t become more greedy in the last decade, but it wasn’t hard for them to take advantage of the system.

“I think the most important lesson is the world needs a whole lot less leverage,” said Buffett, who is Berkshire’s 78-year-old chief executive and chairman.

Buffett said jokingly that if the system were set up so that an executive would be shot if the company fails, then the company would definitely borrow less.