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Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

nytimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#41

Post by MikeCapone »

TheSkeptic wrote: post #34

Funny. Buffett certainly didn't mind a little coddling in 2008. He was arguably one of the largest individual beneficiaries of bailouts which shifted ungodly amounts of toxic debt from failed private institutions to taxpayers. See http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-b... . While it's now mighty generous of Buffett to invite the government to increase his taxes, he could spare us another ( http:…

The whole financial system and everybody that depends on it was a beneficiary of the bailouts. If everything collapsed, everybody would have suffered. Buffett just happens to own a bigger slice of the market than almost anyone, so of course he benefited significantly. But singling him out, especially since he's stayed away from wall street's games and made extraordinary efforts to keep things above board for decades, is totally unfair.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#42

Post by dwolfson20 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #37

Warren buffet pays about 17%, and the people in his office pay an average of 36%. So the solution, the way to restore fairness, is to raise taxes on him? I don't really think so. Maybe I'm a bit of a wingnut, but I find tax rates of about 30% disgusting simply on moral grounds, and I don't see why the discussion should go much further. Surely one of a government's prime constraints should be not screwing its citizens…

Without government to pay for the roads citizens drive to their businesses, and the infrastructure that gives them water and temperature moderation, and 1,000 other things that are essential to provide for functioning commerce, citizens wouldn't be making so much money as they do. And I'd wager that effect is worth a lot more than 30%.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#43

Post by ikirill »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #20

If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Anecdotes of Warren Buffet's office aside, in general the richest people pay the largest proportion of taxes. We already lean quite heavily on the top 1% - the top 1% actually pays more in taxes than the bottom 90%. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html A graph of the data in that article: http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png…

The richest pay the largest proportion of taxes because they earn so much. In the article, 400 hundred people make $90 billion, and it takes 3 million people working at $30,000 a year to collectively earn as much.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#45

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #20

If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Anecdotes of Warren Buffet's office aside, in general the richest people pay the largest proportion of taxes. We already lean quite heavily on the top 1% - the top 1% actually pays more in taxes than the bottom 90%. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html A graph of the data in that article: http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png…

> If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well.

Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? I would be fascinated to hear what you'd suggest someone cut when they're earning ~10-15k/year.

For those likewise unfamiliar, I recommend sci-fi author John Scalzi's "Being Poor": http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

Both the article and the comments are worth reading.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#46

Post by ck2 »

breck wrote: post #38
ck2 wrote: post #22

The problem is getting low to middle income people to stop voting against themselves. Good luck with that, they all seem to think they are going to be billionaires someday so better keep those billionaire taxes low. Either that or by bribing the wealthy with low taxes they might only ship out half the jobs overseas instead of all of them. It's just dumbfounding. Election after election, over and over.

"The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre—what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. -Ulysses S. Grant Peo…

I've come to the conclusion that the logic becomes "well if I can't have it, no-one will". People basically trying to take away assistance/help to others by trying to vote it away from everyone, since they somehow perceive themselves as better than others suffering on the lower rungs on society.

This also explains why people try to vote away unions and benefits for teachers/schools, the very foundation of society, while they are okay with CEOs having multi-million annual stock bonuses while getting paid $1 to dodge taxes.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#47

Post by dwolfson20 »

aj700 wrote: post #39

Taxing the money that moves - as it is earned - will only produce so much revenue. The rich need to be taxed, not beccause it will allow lots of lovely spending, because the gov will inevitably do a bad job of spending it. Though you could put it towards debt reduction first. You have to tax the money that doesn't move. The millions of unneeded unspent $ that the rich are sitting on, with a wealth tax. You may not ev…

It's a nice intention, but how do you devise that mechanism? If I keep $10,000 in my savings account for 30 years, are you going to tax it every year?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#48

Post by andrewflnr »

dwolfson20 wrote: post #31
andrewflnr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.

This is an extremely abstract argument. It's a matter of degree. If everyone gave all their money to charity, we'd have no government at all.

You're taking my abstract argument farther than I intended; perhaps I should have been more careful. I'm not saying we should give all our money to charity, just that it should be strongly preferred to paying increased taxes, especially with the goal of helping people.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#49

Post by wpietri »

andrewflnr wrote: post #19
dwolfson20 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.

Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.

> The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man.

Maybe true, maybe not, but totally irrelevant. Taxes solve the free rider problem. Individual charity can't.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#50

Post by wpietri »

andrewflnr wrote: post #37

Warren buffet pays about 17%, and the people in his office pay an average of 36%. So the solution, the way to restore fairness, is to raise taxes on him? I don't really think so. Maybe I'm a bit of a wingnut, but I find tax rates of about 30% disgusting simply on moral grounds, and I don't see why the discussion should go much further. Surely one of a government's prime constraints should be not screwing its citizens…

I don't feel like I'm getting screwed. As a small business owner, I think I get fantastic value for the taxes I pay every year. It could be better, sure, but having lived on 4 continents, it's here that I've chosen to live and start my latest business.
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