Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 354 posts

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#91

Post by gareim »

TheSkeptic wrote: post #78
MikeCapone wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

You should do your research before making statements like "especially since he's stayed away from wall street's games and made extraordinary efforts to keep things above board for decades." Buffett didn't sit idly by while his holdings were threatened. He lobbied for, and supported, bailouts. Not content with bailouts of companies he owned large stakes in, he made sweetheart deals to invest in Goldman Sachs and GE kn…

I only had time to skim the first article (getting late here), but I agree with Buffett's reasoning on the TARP issue. If the banks DID pay back their debt, then why should they be the ones taxed? He's not saying that industries shouldn't be taxed to cover losses, he's saying that the government should go after specific industries (like the auto industry) that aren't performing as well as they should be. Chase, if I remember correctly, was very good about repaying their loans on time. Now why should they be punished for that?

Oh, and Warren Buffett plans on donating the vast majority of his wealth away upon his death, so I usually give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that his suggestions are intended to improve the economy as a whole rather than build up wealth. What's it matter to him if he makes or loses another billion when he's giving it away in the end? Nah, I think he's a good guy.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#92

Post by Locke1689 »

drblast wrote: post #14

Voluntary gifts of money can be sent to the U.S. Treasury at this address: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html One has to ask, if any super rich person really considered the U.S. Government a worthwhile investment, why are they donating to various charities instead of to the Treasury?

It is a logical fallacy to equate the statement "I believe the rich should be obligated to pay more in taxes" to "I believe I alone should pay more in taxes."

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#93

Post by jeffreymcmanus »

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…

You know what I find "simply disgusting on moral grounds"? Shortening the school year by a week because we can't find enough money to pay teachers to teach a full school year. This is happening in our school district and in districts all over the country. The reason is because nobody can make a correlation between the taxes we pay and the benefits we receive.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#94

Post by pmorici »

hugh4life wrote: post #68

"But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate. " If you really want to see something get passed, you're better off putting the cuto…

Buffet is talking about "Taxable Income" meaning a small business or family farm would have to be making 1 Million in profits for it's owners before they would actually be effected by such an increase in rates.

Consumption tax would likely put an undue burden on the poor because where as the rich invest and save a large portion of their income the poor spend close to 100% of what they make on things like food and housing.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#95

Post by dantheman »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #79
dantheman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only do that because it pays off. If the government was more decentralized and controlled significantly less dollars the incentives wouldn't be there and it wouldn't happen. It's a structural problem that happens in any system. Where power is concentrated it becomes beneficial to influence it - the more concentrated the more that can be spent.

It's not necessary (or even wise) to decentralize government in order to remove the influence of money on politics. One relatively easy change that would almost completely remove the quid pro quo bribery effect of campaign contributions is to anonymize contributions so that candidates never know who their contributions are coming from. That way there would be no payback possible, and influence peddling through campai…

Here's one, of many work arounds.

Candidates expresses their opinion on X; those with a vested interest in X pour tons of money into his campaign so that the candidate that they agree with is selected. And since that candidate already shares the position with them, when he needs backing from industry that's who he'll meet with.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#96

Post by tapp »

j_baker wrote: post #67
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:…

Our deficit is $14.6 trillion. TARP, which cost ~$80 billion (with still more to be paid back), is a rounding error in that deficit. Changing tax rates would have a much bigger impact on the deficit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program#P...

> Our deficit is $14.6 trillion.

Just in the interest of precision: it's actually our national debt which is approximately 14.6 trillion. Our deficit this year will be closer to 1.5T.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12039

Not that they aren't both mind-boggling numbers

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#97

Post by MikeCapone »

TheSkeptic wrote: post #78
MikeCapone wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

You should do your research before making statements like "especially since he's stayed away from wall street's games and made extraordinary efforts to keep things above board for decades." Buffett didn't sit idly by while his holdings were threatened. He lobbied for, and supported, bailouts. Not content with bailouts of companies he owned large stakes in, he made sweetheart deals to invest in Goldman Sachs and GE kn…

I've done my research about Buffet. I've read 2 biographies, a compilation of his annual letters, some of his early partnership letters, and most of his op-eds and TV interviews. The people who criticize Buffett usually don't know much about him and it shows in how they paint him in the stereotypical tycoon brush.

I sincerely believe that he was in favor of the bailouts because he thought that it was the least bad option at the time. Without more liquidity in the system, things could have turned out much worse than they did.

Sweetheart deals in GS and GE? Buffett had lots of cash and they needed it, so he made deals that were very profitable to BErkshire and they took it because they didn't have a choice. I'm sure he expected the government to step in because it was obvious to him that they didn't have a choice, but I don't think he had inside information.

Buffett has explained his derivative investments in recent annual letters, and his explanation made perfect sense. I'm sure you can find it, it was probably in the 2009 one ±1 year.

Both Buffett and Munger have been very critical of rating agencies and accountants, but I'm sure they've also defended both against criticism that they think is unfair. It's not because you're wrong that you're wrong in all ways, always in bad faith, and about everything.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#98

Post by Nicknameless »

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 live in Australia, I'm in my late 20's, I've got a pretty good software dev job and I pay about 25% income tax (which includes 37% above $80k). I don't know what the real tax rate would be after factoring in all of the other taxes I pay.

For such a high amount of tax, I enjoy a very high standard of living. A four year software engineering degree cost me about $18k due to our sane education system, and I've never had to worry about whether I can afford decent healthcare or factored health insurance into career decisions.

Our high tax rate is offset by lower costs for universal services, and people generally have more freedom with their life decisions. As such, a substantially lower tax rate or major cut in social services would be disgusting on moral grounds to me, and I feel that your government is screwing its citizens by doing just that.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#99

Post by splat »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #79
dantheman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only do that because it pays off. If the government was more decentralized and controlled significantly less dollars the incentives wouldn't be there and it wouldn't happen. It's a structural problem that happens in any system. Where power is concentrated it becomes beneficial to influence it - the more concentrated the more that can be spent.

It's not necessary (or even wise) to decentralize government in order to remove the influence of money on politics. One relatively easy change that would almost completely remove the quid pro quo bribery effect of campaign contributions is to anonymize contributions so that candidates never know who their contributions are coming from. That way there would be no payback possible, and influence peddling through campai…

I suspect that forcing donations to be anonymous would come into conflict with the first amendment.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#100

Post by shangaslammi »

hugh4life wrote: post #68

"But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate. " If you really want to see something get passed, you're better off putting the cuto…

How on earth does consumption tax have anything to do with "shared sacrifice"? Consumption tax wrecks the purchasing power of the poor (who spend pretty much 100% of their income on taxed goods) and doesn't have any effect on the purchasing power of the super rich (who typically only spend a minor portion of their income on consumer goods).
Post reply on HN