Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#291

Post by DanielBMarkham » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 1:53 PM UTC

Once I realized that you could take all the money from the rich, stop all defense spending, and still have a massive budget problem? These sorts of things stopped being an issue for me.

Seriously folks, it's a red herring, an issue created to make sure that one party has something to fight the other party over. If you want to sack the rich, have at it. Just don't pretend that by taking that position you are doing anything at all for the national treasury. Or poor folks, for that matter.

In the larger picture, many technologists view the state as something of the past. Tens of thousands of people make their money simply because computers are hooked to each other over wires. It has very little to do with national budgets or policy (yes, you can throw out a bunch of silly nonsense about national broadband policies and such, but let's get real: this economic activity takes place in all sorts of various scenarios.)

So if you are the type to sit around pining away your day, thinking about all those super-rich folks and how good they have it, I'm sure this will be a fun article for you. If, however, you are concerned with public policy -- and the fact that in the US, at least, the majority of people do not even pay an income tax, yet vote on the rates for the rich minorities (gee, wonder how that will turn out?) then this is all so much posturing.

I don't feel a need to slam Buffett. He's a patriotic citizen who means well. Smarter guy than me in a lot of areas. I'm just not sure that this article has anywhere near enough merit to have 500+ points on HN. It offers no solutions, only rehashed populist tripe. If you want to set the income tax at 95% of all money made over a million bucks? Have at it. It's not important.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#292

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #244

webXL wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes low to middle income people are single issue voters and that issue happens to be the effective tax rate of billionaires. What's dumbfounding is that there are people who believe that wealth is zero-sum, and that by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, "justice" would be done, never taking into account what produces wealth or the fact that living standards have improved despite the rich getting ri…

I think there is a point about fairness as well. Taxes are progressive for a reason. Those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greater burden. Warrent Buffet is perhaps giving away a lot of what he maybe would have given in taxes but plenty of billionaires or super rich just spend it on their spoiled sons and daughters, some who end up in rehab, spent a tremendous amount of resources to create a parallel soci…

[deleted]

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#293

Post by kahawe » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:01 PM UTC

JabavuAdams wrote: post #278

kahawe wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have always wondered: there has got to be a certain amount of money that by all normal standards HAS to be enough for a human being. If you are so rich, you can only have so many houses and cars and all sorts of other toys that you don't even need half of... then you want to leave something for your kids and their kids and generations to come, your relatives and family but still, that is considerably little. A…

Because no such limit exists. Yes, there are a lot of people spending mega-bucks on what I consider frivolities -- utter waste. But, there are others starting space programs. I don't want to lose the latter.

You are trying to tell me that someone like Warren Buffet with a net worth of $50 billion can really actually make good use of all that money? I know, "there can never be enough" out of principle. But really, with 50bn I imagine you could not (sanely) possibly spend it fast enough in a way where you get something out of it or in return; it would grow back faster in interest than you can dish it out.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#294

Post by billjings » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #279

gaius wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's relevant. At his level, he can pay however much tax he wants, anywhere in the world, and this will always be the case. What he's calling for is other people paying more tax.

You fundamentally miss his point. Even without finding a thousand loopholes to get out of his taxes, he will pay a lower percentage just based on HOW he makes his money. 1) The payroll tax is capped, so a guy making exactly the income it is capped at, and a guy making 100x that, pay exactly the same payroll tax. No accountant required and it is an enormous difference. For Warren, that is millions of dollars right the…

I would also note that it is worthwhile to be wary of the "double tax" rhetoric. At best, it is an ideological point of dubious worth - i.e., that there is a moral injustice in taxing some money twice. How much moral injustice? Well, I don't know - how much worse is it really than the idea of taxation itself? If I'm okay with being taxed, I'm probably more concerned with how much I'm being taxed, how fair it is compared to other folks, etc., than I am with whether it's two smaller taxes vs. one larger one.

At worst, though, it's a shell game that distracts from what's really going on in the tax code. In everything I've seen, taxes occur on transactions, not on stored wealth. So it's pretty easy to point at any income and outflow and argue that the money itself is being taxed twice. One could argue that the sales tax is a double tax - I'm paying income tax when I earn my paycheck, and then sales tax on the same paycheck when I spend it on groceries.

Anyway - in your example, the non-investor pays taxes on, let's say, $50k of income, then buys a car with it. The investor pays taxes on, let's say, $40k of income, invests it shrewdly, then takes the final $50k out of the investment and buys a car. The non-investor pays income tax on his $50k; the investor pays income tax on $40k, then capital gains on the $10k he made on the market.

The government could have easily taxed the investor on the entire amount withdrawn. That would obviously be pretty dumb, though.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#295

Post by epscylonb » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:06 PM UTC

seabee wrote: post #286

epscylonb wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I put fairer in quotes is because it is a term that can be argued over. Yes two bands, with the focus on making it attractive for people to earn money and pay tax, ideally the 0% band would be just enough to clothe, feed yourself and pay rent in a bad neighbourhood. Progressive is a word that seems to mean different things to the left and the right, I notice you didn't define it. As I said a flat tax is ec…

'Progressive' as used in the same context as your original post is basically a placeholder for 'benefiting the groups I care about'. It's not a meaningful word to use, and you even know that. Contrast with 'progressive tax', which is well-defined. I don't understand the line of thinking which effectively says "people don't want to earn £2 if they have to pay £1 in tax". Erm, you're still richer than you were if you d…

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> The problem with the libertarian perspective is that it irrationally assumes the best of people when there is no incentive for them to do so.

I assume no such thing about people regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

I think crux of our disagreement is about the involvement of government in peoples lives. I heard a quote recently, "The more the government tries to do the less well it does everything", I might have mangled that slightly.

Your supposition is that we need the government to force us to be nice and act in a way that is beneficial to society, if so isn't that a losing proposition from the outset?. Who is the moral arbiter here?, I would really like to minimize the amount of situations where government passes judgement on its citizens.

What I am really against is mob rule, the state is a necessary evil, a large state is a larger evil.

I am convinced that while the last century's politics was dominated by left versus right, this century will be dominated by authoritarian versus libertarian. The world isn't black and white, in certain situations we can't avoid making those kind of judgements but where we can avoid it we should.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#296

Post by onemoreact » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:15 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #290

gaius wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a word that has been at best deliberately overloaded, and at worst hijacked. Who would want to stand in the way of "progress"? It could equally well mean, the more you earn they more you get to keep.

No, it is a description of the tax code. It is not a judgement of the tax code. It is a 'progressive tax' or 'progressive tax rate'. It has nothing to do with 'progress' or the 'Progressive party'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

Yes, but people call our taxcode Progressive, when as Buffet point's out it's regressive at the top.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#297

Post by stanleydrew » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:17 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #190

jquery wrote: post #182

Notice that Warren Buffett is asking for tax increases on those who make more than $1M and $10M respectively. I'm fine with this. He seems to "get", unlike so many Democrats, that $250k/year is not rich. Where I get nervous is all the Democrats who seem to think that there is no difference between $250k and $1M/year and up. I get kind of ill seeing obscenely wealthy Democrats in Congress, almost all making MUCH more…

Agree completely. I think the problem is that $250K is around that "top 1%" mark. It's a convenient demarcation line and makes for a smooth soundbite. What many don't get is that the bottom of the top 1% includes doctors, attorneys, and entrepreneurs.

Why do the professions of those at the bottom of the top 1% matter?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#298

Post by ender7 » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:19 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #291

Once I realized that you could take all the money from the rich, stop all defense spending, and still have a massive budget problem? These sorts of things stopped being an issue for me. Seriously folks, it's a red herring, an issue created to make sure that one party has something to fight the other party over. If you want to sack the rich, have at it. Just don't pretend that by taking that position you are doing any…

Please supply a source for your claim in your first sentence.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#299

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:23 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #291

Once I realized that you could take all the money from the rich, stop all defense spending, and still have a massive budget problem? These sorts of things stopped being an issue for me. Seriously folks, it's a red herring, an issue created to make sure that one party has something to fight the other party over. If you want to sack the rich, have at it. Just don't pretend that by taking that position you are doing any…

[deleted]

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#300

Post by cfontes » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 2:26 PM UTC

Very well pointed, it takes a lot of altruism to say that when you are the potential target. I read Snowball and like this man actions and thoughts. He is really a very unique kind of person, some might argue that he did some things to benefit himself in the past, But I disagree and think that the world would be a better place if more man like this were in charge of the power over civilization.