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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

#351

Post by dreww »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #143
dreww wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

living standards have improved despite the rich getting richer. Citation needed. Please explain how the living standard in the US can have improved if real wages have fallen. Oh wait, the answer is an incredible increase in consumer debt. That seems to be working out. Keep calm and carry on.

Please explain how the living standard in the US can have improved if real wages have fallen. If by "real wages", you mean "wages adjusted for chained CPI" (this is what most people mean), the answer is because the basket of goods used to compute CPI has become larger. I.e., consider the following scenario. In year 0, there is one good - food. A basket of food costs $100. In year 1, medicine is invented, and the cost…

thanks for your response - do you have a link to any data that shows the outcome of holding the basket of goods fixed? i will try to find some as well, just thought you might have some data handy.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#353

Post by a5seo »

dmayle wrote: post #344
a5seo wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's a question- if you follow Buffett's logic, then a guy who builds a company for 40 years, most likely goes with barely any income in some years, and sells it for $10M when he retires, that guy gets slapped with a 100% tax increase. Buffett doesn't differentiate the Walton kids who inherited billions and assuredly live off capital gains their entire lives from the entrepreneur who makes $10M that ONE year of…

Really? First, we're talking about the difference between ~20% and ~30%, so for your case, the business owner will only walk away with 7 million dollars to retire on. Is this entrepreneur undergoing undue hardship? What's barely any income for someone who builds a $10M company? 60k? 50k? It's certainly not $10,890 (the federal poverty level). Even if we're talking about a business owner who takes no income, it's beca…

"Do you really think that a higher tax rate will stop an entrepreneur from creating a company"

No, but more likely to sell early, give up more easily when the going gets tough, not invest as much in growth (and pocket the profits)... Yes. This is all about decisions "on the margin." It's truly a canard to suggest, as you do, that incentives don't matter.

"there was also a reason why there were bloody revolutions against the aristocratic class"

Please. Would you rather make $70k/yr today or $70k in 1900. Let's not pretend the pie is smaller today for those in middle or even bottom.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#354

Post by systemtrigger »

monkeypizza wrote: post #156
systemtrigger wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your math. $16.9 billion * (29.2% - 21.5%) = $1.30 billion. As to the additional revenues Buffett wants from the 236,883 richest households, if we assume the average of those households had taxable income of $5 million and if we raise their rates by 10% we get $118 billion.

No, he is talking about restoring the 1992 rate onto the 2008 income, which was 90.9 billion NOT your 16.9 billion. So the increase would be about 7 billion. from the article: >In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but…

I stand corrected.
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