Warren Buffett - "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich" - Page 11

On August 17 2011 08:33 semantics wrote:

loud minorities tend to take the spotlight, and for some reason the media treats them as the majority probably because they have more zaz.

On August 17 2011 08:13 BuddhaMonk wrote:


Buffett was talking for the most part about capital gains. So why do you exclude that from the discussion?

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

On August 17 2011 08:32 hacpee wrote:

Warren Buffet is a liberal. His mentality is that he wants the government to take other people's money but HANDS OFF GOVERNMENT, I decide what to do with my own money.

On August 17 2011 08:42 Sgany wrote:
I have never understood why rich people should be taxed more for being succesful.........People choose in the USA and UK etc to be poor by not working in school etc.

On August 17 2011 08:45 Whitewing wrote:


This is an uneducated opinion. Many people who work very hard still wind up being poor or low middle class. Take teachers for example, it's a labor of love. The money they earn (at least in the US) is very low amounts, it's enough to live off of and they aren't broke for example, but it is a low middle class income/high lower class. Does that mean they want to be poor? No, they want to teach, it just happens that nobody pays teachers well.

This was just one example, there are thousands of ways one can wind up being low class or low middle class even though you work very hard. Let's not pretend everyone has the same opportunities.

On August 17 2011 06:46 FoeHamr wrote:
don't richest people in this country pay the most taxes already?

On August 17 2011 08:14 Expurgate wrote:


Why do you seem so angry in all these political-economic threads?

On August 17 2011 08:43 Kaitlin wrote:


A couple responses ago, I was talking about comparing taxable income to taxable income and taxes paid by Buffett and his "secretary" as the comparison. In Buffett's editorial, quoted below, he includes "payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf". He is including the employer-paid payroll taxes to distort the math. It's complete bullshit. Since payroll taxes are capped at such a low number, and account for about 15% of earnings, with no reduction for deductions, it will be 15% of his secretary's entire income, and the secretary isn't even paying half of that. It's paid by the employer. So, his secretary's percentage is bumped by 15% for payroll taxes, even though she only pays half of it, while it barely changes Buffett's percentage, since his taxable income is astronomical, and the payroll taxes only amount to a few thousand dollars.

I was simply stating that he manipulates the comparison to maximize the "political effect" of what he is trying to accomplish, which is inevitably to help the President garner support to raise taxes. The lay public reads his column, doesn't understand the details of the numbers, and begins to believe the class warfare arguments.

Capital gains receive preference because the government wants to encourage investment in the economy. Sure, the investors (sometimes rich investors) get benefit from these preferences, but mostly the true beneficiary is the businessman whose idea was funded by this investor and they were able to spur economic growth. It's not just about tax benefits for the rich, it's about encouraging economic growth through investment.

On August 17 2011 08:49 DeLoReAn wrote:
What are you talking about Sgany? lol 100 top universities for, for Free? Where do you get your information from?

On August 17 2011 08:44 rhs408 wrote:


His mentality is that he doesn't mind giving a bit of his wealth back to the country from whom he was able to make so much money off of.

Hacpee maybe you should move to a country that has zero taxes, that way ALL of your money will be yours! Just one thing, it may be a bit more difficult to make as much money as you were making in America. America is an awesome place to make money... even if you get taxed a bit more than others because you make an obscene amount of money, you still come out way ahead in the end compared to if you were doing business in some other backward, tax free or low tax country.

On August 17 2011 08:43 Kaitlin wrote:
It's not just about tax benefits for the rich, it's about encouraging economic growth through investment.

On August 17 2011 08:47 Sgany wrote:


Then it is your own fault, for choosing that career, very well it is the job you want to do but still you choose to do it.

and anyone in the UK or US has access to top 100 universities easily, for free.

On August 17 2011 08:45 Whitewing wrote:
This is an uneducated opinion. Many people who work very hard still wind up being poor or low middle class. Take teachers for example, it's a labor of love. The money they earn (at least in the US) is very low amounts, it's enough to live off of and they aren't broke for example, but it is a low middle class income/high lower class. Does that mean they want to be poor? No, they want to teach, it just happens that nobody pays teachers well.

This was just one example, there are thousands of ways one can wind up being low class or low middle class even though you work very hard. Let's not pretend everyone has the same opportunities.