Warren Buffett - "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich" - Page 44

On September 20 2011 12:03 Joedaddy wrote:


Sure. The difference is we the people have the freedom of choice to take our business elsewhere when we disagree with their business practices. You have the option to go and work somewhere else if you feel you are being treated unfairly. You also have the freedom to sue your employer if your rights as an American are being infringed upon.

What about when it is the government redistributing wealth? Can we take our business elsewhere and refuse to pay taxes? Sure, if you like 3 hots and a cot bunking with Warren Jeffs 365. As a matter of law, we are required to pay taxes. If you don't like government's business practices (aka policies) you don't get to opt out of doing business with them. This is the reason why your argument of Corporate redistribution is wrong. It's wrong, just like your OP, and only offers misinformation and biased opinion.

Edit: It is unfortunate that your entry level IT job was reduced to temp status with no benefits. I can't help but wonder though, would you pay someone $100 to mow your lawn if you could get the same services for $50? Does it make you evil and oppressive if you choose to pay less money for the same thing?

Taxes are incredibly low in America compared to the rest of the world. I think the best thing we could do for our budget by far is lowering defense spending. It's way too high for a country that isn't even in danger of being invaded or attacked by a foreign country. $689 billion, or 20% of our budget, is pretty ridiculous.

Pretty much if we want to keep the budget exactly how it is we need to raise taxes on everyone. Or we need to make cuts. Or both.

On September 20 2011 12:34 DoubleReed wrote:


While I'm all for cutting defense spending, do keep in mind that our defense budget in particular employs tons of people, including cutting edge research in several fields, and includes humanitarian efforts that our soldiers engage in during peacetime (which I guess is all the time).

On September 20 2011 12:31 reddog1999 wrote:
so going to school to get said job. is a poor decision now?

On September 20 2011 12:38 Joedaddy wrote:


Who would you suggest be in charge of keeping it in check?

On September 20 2011 11:38 thebigdonkey wrote:
Just curious for the people who argue that progressive taxing is taking from someone to give to another:

Doesn't the same thing happen every day in business? Jobs and benefits are cut routinely for the sake of the shareholder. Just for example, I work an entry level job in IT. Just a few years ago, it was a permanent position complete with benefits. Now? They hire through temp agencies with zero benefits because the primary client (a Fortune 100 company) wants to constantly lower their IT costs. I ask you, where is that money being redistributed to? if someone has their health benefits cut or completely taken away for the sake of share price, isn't that redistribution of wealth too? Isn't that the money of poorer people being taken away and given to the largely wealthier shareholder? This sort of erosion is happening everywhere in the country. That's why I'm unmoved by the property arguments.

On September 20 2011 12:58 thebigdonkey wrote:
The same entity that has been doing it for the last 100 years. Workplace safety laws, overtime laws, child labor laws, workers' compensation..all of them are government regulated and none of them would strictly be considered an efficient use of resources in capitalistic terms, but I don't think anyone can really argue that we shouldn't have them. I think it's very tempting to try to apply efficiency principles all the way across the board with the idea that a more economically efficient society is a better society. I'm not convinced. I think we need to be less concerned with strict application of a system and more concerned with trying to extract the highest quality of life possible for our citizens.

On September 20 2011 13:06 Kaitlin wrote:


Some may argue some of these things are part of the reason jobs are being shipped overseas. Since we are in a global marketplace, businesses have a choice where their products are manufactured, where their telemarketing and customer service calls are handled, etc. These additional restrictions upon the workplace in the developed world, while well-intentioned, has an impact on cost and contributes to the analysis of whether to use labor from the U.S. or some third-world country without these restrictions.

On September 20 2011 09:50 Holophonist wrote:
Like I said, the onus is on all of you to explain yourselves for implementing the system... or rather defending the people who did. You are the one who has to explain why your unfairness should be accepted.

On September 20 2011 13:40 KiaL.Kiwi wrote:
I know that my post comes 4 pages too late, but I felt that I needed to answer the post. Don't let yourself be distracted from your recent discussion by it ;D


I'd say because the need for them is written down in our (Germanys) constitution. Article 14 of it says "Eigentum verpflichtet. Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen." which could be roughly translated into "property/prosperity equal/obligate responsibility. Usage of it should always consider/take into account the common good."

There are several reasons to approve progressive taxes, but the first and foremost is that our society is meant to be a society of solidarity. It's not only a question of economics, but of morality:
The ones who are better off (for whatever reason) look after the ones who are off worse (for whatever reason) because a.) the situation of yourself is always temporary and could change to the better/worse and b.) because of the realisation that every individual fate is influenced by hunderts of external factors and some luck of the draw². No one is completly responsible for neither his success, nore his failures - and therefore everyone should give a amount of his wealth that doesn't hurt him to make the overall situation of all citizens better.

To put it another way: prosperity equals responsibility for your society because it is the framework of the society that allowed you to become wealthy in the first place, it isn't an achievement that you and you alone could be considered responsible for but rather was achieved with the help of the interaction of infrastructure, safety, laws and their enforcement, other people in other jobs, and so forth.

You could also take on the very pragmatic view, that a system which doesn't balance the wealth between people (though yours really doesn't as is proven pretty easily, while ours works at least a bit better) in some way will collapse at some point, when the poor/supressed masses will take their situation no longer and just flat out overthrow the current system.

Other imho weaker justifications for progressive taxes (that follow the assumption that they are unfair and therefore need a justification in the first place) argue that while income increases the marginal utility decreases and after some point is only invested into luxuaries so that it's fair to take some of the wealth which would be used for luxuaries and spent it on increasing the public good. In other words: every additional euro you earn becomes less useful to you - while the first ones actually assure your survival and the first thousands a good life, the next 100.000 are basically luxuary only.

I'm not so familiar with your constitution (though I'd be suprised I one couldn't find something similar), but I find all of the above completly reasonable. I'm pretty sure that I will have to pay the highest tax rate in a few years, but I don't mind because I know that I still will be wealthier than a rather large percentage of our society and because I know that the money helps others who didn't have the possibilites I had. It's nothing but self-evident that I will show myself responsible and support the framework which allowed me to be who I am in the first place.


² And if you still believe every human has a completly free will that he alone owns and is therefore responsible for all his success/failures himself you should get your head out of the 19th century and brush up on the last 150 years of philosphy, (neuro)psychology, and humanities.

are you saying individual staff are taxed at corporate income tax?

On September 20 2011 14:39 dontnerfterranagain wrote:
Buffett is an accepted member of the "club", thats why he was given a 15% discount ticket on buying a bunch of goldman stock in 2008 after the crash, which goldmans stock recovered quickly and buffet made a ton of money.

Buffet is part of the new world order, or he is part of the elite ruling class. he knows he is already being double dipped, but he also knows that the new tax increase will not affect him. He is part of the super rich, and they will not have their taxes raised. This is all a trick and game by the new world order, whose objective is to raise taxes on upper middle class americans, anyone who makes between $250,000 and year to say 5 million a year. the new tax increase will not affect buffet or the super rich.

So they are playing with words. they are saying tax the rich, and what the mean is tax the middle class. they are going to wipe out their semi - close competition through taxes.

Goldman and JP morgan will still only be paying 1% corporate taxes.

Buffett is a NWO accepted club member, and they may have told him to come out and say this and help them pass the new middle class tax increase, use his good rep with american suckers

On September 20 2011 14:39 dontnerfterranagain wrote:
Buffett is an accepted member of the "club", thats why he was given a 15% discount ticket on buying a bunch of goldman stock in 2008 after the crash, which goldmans stock recovered quickly and buffet made a ton of money.

Buffet is part of the new world order, or he is part of the elite ruling class. he knows he is already being double dipped, but he also knows that the new tax increase will not affect him. He is part of the super rich, and they will not have their taxes raised. This is all a trick and game by the new world order, whose objective is to raise taxes on upper middle class americans, anyone who makes between $250,000 and year to say 5 million a year. the new tax increase will not affect buffet or the super rich.

So they are playing with words. they are saying tax the rich, and what the mean is tax the middle class. they are going to wipe out their semi - close competition through taxes.

Goldman and JP morgan will still only be paying 1% corporate taxes.

Buffett is a NWO accepted club member, and they may have told him to come out and say this and help them pass the new middle class tax increase, use his good rep with american suckers

On September 20 2011 13:24 thebigdonkey wrote:


That's a bit of a false dilemma. You're basically stating that you can either have a regulated industry that fails or you can have an unrestricted successful industry. Countries like Germany and the Nordic countries would like to offer you a third choice.