Stop coddling the super-rich: Buffett

Stop coddling the super-rich: Buffett

www.reuters.com

Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments.

"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice," The 80-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times.

(visit the link for the full news article)

So there you have it. A billionaire telling congress to raise his taxes. His tax rate was 17% while the people in his office paid an average of 36%. He advocates raising taxes on the super wealthy. Who would have thought? He also said that when capital gains tax was at almost 40%, investors still invested an made money. They did not mind paying the tax either because they made money.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Why doesnt he lead by example and send a 5 billion dollar check to Washington?

reply to post by Gannicus


Cuz he's not stupid.
lol

Obama bought this up during one of his many t/v appearances during the debt ceiling debate. he often uses Warren Buffet as an example of those with money who want to do the right thing & are willing to pay a higher tax rate. unfortunately because Obama & Buffett are friends and agree on this issue the GOP leadership in Congress will react the way they always do. they'll ignore it. I'm not sure if the GOP leaders are more concerned with protecting their country club buds or putting the screws to Obama. whatever the case may be the American people suffer the consequences.

reply to post by grey580


Exactly. He knows the government would just spend the money on a bunch of retarded crap. Guys like Buffet get championed for being generous with OTHER PEOPLE's money. In fact, its a staple of left wing ideology.

I am sure the Treasury dept is eagerly awaiting the $ billion check that is sure to be coming from Buffett any day now.

reply to post by Gannicus


I am not a leftist by any stretch, but my point in posting this was to highlight that the people who need their taxes raised are the "super rich" not the guy making $250k a year as Nobama wants to do. These people are the ones everyone hates for being obscenely wealthy.

reply to post by haarvik


An interesting article about how the super rich actually hide themselves from what constitutes as being "rich".

But where are the super rich? An average of $117,500 is an upper-middle income, not at all representative of a rich cohort, let alone a super rich one. All such reports about income distribution are based on U.S. Census Bureau surveys that regularly leave Big Money out of the picture. A few phone calls to the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. revealed that for years the bureau never interviewed anyone who had an income higher than $300,000. Or if interviewed, they were never recorded as above the "reportable upper limit" of $300,000, the top figure allowed by the bureau's computer program. In 1994, the bureau lifted the upper limit to $1 million. This still excludes the very richest who own the lion's share of the wealth, the hundreds of billionaires and thousands of multimillionaires who make many times more than $1 million a year. The super rich simply have been computerized out of the picture.

dissidentvoice.org...

In the end, the Federal Reserve Bank doesn't care how American debt interest gets paid... as long as the principle remains untouched.... which it apparently does.

It's not taxation that will solve the problems... it's a governmental overhaul of fiscal and monetary policy. Manipulating fiscal policy can only go so far, but congress gave a monopoly to the Fed on monetary policy and somehow, I don't think the Fed and the American people are on the same page.

Originally posted by Gannicus
reply to post by grey580

 

Exactly. He knows the government would just spend the money on a bunch of retarded crap. Guys like Buffet get championed for being generous with OTHER PEOPLE's money. In fact, its a staple of left wing ideology.

What he is advocating would apply to him. The difference is that then, there will be a paper trail. Your argument would only work were he himself trying to be exempt. He is not.

Originally posted by Gannicus
reply to post by grey580

 

Exactly. He knows the government would just spend the money on a bunch of retarded crap. Guys like Buffet get championed for being generous with OTHER PEOPLE's money. In fact, its a staple of left wing ideology.

And what do you think the government does with the 37% of our tax money they get? That's right they spend it on a bunch if retarded crap! So that being said does that still seem fair to you? Why the hell should the super rich not have to pay the same percentage as the rest of us? I mean if people want to use the lame excuse of " They create jobs" I have to laugh.

We are talking about personal income, not their corporate taxes. I wish people and our moronic politicians would relise the two are different.

How better to bring this to the attention of regular people, than to have a billionaire give figures for the discrepancy in taxation between the rich and the poor. 17% versus 36% for those less wealthy than he. When you are talking about income of $48 million that is a difference of about $8 million dollars in taxes a year. Take an average income of $100,000 pay 17% versus 36% that is a difference of about $19,000 dollars. Uh duh!

There are approximately 2.6 million millionaires in the US. According to Forbes there are about 403 billionaires in the US. If their tax structure is similar to Buffet's, that is a lot of lost tax revenue. According to the US Census, there are approximately 152 million wage earners in the US. Removing the millionaires/billionaires, that leaves about 149 million.

www.cbpp.org...

Only a very small share of tax filers have incomes high enough to be subject to the highest marginal income tax rates. IRS data show that in 1997, the latest year for which this information is available: Less than one-quarter of all tax filers were in tax brackets higher than the 15 percent bracket. Only four percent of tax filers were in the 31 percent bracket or a higher bracket. Less than one percent of filers were in the top bracket, where the marginal tax rate is 39.6 percent. The average adjusted gross income of filers in the 39.6 percent bracket exceeded $900,000 in 1997.

Using the above figures, the top tax bracket of less than one percent of filers at 39.6% would have provided approximately $540 billion dollars in taxes versus $230 billion dollars at 17%, a $310 billion dollar difference. How can that not make a difference.

www.taxfoundation.org...

The table shown at the above link shows that the Adjusted Gross Income of all taxpayers in the US 2008 was about $8.5 trillion dollars. The top 1% was about $1.7 trillion, the bottom 50% was about $1 trillion dollars. The top 50% was about $7.3 trillion total including the top 1%.

This is a bit of an eyeopener. A total tax revenue base of $8.5 trillion. At 39.6 percent for everybody,that only gives a tax revenue of about $3.4 trillion dollars. That just about equals the annual interest on our National Debt.

I think I am going to be sick. It would take two years of all Adjusted gross income to pay our National Debt off at 100% taxation. I know from my own credit experience, you can never pay a debt by just making interest payments. This is going to be a horribly painful recovery.

By the way, feel free to correct my figures and logic. I am looking for the truth of the matter here. BT

Excellent read on the super rich.

ampedstatus.org... e-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/

Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion August 10th, 2011 | Filed under Economy, Feature, Hot List, News, Politics & Government . Follow comments through RSS 2.0 feed. Click here to comment, or trackback. Email This Email This - Print This Print This Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to Digg Post to StumbleUpon Editor’s Note: The following report includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” Release Date: 9.28.11 Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 TrillionBy David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report Abstract :: Welcome to World War III Introduction Part One :: The Economic Devastation I :: Poverty II :: Food Insecurity III :: Unemployment IV :: Declining Income Part Two :: The Economic Elite V :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have? VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1% VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation) VIII :: Debt Slavery IX :: Inflation X :: The Beaten Masses Part Four :: Fascism in America XI :: Modern Day Slavery XII :: The Death Toll XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks Abstract :: Welcome to World War III Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people. Introduction The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits. The global Economic Elite have been much more strategic in handling the American public, as they are potentially the greatest threat to their continued consolidation of wealth, resources and power. National populations that are not as powerful, and on the periphery of the Economic Elite’s global empire, have been dealt with in much harsher fashion. In many smaller and less powerful countries the dramatic rise in food prices and costs of living have led to all-out revolt — Tunisia, Algeria, Albania and Egypt were among the first to rebel. While the contagion of rebellion has rapidly spread throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, it is also spreading in a decentralized manner throughout most of the world, now threatening popular rebellion throughout Europe. Like the US population, the geographically clustered European nations represent a potentially powerful countervailing force to the Economic Elite’s continued domination. Within the United States, the technocratic suppression of the population has been extensive. Increasingly severe economic and governmental policies have systematically eroded civilian wealth, power and rights. Intensive propaganda has effectively distracted, confused, isolated, marginalized and divided the US population. Despite the success of these efforts thus far, given the severe, prolonged, unsustainable and escalating level of economic suffering, outbreaks of civil unrest are inevitable. The US population, if a critical mass is reached, represents the greatest threat to the Economic Elite. In this regard, the American people are their primary adversary. In writing this report, I will clearly demonstrate the severity and scale of the deliberate systemic economic attacks against the US population, in hope that we can urgently build a critical mass of aware and engaged citizens. Part One :: The Economic Devastation Snapshot: According to most recent Census Bureau data, from 2005 – 2009, average US household wealth declined by 28%. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household. Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of US households, have zero or negative net worth. The Census figures cited above are based on statistics that have been consistently proven to be lowball estimates. The government and corporate media spread propaganda on vital economic statistics that mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive inflation, unemployment, poverty and GDP measures, which cast the illusion of recovery, are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. Throughout this report, we will explore significant examples of government economic propaganda. In several cases, the government has been forced to revise their numbers due to proven inaccuracies. The government’s “revisions” are most always for the worse, and are usually just a footnote correction that the public is rarely ever aware of. All that being said, for many statistics we are forced to use government data, as there are not any other extensive data sets available from alternative sources. I :: Record Breaking Poverty

reply to post by Gannicus

Using OTHER PEOPLE's money

...is standard in the business world.

Super rich are useless non-productive parasites and buffet is a perfect example. He's just a stock speculator like so many of the rich. Other richies are lawyers and politicians and bankers and entertainers and athletes. Just a few good richies that actually make something - steven jobs and the late andrew grove qualify.

Originally posted by Make Speed Limit 45
Super rich are useless non-productive parasites and buffet is a perfect example. He's just a stock speculator like so many of the rich. Other richies are lawyers and politicians and bankers and entertainers and athletes. Just a few good richies that actually make something - steven jobs and the late andrew grove qualify.

I've been saying that Bill Gates & the Boys are not the bad guys for years here on ATS. But the apple-tarts know better. They know who to hate, how to hate them, and are quite comfortable sticking with what they know. Allow me to ask this question of anyone who uses the words rich and parasite in the same sentence. When is the last time the vast majority of Americans was right about anything?


David Grouchy

Warren Buffet also said this.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

www.nytimes.com...

The guy is a cun*.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
Warren Buffet also said this.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

www.nytimes.com...

The guy is a cun*.

And why is he that? For telling the truth? And he's right the rich are winning that is what happens when you are able to buy the greedy sob's we vote into office.

reply to post by buster2010


You do not get that rich without being so, without trampling workers rights.

Wow, he said what we all know, what a hero.