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I’m sure Brian Williams almost had an aneurism:
Brian Williams: (There’s) a looming tax fight in Congress. The Democrats want to revamp the tax structure and get rid of some of the loopholes that the wealthy and corporations enjoy to pay less taxes. And it may surprise you to learn that one of the universally accepted richest guys in the world, Warren Buffett, feels he pays too little by percentage. This interesting campaign of his was unveiled in a recent conversation with Tom Brokaw. He’s here with us in the studio with more on this. This is fascinating.
Tom Brokaw: It is. And it is well known that Warren Buffett is a contrary billionaire. Unlike most of his fellow billionaires, he believes they should be paying a higher tax rate. And to prove his point, he decided to compare what he pays as a tax rate with what the people who work for him pay.
(Taped report begins)
Tom: Is this what you had in mind when you were 17, Warren?
Warren: Well, in a very, very, very general way…
Tom: It is no secret that Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, and the world’s third richest man, doesn’t have a great deal in common with his fellow billionaires.
Amidst the sports memorabilia and the modest office that is the nerve center of his empire, Buffett sees a fundamental injustice that he says touches all Americans.
Warren: The taxation system has tilted toward the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It’s dramatic and I don’t think it’s appreciated, and I think it should be addressed.
Personally, I’m shocked that “more for me” hadn’t managed to inch its way further up Maslow’s pyramid in the past six years. Not that the Ayn Rand fanclub hasn’t done their damndest…
(h/t a.s.)
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Zed?
7ish….
LOL, nice msmolly :)
jackie @ 3
My very first Zed. I let ‘em know downstairs.
Now, to read…
I can hear the catcalls from the peanut gallery on this one. The “news” certainly has lambasted John Edwards for turning his back on the needs of the rich. Thank goodness Buffett’s not running for office, eh?
I really like this guy for talking about the unfairness of our current tax structure(?)
now for something completely different..sry
left downstairs.
sorry OT, but this is probably is going to ‘miss’ MSM…
UN releases report into extent of damage, complications of 2006 Jiyyeh oil spill
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ar…..e_id=86517
Good on Buffett.
He really is an amazing guy.
I’m so sick of watching these six and seven figure anchors and reporters (with wonderful health care plans to be sure) on CNBC and the like continually bash any tax increase or universal health care proposal as bad for the economy.
Buffett’s a breath of fresh air in an otherwise disgustingly self serving universe.
jackie @ 6
2006 Jiyyeh oil spill
Working link.
Thank-you bilbo :)
Up next – the smear campaign against Warren Buffet, and a fifteen hundred word Hannity question that asks, “Is Warren Buffet a communist, or just insane?”
IIRC, Buffetts secretary pays more of a percentage in taxes than he does, which he pointed out as being patently unfair.
Wingnut heads exploded at that.
# 11
I just sprayed my cats with coffee,,lol
You know what takes the cake? The banter between Brokaw and Williams at the end.
Yeah, changing a tax system where the office workers from receptionists on up pay 32%, and the billionaire pays 14% is pretty controversial.
I don’t think the value of Buffett’s words can be overestimated.
Bustednuckles @ 11
Talk about heads exploding…he’s also against abolishing the estate tax!
TheGris @ 13
It’s pretty controversial in Brokaw’s social set, you can bet on it. And he and Russert still think of themselves as regular guys.
TeddySanFran @ 16
They are regular guys…assuming regular guys make millions of dollars every year and eat quail with KKKarl Rove.
Once again the old media catches up with I-net news
monthsyears after the fact. Weren’t he and Bill Gates Sr. both preaching this in the run-up to the ‘06 election?Nothing to see here…move along.
Oh, look, isn’t that Brian Williams on SNL? My, he’s entertaining.
TeddySanFran @ 16
Totally agreed. It’s truly amazing. I think Brokaw is enamored with his authoritative anchor voice, so much that he believes anything that he says — regardless of who put it there.
I guess the question is whether Warren Buffett and other like-minded gazillionaires are taking any action. Have they pestered Harry Reid about his postponing action on the hedge-fund managers’ pay being taxed as interest? Have they testified at a Ways & Means Committee hearing? Have they made an effort to make the unfairness of our tax system an issue in the presidential campaign?
These are people with almost limitless resources, name recognition, and access to the media megaphone. If truly moved, they could make something happen. Let’s roll, Warren.
keeping the general public down in the lower two levels of Maslow’s pyramid is by design…. if we are all TOO busy just trying to survive and being safe then we do not have time or energy to protest, work politically and be a general pain in the ass towards this administration.
Besides the draft and the lala media that the youth are not involved in numbers. My college kids are working full time jobs plus going to school full time just trying to survive AND have health insurance since they passed that magical age of 23 where they were cut off.
It is why Iraq is such a mess…. the USA cannot provide the first three levels to the Iraqi people and they are stuck just trying to survive.
keeping the general public down in the lower two levels of Maslow’s pyramid is by design…. if we are all TOO busy just trying to survive and being safe then we do not have time or energy to protest, work politically and be a general pain in the ass towards this administration.
It’s steam control. They give people just enough so that the rich don’t get murdered in their beds. See French history for details.
I’m sorry I always seem to go OT early in a thread, but I always read the thread so no disrespect is meant….
This essay is a little long. but worth a read.
NSPD-51 and the Potential for a Coup d’Etat by National Emergency
Published on Monday, November 05, 2007.
By William H. White
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=4699
I got this off Corrente’s blog.
He thinks this has something to do with DiFi’s ’support’ for Bush’s new AG.
‘URS Corp. increased its offer Monday to buy Boise-based Washington Group International.
The San Francisco-based company said it will now pay Washington Group shareholders an offer worth $97.89 a share based on the closing price of URS shares Friday.
Shares of WGI closed at $96.15 Friday.
When the two companies postponed the Oct. 30 shareholder vote on the buyout, analysts speculated that URS would come back with a higher offer.
Opponents of the buyout have said the original offer didn’t provide enough money for WGI shareholders given the strong performance of the company.
DiFi’s (third) husband, Richard Blum, is one of the major investtor/owners of URS, which will need federal approval for the merger/take-over.’
Huzzah for the back-end Techies and the Mods!
We were waiting at the front door and couldn’t get in.
As to your post Jane, Buffet is a regular smorgasbord of ideas that don’t fit “conventional wisdom”.
A little OT driveby here:
I’d like a show of hands…anyone think W has actually read “To Kill a Mockingbird?”
Bustednuckles @ 11
The hell with that. MY head exploded.
My daughter works at a fancy dancey restaurant in Mill Valley (The Buck***) where Bill and Warren sometimes have dindin. She waited on Warren his b’day a couple of years ago. She said the cake was as big as she is and had a big dollar bill on the top. She also said they were really nice and good tippers.
I saw the Buffett interview last week on Raw Story I think. I sent it to Mr. Gnome to share with all his rich republican friends and partners. It would hurt their wee greedy brains to think about equity for the little people who do the hard work that their businesses demand. They prefer to think of equity in other term: The kind of equity that makes them richer and richer.
Thanks for spreading the word Jane.
P.S. Did you see my poodle hat at our CenTex picnic yesterday?
STTP in Ohio @ 15
One look at our commander-in-chief explains why!
katymine @ 21
BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!
So, is it guilt or altruism that is driving Buffett?
Sure sounds refreshing in a decade where it seems like the dominant economic analysts of the Boosh administration have, as their stock answer to every question, that the problem with the economy is that the rich don’t have enough money.
Bob in HI
Wingnut’s head encounters cognitive dissonance…
Breaking: Jury Finds Wilkes Guilty on All Counts
Pardon pool party yet to get scheduled…
bobschacht @ 32
Maybe Buffett is one of those rare good extremely wealth humans.
Bilbo @ 8
Anyone holding their breath, waiting for Al Gore to comment on that gross environmental crime – you’re starting to turn blue…
jackie @ 23
Some OTs are better than others, and this is one!
bobschacht @ 32
It is quite refreshing when the Repug thought process is …..”I got mine and F**k everyone else” dragging the ladder up behind ….
Repug economics is a zero sum game. If you make sure that the poor and the middle class have more THEN the rich MUST be getting less. The problem is that the Clinton economy proves this wrong where every boat was raised. But the Kool-aid is stronger than facts.
Congessman McNerney, meet Mr. Buffett.
And please listen to him.
And another OT – New poll at The Poll Vault:
Should the Senate Democrats vote to confirm Mukasey as Attorney General?
I think the third richest man in the world should pay his secretary more than 60k.
Read ‘em and weep, firepups – corporations (that decide what you’ll see on the news and how much lead is in your kids’ toys) pay 7.4% of all taxes collected.
http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm
In the same spirit as Mr. Buffet, I once spoke with a very highly paid civil servant, who had also inherited wealth. In the course of a conversation about economics he said that if a tax law benefitted him it was a bad law.
It would be nice to see a bit more of that understanding of democratic and economic principles, in the US and around the world.
Sigh. Oh….NOT at this article, which is very, very good of Ms. Hamsher to bring to the forefront.
I sigh because, ONCE AGAIN, this represents a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY for my beloved Democrats to take the initiative, go on the offensive, and pin those greedy bastard R teamers TO THE WALL!
Where’s Nancy & Harry????? The interview highlighted by Ms. Hamsher should make for a Press Conference, a call-to-arms by our leadership. NO-ONE, with even half a brain, can dispute the financial opinions of Buffett.
This could be made into a HUGE attack on R team policy….the “branches” running out from this could be endless…and ALL to the benefit of the D team. But, what do you hear? Crickets?
Have my D team leaders forgotten the adage “seize the moment”? Have they forgotten how to ATTACK?????
Oh….nevermind.
Ghostman
Ghostman @ 43
They are listening to the tiny minority in the D party who also want to abolish the estate tax.
The wealthy should now pay more taxes? Well now. That is a fine idea. Make it retrocative. 60% of stocks are now owned by the richest 1%.
1,659 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
My wife had an encounter with breast cancer and at the same time our youngest daughter (now a college sophomore) got nailed with a severe eating disorder which came close ta killin’ ‘er. Since my wife is a teacher in a relatively progressive state (Wisconsin), we had about the best insurance available through the state’s teachers association and with that and a trust from Mrs. Norske’s deceased parents, we’ve been able ta survive to this point and get both daughters through college. However, the school district got low balled by a local health insurance combine this fall and all bets are off for ANY continuation of the coverage we have had to this point. It looks like we will be able to keep up with monthly professional counseling expenses but if the younger daughter has a relaps we’re gunna be in the high grass with jest 4 years left ta retirement.
So let’s put politics this year in context…this ain’t a beauty contest or a horserace…politics this year is for the survival of our country and for a future for our kids.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PUT IT ALL OUT THERE!!
The middle class. What today defines the middle class exactly?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 47
The ones in the SUV’s with the haunted looks in their eyes.
How do you redistribute the pirated wealth? Taxes. That’s how.
Ghostman @ 43
Shhhhh…you’ll wake ‘em up.
He said all this before the election in 2006, but it never made the big time news. What’s the difference now??? He also challenged Ted Turner and Bill gates to pay more than 1% of the income in donations and charity…which is what he said back in 2004 was what most billionaires give. He plans to give it all away before he dies as well. It reminds me of Armand Hammer. We need our values back!!!
crossedcrocodiles @ 42
Must’ve not been a Repug ’cause that’s against their bylaws.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 47
The one’s who think they own what they bought on credit that they can’t pay for.
marymccurnin @ 34
I think so. I think he is also an extremely intelligent man who realizes that even the rich need the same infrastructure as us peasants, and “starving the beast” is NOT the way to improve the existing infrrastructure; nor to keep us up to date enough to compete in a world market that is already way ahead of us in terms of bandwidth, etc.
A busted water main inconveniences everybody. Especially when it happens in lower Manhattan, in, say, the financial district.
Ben Stein (R-NYT business columnist on Sundays) has done one or two columns about the low taxes on the rich (IIRC, he thinks he should pay more, too). If anybody’s interested, I can search the Times archives (yippee! no more TimesSelect!) for a link.
Which of the presidential candidates from either party advocates a tax increase on the rich?
LS @ 53
I love it. To the head of the class with you. ;0)
Glen Beck did a big story about how this is a lie and that the wealthiest of the nation really pay the most taxes. In retrospect it was probably engineered to counteract Buffet’s last round of interveiws. It made my head want to explode and was full of lies!!
Brooklyn For Peace is organizing the vigil tomorrow night.
On Tweety, SOB Buchanan is dissing the representative of the youth against global warming. He just doesn’t believe in it…but she just spanked him.
If the Democratic leadership were not cut from the same bought-and-paid-for wealthy fabric as the Republicans, they might also point out this:
Buffet is an investor, not a philanthropist. His concern for his receptionist does not, for example, extend to paying her more than an arguably average salary for her work. So when he says the Rich ought to pay more, he doesn’t say this as a wild-eyed-pinko-commie, nor as a pie-in-the-sky philanthropist, but as a steely-eyed investor. He’s looking at his future earnings and he’s noticing that if this country doesn’t set its economic house in order, he doesn’t stand to make as much money as he would like to.
And as Warren Buffet goes, so goes the rest of the U.S. aristocracy.
It is NOT class warfare to call for equitable taxation – it’s bottom-line good commmon sense for EVERY class. But the Beltway is so throttled by ideology and corruption that only the third-richest man in the world can get away with speaking sense.
Albatross @ 60
I fully concur.
Ghostman
Bustednuckles @ 48
Pretty good.
Buffet us a VERY interesting guy. He’s the guy who announced after one of the Bush tax cuts “Now my secretary pays more taxes than I do”.
He usually drives a five year old american car and still lives in a small house he bought decades ago.
What’s he do with the money?
His investment approach continues to be a winner- and he apparently still gets a kick out of what he does- but he’s not in it for the money apparently.
Most of the rich give up nothing. You have to take it from them.
bobschacht @ 32
Buffett must have made his money by knowing how money moves around and which businesses are healthy and which aren’t; he may be seeing that the health of our economy is imperilled by this ‘Golden Age’ inequality. No surprize: imagine trying to start a business in your garage these days; imagine trying to live off the work of your own hands; imagine trying to grow a business while being responsible for the outrageous costs of health care for your employees. There’s a lot for Warren Buffett to see and be bothered by, I would guess.
Warren Buffet was helping Arnold Schwartzenegger while he was on the campaign trail. He was dismissed when he said that Prop. 13 made property taxes too low, and that he was paying less for an expensive property in California than he was for another far less expensive property in another state.
neokneme @ 33
Buffett. The new populist?
Q: Do you agree that the rich aren’t paying their fair share of taxes?
A: Middle-class and working families are paying a much higher percentage of their income. [Billionaires like] Warren Buffett pay about 17%, because don’t forget, it’s the payroll tax plus the income tax. And when you cut off the contribution at $95,000, that’s a lot of money between $95,000 and the $46 million that Warren Buffett made last year. We’ve got to get back to having those with the most contribute to this country.
(Hillary Clinton)
new post
Buffett favors the inheritance tax, saying that repealing it would be like “choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics”.[12].
Buffett has been recognized as most responsible for FASB 123 (r), or Stock Option Expensing on the GAAP Income Statement. When asked about the subject at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2004 annual meeting, he compared the United States Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to override FASB, who wanted to consider company-issued stock-option compensation as an expense, to a bill that passed in the Indiana house for Pi to be changed from 3.14…to 3.20.
Buffett has held fundraisers for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for president. He has not indicated who he will vote for, but he has expressed that both would make “great Presidents”. (
Katie Jensen @ 51
Actually, I believe Ted Turner challenged the others to give their fortunes away first. He started it by giving a couple of billion to the UN for various projects.
rwcole @ 71
Exactly the candidates I don’t want.
I think the deal is, Demo moneybags’ portfolios are making $$$ the way the economy is currently misconfigured.
They’re aren’t going to rock the boat tooo much, are they?
Eureka Springs @ 40
That’s top of the market in Omaha.
OT, but I finally stumbled across a site where waterboarding is discussed by a very knowledgeable person, and it is NOT a ‘SIMULATION OF DROWNING’; it IS drowning. He writes:
“2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.
Call it “Chinese Water Torture,” “the Barrel,” or “the Waterfall,” it is all the same. Whether the victim is allowed to comply or not is usually left up to the interrogator. Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought. These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraieb, Baghram and Guantanamo. No doubt, to avoid human factors like fear and guilt someone has created a one-button version that probably looks like an MRI machine with high intensity waterjets.”
Oklahoma kiddo @ 45
Retroactivity is so not happening. Small matter of the Due Process Clause and a Supreme Court case called Carlton.
Katie Jensen @ 57
You can, if you have the stomach for it, pull enough data out of IRS Statistics of Income Bulletins and spin and bend it to “prove” just about any hypothesis you can think of.
burnspbesq @ 77
Well… perhaps Mr. Buffett could just have one of his accountants estimate the retro part, and he could, without a tax write off, donate it to charity.
Geez, Warren Buffett, speaking for the “little people” and the unfairness of the tax code. I’m not impressed nor honored that he deigned to come down from Olympus and masquerade amongst the peasantry.
BuffetZeus has not given up his gazillionare throne of entitlements. The little people understand the Annuit Coeptis Oligarchy code of communism for the top 1%, and captialism for the rest of us. He’s nothing more than an old rich man who fears that proverb may be true; “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) …Buffett was born into the priveleged class and was spoon-fed at the public trough at birth.”Buffet was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a stockbroker and Congressman.”
http://www.buffettsecrets.com/…..graphy.htm
What’s next, we’ll hand him plaques and medals for being a gazillionare philantropist? Hell, I could be a compassionate gazillionare too. The point, is he would never give the shirt off his back if his life depended on it.
RockPaper, you’re totally wrong about Buffett.
Buffett is really an amazing guy. Early on he was an adviser to Schwarzenegger and talked about how unfair California’s Proposition 13 [a state property tax proposal that benefits those who remain in their homes over folks who have to move, buy a new place] is.
He talked about how he owns a place in La Jolla CA that he bought many years ago. He pays less in property tax on it [the LaJolla property is now worth millions] than he does on his modest home in Omaha NE. [The basis on which the tax on the La Jolla property is based is Buffett’s original, many-years-ago purchase price, not its current, greatly increased value.
He was railing about how unfair this was, but Arnold quickly distanced himself from this POV.
Buffett is one of the few rich guys around who really values and sympathizes with members of the middle class.
Ghostman @ 43
Hell yeah,Ghostman!!! The status quo that is needs to unravel. Get all these rich, well-connected asses out of DC………..ABOLISH K-STREET, AND GET THE POWER BACK IN THE HANDS OF THE TAXPAYERS……………POWER TO THE PEACEFUL, BUT LET’S GET SOME CHANGES MADE, PRONTO.
mc @ 26
He probably had someone buy the cliff notes and he put those on a shelf in case he really really really got bored.
That’s as close as he’s gotten.
Warren Buffett is not a saint. Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, has many insurance holdings–he considers insurance companies cash cows and probably wants to continue to milk them. Warren Buffett co-sponsored a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, who knows how to get her political bread buttered. As part of the event, Buffett offered to deliver a one-hour financial seminar–many people would gladly pay a lot of money just to attend the seminar. Such is life.
TeddySanFran @ 20
Good point (as usual), TSF.
Warren Buffett besides being rich is and always has been a good guy. The original millionaires in America believed they should pay more because they never would have had more if they hadn’t been in America. He has always fit that mold.
Warren Buffett is an American first and a businessman second. Ironically, this is why he is a good businessman.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 68
I haven’t heard his views on other policies.
But, I tend to agree the Rich need to be taxed at a higher rate in order to help re-establish some economic balance.
It also might be interesting to consider tax systems where corporations are taxed even less. Shocking, eh? But, less taxes in the pocket of a piece of paper might encourage more domestic commercial activity and could be good for a Dem president.
Consider a personal revenue tax rate of about 30% and a personal deduction of about $15,000 (perhaps less for a child) and 0% tax on corporations.
Would that work? Adjust the numbers a bit to ensure the federal government got enough. But would it work?
The progressivism is in having a personal deduction which the Rich would hardly notice, but which would be great for middle-class & below. The higher tax rate for the Rich would help re-balance our financial society.