They always seem to have money for cigarettes. I think Hardrock375 hit it on the head when he said, "Maybe, because were double taxation to be ended, he would be pressured by his shareholders to payout dividends, thereby lessening his ability to hoard cash and allocate it among his companies as he sees fit." The reason he bought an insurance company was to be able to use its float as an investment kitty. it would certainly be against his interests if there were any reason that would place pressure for Berkshire Hathaway to pay out or increase dividends. Buffet puts out statements to the media that are intended to get people to do just what he wants, to his benefit. I've read that when he bought H&R Block, for example, he lauded the company, which made other people buy up the stock. That he blasted some insurance companies' management, causing their stock to depreciate while General Re gained. That he was in an airport once with Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post (who recited the anecdote), searching through his change for exactly 10 cents to make a phone call, so that he wouldn't be forced to spend a whole quarter. Surely a fellow like that would try to extract every measure of opportunity to gain in his positions as well.
I think about a year ago Buffet, Gates and a few other liberal-minded billionaires proposed MORE TAXES for the mega-rich(people with billions or hundreds of millions around)!! Yep, MORE TAXES. They just think the tax system is unfair. It's very regressive rather than progressive. It's not like they are up to anything. Honestly, they can't spend all of their billions before they die anyhow. So, might as well do some good to society and the poor and have your good name live on forever. Look at the MacArthur foundation. Or the Nobel Prize. These and other prestigious awards were donated and created by very wealthy people who saw it better to have their names last on forever than blow away a few hundred millions buying things that you can't take with you to the grave. When you are that wealthy, there are other lasting things to ponder besides accumulating more wealth. It's the law of diminishing returns. Your first million will be your best. Your last billion will be almost meaningless to you... I cheer for Buffett! trader99
And their families will be well taken care of in addition to the charities that will inherit and the govt's reaping their estate taxes - because they have enough money to do it all. But for the 99% of us who are not superrich, we would love to be able to pass to our children the after-income tax assets we've worked hard at all our lives to acquire and keep, to give our children a bit of help and to help their future generations. The gov't comes along and takes 55% or more of the taxable estate though, and this is what Gates and Buffet want to have increase. Regarding the poor, if one generation manages to rise above and accumulate some assets, I think it's more beneficial for them to pass it along as a helping step up to the next generation, rather than have the gov't take half or more and throw the next generation back to square one. And about paying tax on dividends being inconsequential to the poor, my dad struggled to put money into stocks as he worked his way up from being virtually penniless, working his entire life as a laborer, and managed to retire somewhat modestly wealthy. How would a tax benefit not have helped him and others like him? But these people would have a system where the same person continues to be rewarded as long as they don't become successful, being advocated is a reward for being unsuccessful, and a punishment for achieving some measure of wealth. How strange.
Buffett cares nothing about what is best for wage earners, families or the country as a whole. He is filled to overflowing with moral superiority, the lifeblood of hyper-wealthy liberals. If he or Bill Gates dad want to the government to have their money, they can give it to the government any time they want. Fat chance! They are rich enough to set up private foundations to employ all their relatives and girlfriends and pass out what's left over to leftwing groups. No, they want to get the fawning adulation of the liberal press by advocating a steep estate tax, which has little effect on them (it's not like Bill Gates will need an inheritance from dear old dad), but has a devastating effect on family businesses. And speaking of tax reform, wonder what Saint Warren's position is on all the tax breaks for insurance?
IMHO, - he is a very shrewd man with tremendous common sense and a true man of the world, not a naive in the slightest. -everything he says is carefully measured for the expected effect before he says anything. -everything he says or does in a public forum is designed to help Birkshire make more money, or at least more than its competition. -he personally has more money than he could ever spend, and has already decided to give almost all of it away, so as long as all his other rich friends have to pay the same tax he does, he doesn't care. - the dividend tax cut will not have any measurable immediate effect on the economy, and what we need now is a sharp jolt. The div. tax cut will have a very gradual cumulative effect.
Rocks got it in a nutshell. Warren does not pay out dividends. I mean like who in the world can reinvest it better than him? Many of what you refer to as âpoorest people,â have pensions valued in stocks. Almost everybody is in stocks one way or another.
He doesn't "TAKE" anyone's money. People CHOOSE to invest with Berkshire Hathaway. And if he chooses to not be extravagant and eats at McDonald's what's it to you? Wake up, people accumulate wealth by saving and/or living below their means ... and it can also apply to the very wealthy.