When people feel like spending they spend (and borrow) like crazy despite dire warnings from their older, wiser kinsfolk. Now they're being TOLD to spend and they don't want to; go figure. BTW Buffet is rich because he went heavily long stocks and bought pullbacks starting in 1950, the start of the biggest bull market in history. That's it. He got lucky with the timing.
I fail to see how encouraging broke people to spend money is really going to help the economy. We got in the mess we're in because too many people thought we could spend our way to prosperity.
I couldn't care less about Buffett's cheerleading. As someone else put it: "The problem with Buffett is that nearly his entire fortune was handed to him without any effort on his part. Iâm not talking about the inheritance (thatâs fine by my book), itâs the fact that nearly every entity that Berkshire-Hathaway owns or invests in is also one that receives heavy government subsidy to survive. The company owns utilities protected by State and Federal utility monopoly laws. They own significant shares in financial companies that received bailout money. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. railway has managed to screw over Washington State residents to operate a ridiculously expensive and overly subsidized commuter railway that no one uses and obtained nearly a total overhaul of the rail system at taxpayer expense. Buffett is the kind of man that could not make it to where he is today if it wasnât for the power of Congress. His success is derived almost exclusively from the fact that he has the ear of legislatures and can get resources via Congressional action." Buffett also calls for some draconian measures, like banning private schools and forcing kids to go to public schools via lottery. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/would-the-schools-work-better-if-they-outlawed-all-competitors/ The only thing I really like about him is how he refused to spoil his own kids. He needs to take that line of austerity/personal responsibility to governmental affairs as well.
Good grief, I didn't realize how statist Warren Buffet is. Since the ultimate private schooling is home schooling, Buffet probably would like to ban that too. In the United States the millionaires are capitalists, but all the billionaires are socialist.
I heard this before, and I like it: 'In America, we spend money we don't have to buy things we don't don't need, in order to impress people we don't know'