Posted on 08/19/2011 10:48:15 PM PDT by blam
BILLIONAIRE KOCH TO BILLIONAIRE BUFFETT: Screw Your Call For Higher Taxes -- The Government Is Incompetent
Henry Blodget
Aug. 19, 2011, 7:10 PM
Earlier this week, Warren Buffett called bs on the Republican meme that raising taxes on deca-millionaires and billionaires will clobber the economy.
His argument was persuasive--because raising taxes on billionaires won't hurt the economy.
Today, in a statement published at the National Review, another billionaire weighs in on the tax issue--Charles Koch.
Koch doesn't dispute Buffett's contention that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary and that he could afford to pay a lot more. He also doesn't argue (thankfully) that higher taxes would remove his incentive to invest and create jobs.
What Koch does do is cite the "massive uncontrolled increase in government spending" of the last several years, This, too, is a flawed (or at least incomplete) argument: Government spending has been exploding for the past 11 years, not just the past "several.".
But then, more persuasively, Koch invokes a sentiment lots of reasonable people will relate to: He suggests that he can spend his money a lot more wisely than the government can:
“Much of what the government spends money on does more harm than good; this is particularly true over the past several years with the massive uncontrolled increase in government spending. I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
And, since high taxes forces family owned businesses to be sold off, Buffet scoops them up into his collection with his insurance company cash flow.
Sounds like the salary of a top baseball player. Or a star actor that makes two movies in a year. Or the executives at Fannie Mae who cooked the books so they could get their bonuses.
Answer: We should all become CEOs.
Seriously though, I have seen CEOs who provided extremely valuable leadership. In my own company, IBM, we brought in an outsider, Lou Gerstner, to save a sinking ship. We were losing billions per year. One of Gerstner's neighbors told him: "IBM is a national treasure; don't f*ck it up." It was a painful process but Gerstner, as an outsider, reversed some cultural and historical practices that were killing us. When he left we were making billions instead of losing them. I believe he was worth it. There are plenty of others that probably aren't.
But what is the solution? Have the government mandate the ratio of pay? One day after that's enacted the low-paying positions will all be outsourced.
I'm very leery of government meddling in compensation issues. On principle, I believe it's not a power given by the People to the Government. For practicality, I don't believe a bunch of politicians are qualified to decide what compensation is "fair". On history, we have seen the government mandate that all executive compensation above a certain level be tied to performance. That led to an entire generation of executives focused on nothing but short term profits, often to long-term detriment. So, if it's a problem, I don't see a solution.
The ratio of what CEO’s are paid to what workers are paid is a meaningless number. It’s as stupid as trying to apply a fuzzy, emotional and arbitrary concept like “fairness” to tax rates. The CEO is either worth what he/she is being paid or he/she is not. If they are not, unless it is a privately owned company, they are replaced. If GM makes you upset don’t buy their stock or their products. If you got the stock because you work there find another job. If you have the chops, start your own company and be a CEO and see how well you do at that. Getting emotional about what someone else is making is a waste of your time and energy.
Bloody well right. You know you’ve got a right to say.
You are rumored to be worth $47 billion. Put your money where your mouth is, write a check for $46 billion to the US Government.
Your check will fund the US Government for about 5 days.
We don't have a taxing problem, we have a spending problem.
Nope. Because you suffer from the basic logical flaw Leftists fall into. You suffer from Zero Sum fallacy. You assume that because they have more, workers much have less. That not how it works. The whole pie for everyone is bigger.
There is always going to be a gap between the top and bottom. There will always some in the 0-20,000 range. The top end has gotten so much bigger BECAUSE WE HAVE CREATE THAT MUCH MORE WEALTH.
Trump is a stupid liberal, a joke, and an idiot. The Koch brothers are the true spokespeople for good business practices. One of them should have run for president instead of him.
I have admiration and respect for the Kochs, they’re from my part of the country. I simply meant that so many of the sheople pay attention to Trump on money, while the K’s get demonized by liberal media.
My personal favorite was Wichita Lineman (ah, the romance of youth :-))
LOL - Are most of us on here aging Boomers? Amazing how certain songs (and scents) are instant time machines :-)
Agree. Sitting through his Libby concert with the background films being poor and starving was almost to much.. But I had never seen any of Floyd so I had to go last December and see him on his own. For the 30th anniversary of The Wall tour. But he is a libby loon. But other then that he is a genius.
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