Posted on 06/26/2006 7:11:10 PM PDT by AmericanMade1776
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire Warren Buffett on Monday called for U.S. lawmakers to retain the estate tax, after announcing plans to leave more than $37 billion of his own fortune to charity, not his children.
Buffett spoke after agreeing to sign over roughly $30.7 billion of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, run by the Microsoft Corp. chairman and his wife, and another $6.4 billion to foundations on behalf of his late wife Susan and his children.
"I would hate to see the estate tax gutted," Buffett said at a Manhattan news conference with the Gateses about his donation.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That's a little off. Socialist dogma says the gubmint knows how to spend SOMEONE ELSE'S money better than they do. ;-) Anyway, Buffett's playing by the rules. I would say the estate tax incentivizes this sort of activity. I don't see a contradiction.
Not even Jimmy Buffet? ;-)
He may be the greatest stock picker that ever lived, but on economics and fiscal policy I'd just as soon listen to Barbra Streisand.
Here is the contradiction that I see:
If he is such a great fan of the estate tax, why isn't he allocating 1/3 of his estate to the government? After all, it is his belief that the government can spend the money so much more wisely than a private charity!
I don't know Buffet, so I can't truly say whether or no he's a good guy; I just think that mostly I have heard favorable things over the years about him. But some aspects of the guy are definitely non standard, so who knows?
I do have to think it's undeniable that if not an actual businessman, he is a fabulous investor, though. On that, the record speaks for itself.
Don't laugh, but I heard Margaritaville once and thought it a catchy tune and asked who was singing it. That is the sum total of my limited exposure to Jimmy Buffett other than finding Parrothead as a crossword puzzle clue now and again. Seriously.
The old man works. He dies. He has to pay estate tax. Unless he has bought life insurance, which will cover the estate tax. Who sells that? Warren Buffet. Ok, part B. Old man dies. Has no insurance to pay lovely IRS. Wife, kids whatever are dolts and can't do what the old man did and no one in their right mind is going to loan the dead rich man's kids the money to pay the estate. Guess who specializes in buying unique family run companies from widows and rich kids? Warren Buffet. Nice. The guy is a vulture.
I think the obvious counterargument is that the estate tax, to some degree, incentivizes this type of charitable giving. So from his perspective, he gives billions away, while still retaining billions that will be taxed upon his death. That's a win-win. The gubmint gets a nice chunk of change (and that's money already spent, so there's really no point arguing who can spend it better--the gubmint spends whether it collects or not.), a charity gets a big chunk of change, and the money gets spread around, eliminating the threat of a monied class emerging.
I pointed out to coworker that Gates dropped out of college. Then he didn't realize that he had made enough money until he had passed the 40 billion mark.
If he donates money to find a cure for AIDS, it will be the first virus Microsoft ever stopped.
One wonders whether Buffet's mentor and inspiration, Benjamin Graham, would have agreed with these rather left leaning tendencies.
I read somewhere he has made a fortune off other's misery.
Class envy has nothing to do with it. There simply isn't a contradiction here between giving money to charity and supporting the estate tax. It's silly to suggest that if one supports the estate tax, they must therefore oppose giving any of their money to anything OTHER THAN the estate tax. That's just plain retarded thinking. It doesn't hold water.
I was thinking of Emily LaTella, not Andy Kaufman. LOL
With estate tax rates starting where they do, most Americans, even the most workaholic, will not be able to leave a house to each of their children and a college education to each of their grandchildren without being savaged by estate taxes.
Is that too much to ask after a lifetime of working yourself to death?
Yet, here is Warren Buffett who, even if he paid estate taxes and gave away 80% of his wealth would still be able to leave each of his kids hundreds of millions of dollars and that man still sickeningly pontificates about "not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged".
In the mean time, people such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are building multi-billion ego monuments to themselves by creating their foundations ESTATE TAX FREE.
In our town, we have a Carnegie Library still boosting Carnegie's ego over a century after he died. Carnegie, however, gave his gift when there was no estate tax.
Warren Buffet's attitude concerning the average American workaholic who kills himself to leave his children and grandchildren a $4 million estate to be divided between then for college educations and help in purchasing their first homes is no more revolting than Marie Antoinette's dismissive, "Let them eat cake."
If Warren Buffett gave a rat's rectum about the average American, he would at least be advocating raising the minimum threshold for estate taxes instead of advocating that no change should be made.
Thank you for your agreement: the jist of my argument is how ridiculous ANY estate tax is. I have nothing against charitable giving, which would, BTW, likely increase if we were to eliminate Capital Gains, as well.
It's actually worse than that. The rich and the children of the rich get to manage the foundations. They draw nice salaries. The keep the Marxists at bay by paying out tribute from the trust funds in the form of left wing causes, really more salaries for the Marxist elite. The rich get to KEEP the basis under their control from which they use to earn money and keep their perpetual fat salaries. In essence the rich keep their money without paying estate taxes. Look at who holds the reins of the foundations and the national banks. Then go find a toilet to heave.
Also, bear in mind this is done at your expense. Ever wonder why we don't manufacture any more? It doesn't cost a parent any money to educate their kids for blue collar jobs. We are pressured to mortgage our houses for college tuition to educate our children for the service economy. This puts more capital into the economy from which the rich profit. Our kids would make more money from skilled blue collar jobs and the country would be better off with a workforce that can make things as well as manage things.
Nevermind.
I believe that the Ford Foundation has been "liberated" from the Ford family.
Keeping America's tax system an opaque, unfair, disgrace is good for business at H&R Block - Biggest Owner Buffet's company. What an incredible pig that man is.
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