Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is what Warren Buffett said on 60 Minutes last night making the case for billionaires to give their money to charity instead of leaving it to their children:
Warren Buffett: Incremental wealth, adding to the wealth they have now has no real utility to them. But that wealth has incredible utility to other people. It can educate children, it can vaccinate children. It can do all kinds of things.
...
I don't really think that, as a society, we want to confer blessings on generation after generation who contribute nothing to society, simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.
Buffett thinks his kids are such spoiled and worthless trust fund babies, that leaving his money to them would only lead to them wasting it, or fund the criminals who would cheat them out of it.
Buffet is making his own free choice as to where his money goes, which has been the salient point conservatives have been making too. It's called personal freedom of choice, something the left despises, unless it means killing babies of course.
So.....the point I'm trying to make is one that's been discussed for years. If you split evenly ever single dollar available evenly among all American adults, what do you think would be likely to happen over time ? You can argue whether it would take one year, 10 years, 20 years or 30, but I'm telling you, it will eventually pretty much shake out just like it is now with few differences. Your money attitude/income/work ethic/personal temprement is what makes all the difference in the world ! Savers will remain savers and gain wealth and income security very slowly over time and enjoy a secure retirement. Those with drive and willing to take risks will start a business, buy property etc..., many many times and perhaps fail a few times in there too, but keep going until they get it right and make a well deserved income for themselves. Those without drive, definate goals (not....gee I want to be rich someday!), or good intuitive logical attitudes about how to succeed in a free market economy where you're largely responsible for your own success or failure are likely to repeat those same patterns even if given a large sum of unearned money from others in very short order.
You are wrong. We've seen those (useless) charts for quite some time. But most of us don't care what rich people make. We are not jealous.
If you think it's about jealousy, you just don't get it. As economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote:
Quote:
Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.
First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity. Whenever we diminish equality of opportunity, it means that we are not using some of our most valuable assets—our people—in the most productive way possible. Second, many of the distortions that lead to inequality—such as those associated with monopoly power and preferential tax treatment for special interests—undermine the efficiency of the economy. This new inequality goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy.
Third, and perhaps most important, a modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead. http://www.vanityfair.com/society/fe...percent-201105
Sure he gives money to "charity" only it's his three kids' charitable foundations that he plopped it in.
Each of his kids will end up with over $2 billion in their "charitable foundation" trusts with his latest donation.
While he also gives to other funds, the bulk of his money has gone indirectly to his kids.
He gives Bill Gates' foundation 1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock every year. Gates' foundation chooses to allocate it as part of the overall assets they have.
Whats fascinating here is how some people seem to think we're talking about people that come here and own 7-11's. They dont seem to understand that a certain level of wealth inequality (such as that earned by working hard) is great, while extreme wealth inequality more and more caused by simply having the money is bad. Nor do they REALLY comprehend how much wealth inequality we're talking about here.
We can back that up with facts and statistics, .
If you could, you would have in the first 65 pages of this thread. So I must conclude that you cannot back up your statement.
What suprises me is that those of us who are not struggling are turned against those who are by the wealthy (i.e Koch brothers) with the lie that they are on your side. The really sad thing about it is all of the people that actually believe that the people that are in bad financial shape is because they are lazy and want free stuff and not because there are no jobs.
I've never heard anyone say the wealthy (i.e. George Soros, Al Gore and Barack Obama) are on our side.
Who said that?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
