Warren Buffett's sleazy mobile home empire preys on the poor. (death, lobbyists)
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The bitter fact is: Some folks who want a home, their deepest wish, are simply not prepared to own one.
There was nothing Buffett did that thousands of stick-built contractors, their suppliers, and their financiers did not do. Hundreds of thousands of people bought homes they could not afford from their inability to read and understand a mortgage contract. Hundreds of banks jumped all over those mortgages as a way to make big money when other investments were stagnant, and willingly made their contracts all the harder to understand.
Millions of investors wanted a piece of that huge money. Hundreds of millions of shares of derivative stock were willingly bought, and trillions of dollars were lost, all around the world.
All based on the ignorance of those home buyers.
The only difference is Buffett is always the smartest guy in the financial room. He selected the most vulnerable and the most ignorant, and maximized his profits by owning everything from bottom to top. He didn't need to mess around in the derivatives market- he didn't have to. He could ride out the recession by owning the bottom of the barrel, where everything always settles. When a family loses a $350,000 home they can't afford, and their credit record is shot to pieces, what homes are left to them? The ones that come with wheels underneath the floor.
Do not forget that Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's financial conglomerate, is 'closely held'. That means it's privately owned. Buffett gets to choose who he allows in as an investor. How much is Berkshire Hathaway really worth? No one knows for sure, because the rules for privately traded stock is different from the rules of publicly traded stock.
He ain't the most successful investor of the 20th century for nothing. And his $71.8 billion dollars didn't come from being stupid.
Anyone with $216,000 can buy an "A" share of Berkshire Hathaway. Put in an order at your favorite brokerage and you can be a shareholder. Mr. Buffett has no say in that transaction. There are 1.6M of them outstanding. There are about the same number of "B" shares, each worth $143.
Anyone with $216,000 can buy an "A" share of Berkshire Hathaway. Put in an order at your favorite brokerage and you can be a shareholder. Mr. Buffett has no say in that transaction. There are 1.6M of them outstanding. There are about the same number of "B" shares, each worth $143.
There millions of brk.b outstanding. The rest of your info is spot on.
Anyone with $216,000 can buy an "A" share of Berkshire Hathaway. Put in an order at your favorite brokerage and you can be a shareholder. Mr. Buffett has no say in that transaction. There are 1.6M of them outstanding. There are about the same number of "B" shares, each worth $143.
Why isn't Buffet subsidizing the poor so they too can own a share?
Perhaps you should read the article. What free market? Without regulation, look at how Clayton conceals and deceives. That's what happens when there is an unregulated monopoly operating.
As you state here, the free market is without regulations, thus it makes it easy for unregulated monopolies to happen.
Long article, but it is nice to see some in depth investigative journalism coming out of the Times. IWarren Buffett bought Clayton Homes in 2003 and has turned it into the largest manufacturer and financer of mobile homes in the nation. They use high pressure and deceptive sales tactics to get deals, and then equally high pressure collection tactics after the sale.
Buffett is a guy who supports Democrats, who lobbies for more government, and more taxes, always with a view to how he can extract a profit from the resulting mess. He uses his army of lawyers and lobbyists to get DC to rig the game in his favor, and rakes in the cash. Stop coddling Warren Buffett | WashingtonExaminer.com
Buffett supports a political party that tries to get billionaire CEO's to pay fair tax rates. Today CEO billionaires have 11% tax rates, while Americans who make $100,000 have 21% tax rates. Buffett Rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And Warren Buffet has joined Bill Gates in giving 1/2 of their wealth to charity. Buffett and Gates charity work has already saved 6 million people from dying, and Buffet and Gates are on their way to save another 8 million children from dying.
I'll see your ad hominem and raise you. Your source is an organization that Hillary Clinton once claimed to have helped found, and is run by a bat-stuff-crazy writer who thinks snipers are after him and carries a Glock, evidently much like Dianne Feinstein, he needs a gun to protect himself from gun nuts.
Since I live in the Seattle area, I've been reading the Seattle Times for over 20 years, and can assure you that it is generally pretty far left of center. After all this is Seattle.
But you did make me realize one quirk. The Times is still owned and operated by the Blethen family. It was purchased by Alden Blethen in 1896, and now run by his great-great-grandson (not sure about the number of 'greats') Frank Blethen, who wants to keep the paper in the family and therefore is virulently opposed to the estate tax, which would probably obviate that. According to its wiki page, the Seattle Times is one of very few family owned newspapers left.
So I hadn't thought of it until your post, but no doubt that's what this is all about. Blethen is trying to prove the old adage of don't go to war with someone who buys ink buy the barrel. I don't know if that will work in the 21st century.
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