Posts Tagged ‘Warren Buffett’
Buffett challenges Congressional Republicans: You pay – so will I
C’mon, Mitch – put up or shut up!
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
Warren Buffett is willing to put his money where his mouth is, if only congressional Republicans would join him.
The billionaire investor, in the new issue of Time magazine, says he will donate $1 to paying down the national debt for every dollar donated by a Republican in Congress. The only exception is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell – for whom Buffett said he would go $3-to-$1.
The idea stems from a New York Times opinion piece Buffett wrote last August in which he said the rich ought to pay more taxes. It sparked an instant controversy, with some Washington conservatives calling on the 81-year-old “Oracle of Omaha” to voluntarily pay extra…
He went on to tell the magazine that what the country needed was a system that favored people who were not born investors.
“We need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren’t as well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society,” he said.
Republicans will do anything to help their cause – except help the country.
Eating out at a posh New York City restaurant? Check your credit card statement daily!
I’ll bet Warren Buffett checks his credit card accounts
Diners at some of New York’s most popular restaurants had their credit card details stolen by waiters working for gangs who targetted American Express black cards then spent millions of dollars on luxury clothes and vintage wine…
The cards of wealthy customers at Smith and Wollensky’s, Capital Grille and Wolfgang’s steakhouses were allegedly “skimmed” and used to buy Rolex watches, Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel handbags.
Almost 30 people have been charged with crimes including racketeering, conspiracy and grand larceny, after the alleged fraud ring was broken by police in Manhattan. Seven waiters at the restaurants are alleged by prosecutors to have been recruited by Luis Damian “D.J.” Jacas, the 41-year-old alleged ringleader, and equipped with card-copying devices.
They were instructed to focus on customers with premium credit cards including the American Express black card, so that large purchases would not trigger alerts to customers…
Police seized $1.1 million in cash and $1 million worth of designer watches, as well as 100 designer handbags and 35 cases of expensive vintage wine…
To protect the alleged scheme, Jacas is alleged to have only allowed purchases up to $35,000 and to have ordered that the cards be used for three days before being ditched.
His alleged second-in-command, a 51-year-old convicted killer called Gregory Portacio, 51, remains at large. All the defendants deny the charges. They each face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Not a new practice. We all know that. But access to top-shelf clientele and high credit lines makes the scam more profitable than ever.
Top-rated restaurants had better check their hires with more accuracy. Consumers should be using accounts which allow a chance for you daily to check on illegal charges. It’s in your own interest, folks.
Stop coddling the Super-Rich!
Here in its entirety is Warren Buffett’s Op-Ed piece in today’s NY TIMES:
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Our leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.
These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.
Quotations from Chairman Warren
Warren Buffett confident about economic growth? You betcha!
NetJets Inc., the business-jet operator owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it placed a record order for as many as 120 Bombardier Inc. planes in anticipation of a rebound in luxury travel.
The agreement, worth more than $6.7 billion at list prices, comprises 50 firm orders and 70 options…It didn’t say how much Columbus, Ohio-based NetJets would pay for the aircraft, which will be delivered starting in the fourth quarter of 2012.
NetJets, which also ordered 125 Embraer SA jets in October, said it expects the planes’ arrival to help meet increasing demand following what will likely be a “difficult” 2011. The unit made a profit last year after David Sokol, named by Buffett to lead a turnaround in 2009, fired staff and wrote down plane values…
NetJets has a fleet of more than 800 business jets, including ones made by Dassault Aviation SA, Textron Inc.’s Cessna Aircraft Co. and General Dynamics Co.’s Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., according to the statement. The company operates a fractional-ownership model that lets customers buy flight-hours across a fleet of jets.
“Luxury travel” is a misnomer. “Business travel” would be accurate. Folks living and working outside the admittedly-boring realm of logistics aren’t likely to understand how and when chartered flight saves money over commercial air travel.
Last time my wife and some of her IT co-workers went to a course in the midwest, the software company provided a Gulfstream jet to pick them up at our local municipal airport. It cost less than the time and charges to accomplish the same via scheduled airlines.
NetJets pioneered the concept of firms leasing a set/minimum number of hours across their fleet – allowing the scheduling of airplanes of a size and speed appropriate to the catered event. Just another service that makes sense. Something our politicians in their infinite wisdom haven’t a clue about.
Meanwhile, between Embraer and Bombardier, the Sage of Omaha has made an $8 billion bet on economic growth with just one of his companies.
Warren Buffett! WTF?
Billionaire tells Rice business students that love trumps wealth
Yes, of course, he’s a Nebraska fan
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
The Rice business students who visited Warren Buffett on Friday weren’t struck most by the billionaire’s business acumen, but by his affability…
“For those of us at the Jones school, he’s kind of our idol,” said Jan Goetgeluk, president of the business school’s Finance Club, which organized the trip. “It’s always interesting to get perspective from the most successful investor in the world…”
He gave several students a ride to lunch, and held the elevator door open for Rice student Neha Agrawal. She’s read his autobiography and knows his reputation for unpretentiousness, that he drives his own car and eschews luxury. She was awed nonetheless…
During the Q and A, Agrawal asked Buffett what he thought about the correlation between wealth and happiness, and how he has kept his billions from weighing him down.
“He told us that success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get,” she said. “He said pretty much just be happy with what you have, and don’t let it get to you.”
He also urged the students to surround themselves with people who love them, and to give love in return…
Buffett…believes all the cars on the road will be electric. He’s already invested in a Chinese company working on the technology to make it happen…
“One thing he said was that he really believes the U.S. economy will recover and be strong for decades to come,” Goetgeluk said. “He said America has a great system and it has always worked, and it will keep working in the future.”
Nothing unique about this article – though Buffett’s view on automobiles surprised me a little bit. I figured his investment in BYD was as much for battery tech as hybrid cars.
The useful example that he offers is mostly to his peers. He supported Obama and asked for an increase on taxes on the wealthy. He’s gone to Silicon Valley and pressed hi-tech millionaires to get involved with charities – Bill and Melinda Gates being the best example.
Category: It ain’t a crisis – it’s an opportunity!
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
One of Warren Buffett’s favourite sayings about the market is: “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy”.
When the market was fearful last September, Mr Buffett was greedy, putting $5 billion into the investment bank Goldman Sachs on exceptionally favourable terms…
He has always enjoyed himself in a falling market, which, as he sees it, provides him with the best opportunities.
As if to prove his fabled status as the most successful investor ever, Mr Buffett prints his fund’s spectacular growth record, all the way back to 1965, in the annual report of his company, Berkshire Hathaway.
It shows he has achieved an extraordinary 20.3% average annual growth in the company’s value, which – he helpfully works out – comes to a mind-boggling 336,000% over the years – 84 times that of the standard US index fund, the S&P 500…
This is a man who has not even started a business…Nor has he invented anything, or come up with a way of making businesses more profitable.
And he still lives in his native Omaha, in the mid-western state of Nebraska, 1,200 miles from the financial whizzkids on Wall Street…
He believes that if a deal needs complicated calculations before you can decide if it is right, then it probably is not. He always leaves a “margin of safety”, he says, so that if things don’t work out as he’d hoped, he does not lose money…
Detailed and fun read – even if you’re not investing for something in the future. Buffett’s commentary on the Whiz Kids who can’t think beyond the next quarter warms the cockles of my heart.
