Buffett's Bluffing

Buffett's Bluffing

. . . Unlike most carpenters, Buffett has, he says, cut off his progeny from his billions when he eventually shuffles off this mortal coil. Susan, Howard, and Peter Buffett can just shuffle for themselves, he says, when Warren bites the bullet and moves on up to the great corporation in the sky.

He might just as well sing, “If I were a billionaire/ And gave it all away/ Would you love me anyway/ Would you be my babies?”

Maybe they will, and maybe not since Buffett’s whole, politically-motivated charade, his pledge to give away 99% of his almost boundless wealth, most to be dispensed, with strings attached and in relative deibbles, to the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is an outrageous crock.

Borne of his new-found, George Soros-esque, socialistic, pseudo-egalitarianism and guilt over decades of milking the capitalist system for all it was worth, Buffett’s pledge is less a promise than a threat.

When octogenarians sniff their mortality, some seem to get social consciences even as their years tend to cloud their sanity.

Alternatively referred to as the Oracle of Omaha and the Sage of Omaha, the oracular, sagacious Buffett earned his billions as Chairman, CEO, and principal shareholder of the amazingly-successful American conglomerate, holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Just incidentally, Buffett indirectly made my neighbor a millionaire when Berkshire’s principal holding, Coca Cola, bought out his modest Coke delivery enterprise. For that, my neighbor is eternally grateful, even worshipful, of Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, and Coke, although he thinks Buffett’s professed, current political and economic views are asinine.

Good call, neighbor!

In conjunction with his 99% pledge which, even if fulfilled some day and which would leave him with a piddling $600,000,000 of his current $60 billion kitty, Obama buddy Buffett wants his fellow billionaires to cough up half their money for the common good, an invitation with as much likelihood of acceptance as Obama becoming a capitalist.

Knowing that Pollyannaish idea is a non-starter, he has other monetary plans up his sleeve which would threaten the livelihoods of millions.

Buffett made headlines with his as yet unfulfilled 99% giveaway as well as with his claim of paying 17.4% in federal taxes, a much lower rate than that paid by his secretary, and with his persistent insistence that the government undertaxes the rich even as it is in dire need of additional funding.

He ignores the truth that the upper echelons already pay 70% of federal taxes and 45% of those at the other end pay zilch and he doesn’t cite the primary cause of that funding shortfall–Obama’s profligacy. He also hasn’t offered to raise his secretary’s salary in compensation nor to write a check for ten billion or so to the Treasury Department to tide it over.

What he could do to help his country, and hasn’t . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5293)