Warren Buffett to Host ‘Please Raise Our Taxes’ Fundraiser for Obama
**Written by Doug Powers
If you’re wealthy and want to spend $35k to listen to a billionaire argue why Washington should confiscate more of your income, all while your ticket money is dumped into to re-election coffers of the candidate who signed the Bush tax cut extension, Warren Buffett has you covered:
Tickets for the event at New York’s Four Seasons restaurant on Sept. 30 start at $10,000 a head, with VIP tickets a budget-boosting $35,800. Guests get an hour of “Q&A moderated by one of President Obama’s closest economic advisors, Austan Goolsbee.” VIP ticket-holders get a “private reception for about 20 minutes prior to the dinner.” A blurb with the invite adds, “As all guests are seated for dinner, Buffett will go around to all tables and shake hands, then he and Austan will sit for the program and discussion.” What will be discussed is Buffett’s recent highly publicized claim that the wealthy should pay higher taxes.
Wouldn’t Buffett do more to achieve his desired outcome if he would cut out the middle-man and charge the guilt-ridden rich saps attending the dinner the same money but then send it to the US Treasury instead of giving it to Obama?
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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No Doug, it would not achieve the same result.
Warren Buffet’s Berkshire-Hathaway charges rich clients to shelter them from taxes. The more high taxes for everyone, the more it drives Buffet’s business. He’s essentially running a white-collar “protection” racket and wants Obama to rough-up those shop-owners still holding out.
“Nice Business you got there… it’d be a shame if you had to pay higher taxes on it.”
He reminds me of those “Anti-virus” web companies that would insert malware onto your system via malicious websites and then charge you $19.95 to remove it.
I’ll spring for the $35k as soon as I shake down a “too big to fail” bank whose CEO has been adamantly insisting that they don’t need any more cash to pay me 6% on my cash infusion together with a free bonus of 600 million warrants. What a deal! BofA can already get all the cash they want from the Fed for free and they have been telling everyone that they are swimming in cash!
That is how Buffet makes his biggest money. He shakes down companies in distress. In this case, it was worth it to BofA because it would signal to the markets that BofA is cheap and ordinary suckers should be buying their stock. If that were true, Buffet would have bought $5B of common shares with the one cent dividend, not special preferred shares with a 6% coupon.
THAT is how you rob a bank today.
Somebody more creative than myself can probably conjure up something, but I keep thinking of the nursery rhyme, Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, and I keep thinking there’s some way that rhyme can be modified to use Buffett instead of Muffett or tuffet.
Given that the Federal corporate tax rate is 35%, anyone including Mr. Buffet is actually paying that first before paying 15% income tax on his dividends. That means that corporate income is taxed/paid twice. That also means that his real tax rate is 44.75%, much higher than his secretary pays.
This is rich. Obeyme’s always talking about Wall Street running roughshod over Main Street. But, he doesn’t hesitate to take their money and laugh at them behind their backs. Wall Street types, with their ivy league degrees, always sneer at regular joes, but they’re dumber than a box of rocks. Go ahead, Warren, and you too, Bill Gates, give the dems your money and keep showing us how stupid you are.
This charade of Buffet’s cry’s out for sunlight.
While I realize there is no fool like an old fool, I still don’t get it with Americans like Ole Warren. What happens to them that makes their brains malfunction to this extent?
So basically they are paying between $10,000 and $35,800 to get the skinny on how to shelter their money from the tax increases that Buffet and other wealthy liberals are proposing.
Ol’ Warren Buffett
Tells us to tough-it
More taxes we all should pay.
But that Hypocrite
is so full of … baloney
Consider Berkshire Hathaway.
Just look at that boy dance!
He’s all tax avoidance!
For clients with a 401k
But dare to compete
And he’ll screw all wall street
To make more of your cash come his way!
Exactly. So sick of hearing how higher tax rates will save the economy from this fascist. He would be in an orange jumpsuit and all his ill gotten wealth redistributed if I had any power in this country. Enough already with the fascist crony captialism!!!
I predict that there will be a turd in the punchbowl at this soiree. If not literally, at least figuratively.
And that $10K – 35.8K is no doubt charged as a business expense instead of a personal expense.
Given that Buffet uses all available tax shelters and rules to avoid taxation, his real tax rate likely is lower than his secretary’s, who probably isn’t a billionare with hired tax people paid to find ways to legally reduce tax liability.
See how billionaires such as Buffet would react if Obama called for not income, but wealth to be taxed, instead so as to be fair to all.
Ya think that would garner the same fundraising support?
Yessir. You don’t pay $35K to hear political drivel – you pay $35K to sit at a table and hob-nob with the wealthiest investor on the planet, and get wealthier.
Buffett admits paying 19% in taxes, so if he pays 21% instead, guess what – he’s still the wealthiest guy on the planet.
All show – and no go.
Excellent point of distinction there. It would be a lot of fun watching them trip over eachother to see who could reach the exit first.
It would improve Buffet’s credibility if, instead of investing $5 billion in troubled Bank of America, he sent that $5 billion to the U.S. treasury.
Yeah, Buffet, you’ve convinced me that you are not taxed enough…
Maybe Buffet is just helping pay the credit card bills of illegals. After all with the latest move by the Obama administration I am sure the left wants to make the waiver receivers look as squeaky clean as possible.
And their mortgages too…BoA is heavily committed to “Community Reinvestment”.
How much extra revenue would the treasury gain if they raised taxes 10% on all people who make over $250k per year? According to this article, it would result in about $2.4 trillion over the next NINE years or about $266 million a year. A mere pittance in DC.
Lets see if my math works. A $14 trillion dollar debt would take nine x seven or approximately 60 years to pay off and that would mean a balanced budget for the next 60 years as well. That doesn’t include the negative effect that a 10% tax increase would cause in other tax revenues.
So you can see we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
From the article:
Ezra Klein over at the Washington Post recently featured some numbers put together by the Tax Policy Center and the Wall Street Journal. They estimate higher-income individuals and couples will make about $24 trillion in taxable income between 2010-2019. About $7.5 trillion of that will go to federal income and payroll taxes — perhaps a bit more with the health care bill in place. On top of that, we estimate about $2 to $3 trillion would go toward a variety of state and local taxes. All said, these high earners will have about $14 trillion in remaining taxable income over the next decade. (That $14 trillion number includes not only the income above $250,000 — but the income below that threshold, from higher earners.)
Well it’s pretty obvious to me that the libtards have an agenda and will do whatever it takes to make sure Obama is re-elected so they can get more BS passed in Washington that will further more taxes, more regulation, and more spending.
That’s been all to obvious to rational people for decades.
Every time government revenues rises, government spending rises beyond the projected revenues which never come close to actual revenues.
That libtards agenda will continue even if Obama isn’t re-elected. The only way to compeletly stop it is a fierce conservative president that will actually start upending DC, closing useless federal agencies and running the leftist bureaucrats out of town, suspend amost all foreign aid, withdraw from the UN and have a congress willing to repeal onerous legislation and cut spending back to comparative levels not seen since the 1960s.
On the other hand, if we took about 1/3 of all the wealth in the United States, we could pay off the $14 trillion debt immediately as there is an estimated $50 trillion of wealth in the US.
That would come from everyone. Of course, the negative effects of that on other tax revenues would be devastating so the debt would never be really paid off.
Not to mention all the wealth that is leveraged so that if you took 1/3 away, the entire wealth would be subject to collapse. How do you sell 1/3 of your mansion or 1/3 of your limo? The numbers don’t add up. Buffet is a numbers guy. He must know that. What kind of shenanigan is he pulling here?
I tried to buy 3 tickets with my government credit card. The card was denied….insufficient funds!
Sounds like it’s time for several of the most reputable pollsters to do a poll among people making over 100 million dollars a year (in household income to include people like John Kerry)to see how many of them go along with this gibberish.
Hey, if they all do, let them. Let them each contribute about 50% of their annual incomes, with no deductions, to our Treasury.
That certainly should satisfy their guilty consciences and will go a little ways toward reducing our debt, as long as the Congress doesn’t spend it first!
They can afford it. As citizens they should consider it their patriotic duty.
buffett is in bed with bho as is spooky dude. Those with money, will tell us, who don’t how to think for us. buffett and a handful of people are telling us what to think and how to just get along with the flow? The team, bho, msm, rino’s and d’s are he@@ bent on seeing to it we are under these who want our Republic gone! These are doing the same to Israel, and God will deal with this.
God be with you Israel because the wh will not.
L
O/T, here in S TX near Corpus Christi where we live there is RAIN! The first in months. Tiny bit here but some here may be getting some much needed rain. Every tiny drop is a God send because we have not had any for a long time. We are so thankful.
L
Take the zeros off the price tag and make it Jimmy Buffett and I might be interested…as long as Oblamer doesn’t show up.
Looks like time to boycott Warren Buffet.
The following list are Bershire Hathaway subsidiaries:
Acme Brick Company
Applied Underwriters
Ben Bridge Jewelers
Benjamin Moore & Co.
Blue Chip Stamps
Borsheim’s Fine Jewelry
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
Business Wire
Central States Indemnity Company
Clayton Homes
CORT Business Services
CTB Inc.
Dairy Queen
Fechheimer Brothers Company
FlightSafety
Fruit of the Loom
Garan Children’s Clothing
Geico Insurance and Finance
General Re
H.H. Brown Shoe Grou
Helzberg Diamonds
ISCAR Metalworking
Johns Manville Materials and Construction
Jordan’s Furniture
Justin Brands
Kansas Bankers Surety Company
Larson-Juhl
McLane Company
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company
MiTek Materials and Construction
National Indemnity Company
Nebraska Furniture Mart
NetJets
NetJets Europe
Precision Steel Warehouse, Inc.
RC Willey Home Furnishings
Scott Fetzer Companies
See’s Candies
Shaw Industries
Star Furniture
The Buffalo News
The Pampered Chef
United States Liability Insurance Group
Wesco Financial Corporation
XTRA Corporation
Source: Wiki
Ever wonder how much Warren Buffet makes? I did, so I looked it up. Corporations are required to publish the compensation for executives. Most do it in their annual report, Berkshire Hathaway chooses to do it in their Definitive Proxy Statement, the 2002 version of which you can see here (http://secfilings.nyse.com/filing.php?doc=1&attach=ON&ipage=2068677&repo=tenk).
To save a bit of scrolling through the high points are: salary – $100,000, Other Compensation – $196,000. Why 2002? Later versions are not as easily accessed. But there is a note that his salary has not changed in 22 years as of that filing. There’s little reason to believe it has gone up since. There’s also an interesting note about the nature of his “Other Compensation.”
Is he bringing in millions from some other job? Maybe, but why? What he wants he gets through channels that are not necessarily exposed to taxation, be it expense accounts, capital appreciation, or other means. Without access to his tax returns and bank statements it would be impossible to say what his true income is.
Also note that his “Other Compensation” in 2002 was about $60,000 less than in 2001. If that continued to decline his “income” as reported may well be less than the magic “$250,000″ that would make him a millionaire or billionaire.
Yes, I know he is a billionaire by assets, but assets are not taxed and I have never heard him suggest that they should be. Nor am I suggesting it, but I’m not advocating tax increases for anyone.
Chicago style – host a fundraiser or you pay taxes!
Oh, and by the way. Mr. Buffet (as of 2002) owned 476,198 shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock (BRK/A). Dividend? $0. BRK/A has 0% yield. So no dividend tax on his multi-billion dollar holding.
On August 25th, 2011 at 7:32 pm,
Acme Bricks…personally endorsed by Wile E. Coyote for stopping Road Runners in their tracks!!
But is BRK/A the only stock he owns?
It is truly frightening how much wealth is behind Barack Hussein Obama! Money is power. How do we ever fight this much money? It is a pretty strange philosophy that insists we all share our wealth except the cronies and the cronies’ cronies. Isn’t that somehow a bit evil? Or maybe a LOT evil! Spit.
P.S. I don’t ask them to share their wealth. I just ask them to leave me the hell alone!
That would be difficult to say for sure, but we know based on Forbes list of billionaires (http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires) that his net worth is estimated at roughly $50B and BRK/A closed at 103,000 today. So do the math and that’s basically $50B (after losing about $1.5B on a down day today). So maybe a bit, but an accountant would say that such holdings would be “not material.”
Actually he does own 60 shares of BRK/B for some reason. It pays no dividend either. But consider, he controls BRK; nothing happens at Berkshire Hathaway that he does not want to happen. If he wanted dividend income, he could decree it and it would be so. Why would he not have a dividend from BRK and then go out and acquire some other stock with a yield? Not saying he didn’t do exactly that, but why would he?
Anybody need a little giggle?
http://media.hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Paul-Azinger-tweet.jpg
I love how several commenters here have spelled Warren Buffett’s name B-u-f-f-e-t bcuz I think it’s time to change the pronunciation to Buh-fay.
With all the cash he’s offering up, Osquander, the Fritterer-in-Chief, will belly-up to that all-you-can-spend-and-redistribute gravy train with the lavish abandon of MamaBama on a Spanish vacation or shopping in Paris.
Ol’ Buh-fay better watch out bcuz after Ospendsitall is through with the cash cow/gold mine/treasure trove of his fortune, Buh-fay’s picture is going to grace the Pay Poor Tax Chance card in the new ObaMonopoly game, in which players are given exorbitant sums of money to spend, on nothing, and the one who spends the most the fastest, of course, wins.
Hey Mr. Buffett…In the words of the imortal song…”Dust in the Wind”
“All your money won’t another minute buy”.
Time to put your affairs in order and prepare your soul. Hobnobbing with the devil is definitely not advised at this late stage in your life.
Wonder if buffett will be willing to pay some of the 10M mo has spent on vacations in the last year at taxpayers expense?
L
Speaking of that MamaBama on a Spanish vaca, did anyone else catch this?
Expensive massages, top shelf vodka and five-star hotels: First Lady accused of spending $10m in public money on her vacations
You know that b!otch is taking the plates and the silverware too.
Like minds
do not whine, warren, just write a check
I’m sure the 5-star accommodations in which Chewbamma stays consider it a fair trade.
BOA is drowning it toxic, fraudulent mortgages yet Buffet bought in after a call from the liar-in chief. Wonder if it had anything to do with the announcement later in the day that the white house had a new plan to help re-finance toxic mortgages?? Wonder if it is related to the justice department trying to quash law suites by individuals and states to recover from the mortgage fraud of Countrywide and BOA?
Oh, LOL
I was referring on grand exit from the WH. You don’t think Moochelle is going to be out done pilfering the fixtures by Cankles Clinton do you ?
I saw that story (I luv the UK Mail Online!) about the First Hypocrite. Seems our little faux orthorexic (the one obsessed with elitist, healthy eating) doesn’t seem to prescribe her own diet for herself (top shelf vodka, martinis and sparkling wines, among other delicacies)–then helps herself to multiple overflowing plates at the taxpayer buh-fay as well. Maybe ol’ Warren could help us out by giving his homeless tax dollars just to fund her extravagances.
Any chances that they will have to pay taxes on those perks ???? Never Mind !
This pretty well sums things up about our dear leader:
http://minx.cc/?post=320594
Note: Don’t click this if offended by the word “clusterfork”.
Perfect!
I couldn’t have said it better myself…in mixed company, that is.
Have a look at this while you’re there. It’s toward the top of the page.
It’s OK to go off topic at this hour, right??
Great. Another rich liberal advocating “do as I say, not as I do”.
Listen, don’t let Warren Buffet’s humble Midwest beginnings fool you. This guy is a liberal and crony capitalist who like his pals in Hollywood and on Wall Street want the market regulated and taxed in their favor so they can make more money at the taxpayer’s expense.
Ever wonder why Steve Jobs earned an income last year of $1? I can’t say I feel all that sorry for him when Al Franken announced that he would be looking into the privacy technology on new Apple communication devices, if nothing else to open the legal door for his pals at the Dept. of Social Justice.
Buffet doesn’t pay any income tax. In fact, he only pays 15% on capital gains tax.
It’s OK with me
Roger Murdock: We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What’s our vector, Victor?
I hope it’s OK with Straight_Talk_Luigi. It looks like we’re the only ones left.
Now let me get back on topic. As far as I’m concerned, Warren Buffet can send all the money he wants to this bloated, out of control government so 99% of it can be pissed away to the parasite Obumbler voters. But he needs to STFU and leave the rest of us alone.
buffett got a call from bho-put $5 Billion into Bank of America-made $280 M-in one day–
gosh-wonder why he is hosting a fund-raiser for bho-rhetorical- no need to answer—
Carol-CS
I’d lend a far more sympathetic ear if Buffet voluntarily tithed his fortune sending a large check to the US treasury.
He’s a bloody fraud who expects to benefit from a huge government/huge business alliance. (Say, isn’t that the other F-word… the one we fought in WW-II?)
{^_^}
Warren Buffet formerly known as the “Oracle of Omaha” will from this day forward be known as the “Numbskull of Nebraska”.
Id love to know if Obama’s stock broker purchased a whole bunch of BOA stock right before the announcement of Buffett’s investment was made.
Buffet: “Hey, look at me, I still live in Nebraska”….”Lookee here, I still drive a 15-yr-old Buick”….
What a fakir.
He sees how much the Wall Street/Goldman Sachs/Citigroup set has made from bedding down with Obama, and he wants some, too.
Buffet is sitting on already accumulated wealth and has finagled large sums so they are involved in non-profits.
Hikes in income tax are just that. Hikes in INCOME tax, not accumulated wealth.
He’s a typical hypocritical, elitist, ruling class mentality lib.
Little Warren Buffet
Sat on a tuffet
Sipping a fine Moet
When along came Obama
Who said “The rich are the problem”
Warren agrees and wants Mom & Pop to rough it.
Someone else said this, but it bears repeating…
Warren Buffett = George Soros II
They are both old guys, so that is at least a plus. They both need to make peace with their Maker, although I doubt they will. Their time on this earth grows short, and they are in big trouble. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” Time for them to wake up and smell the sulphur!
Yep, that Warren Buffet guy doesn’t know anything about the economy.
Well, let me put it like this – he’s not as smart as you janitors.
Oh, and he hates America too.
On August 26th, 2011 at 11:06 am, Ilovemyrankflannel said:
Listen stupid, there is a difference between an Investor and a Economist.
There is a huge difference between a multi-Billionare Investor and Standard Working Tax payer.
There is a even bigger difference between people that work and pay their taxes being told they must pay more and a MultiBillionare friend of Sock Puppet saying he needs to pay more when the only thing keeping him from opening up that checkbook and writing a check to Uncle Sam is just a little effort.
Now crawl back into the Dung Heap of a crib.
” hes not as smart as you janitors”, says LoatheMyCountry, from his…private personal jet(?)….or his private Bahamian Island(?)….
My, how important you sound, LoatheMyCountry!
Well at least we have discovered Ilovemymopandbucket’s greatest obsession…it wants to be a janitor:
Truesoldier said:
Ilovetoplaycircusgeek could not get a job as a Nudie Booth Cleaner let alone be a productive member of any society. Living in Mommies basement gorging on HotPockets is a genetic trait of the sedentary libtard.
I know that, that is why I said his greatest obsession is to be a janitor…though that goal always seems to be to far out of reach (as it would require putting down the hot pocket, stopping his continually downloads of Sarah Michelle Gellar, and climbing the stairs our of the basement).
Truesoldier said:
LOL so true –
Holy Hypocrite,
Your girl Snooki,I mean Michele Bachman, spent $4,700 on hair and makeup in 5 weeks.
Yep, you republican Christian brilliant economist tea party folks sure know how to choose them.
http://www.minnpost.com/dailyglean/2011/07/27/30342/bachmann_spends_4700_on_hair_and_makeup_in_5_weeks
On August 26th, 2011 at 12:09 pm, IloveNamblameetings said:
10 Million Dollars!! Research it.
The moron would be fine with that cause that was $10 million in tax payers, but Bachman had the nerve to spend her own money….
#76 On August 26th, 2011 at 12:09 pm, Ilovemycountry said:
Come on, your mother spent more than that on feminine hygiene products.
So? John Edwards spent that much in one day. Besides, it creates jobs!
How much does Mrs President–Puggy McUnderbite—spend on high-end vodka again? And who is paying for it?
Get back to us, ILoveNablaMeetings (much better handle), when you figure out how to argue that having an entourage of over 40 people, including 3 full-time makeup/hair/clothes assistants on the public dime is somehow better than spending $4,700 of one’s own money on personal expenses.
Look at that, Hannibull actually went after my beloved mother.
Hey Hannibal – did you know that Hannibal the warrior was a black man – hope that doesn’t make you want to change your moniker.
Well off to my MENSA meeting, hope to see all of you there.
On August 26th, 2011 at 3:42 pm, Ilovethewaymommyfondlesme said:
The best part of you……….. well there never was or is a best part, just flotsum on the gene Pool. back to the crib with you.
Ok Loyalist, you are right on the money!?! Anything Leftist must be boycotted!!! Progressive, Aflac, most major banks, hedgefunds in general (who funnel union dues to bid up oil prices), Barbra Striesand, anything with a left wing bent, and I do mean BENT!?! Identify the leftists and DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY!!!!! Oh yeah, ILMC get a job, you jackass (your party’s symbol!)!!!
Talk about good timing.
Everyone already forgot about this because of the hurricane.
Obama is clever, I give him that.
No, he was a Carthaginian General… but why let ignorance impede your racism?