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Tax the Rich, Buffet says
- muerdeme 19y agoI think the biggest thing that troubles me about our tax system is how much time is wasted trying to figure out how much we owe. Individuals and corporations alike have incentives to devote resources solely to minimizing their tax burden. I'd argue that a simplified tax scheme would cause a non-trivial increase in productivity that would be a boon to both the government and the people.
- mynameishere 19y agoThere are many 100s of 1000s of accountants, lawyers, and lobbyiests who all depend upon the bizarre tax codes for their jobs. In addition, many companies depend upon their various loopholes... They represent both wasted labor and vested interest.
- anamax 19y agoThis is the same Buffet who argues against abolishing the inheritance tax even though he's arranged things so that almost all of his money will go untaxed. Also, the inheritance tax helps him buy companies cheap. (It forces the children to sell.)
- etal 19y agoI don't have sources offhand, but Buffett's been saying this for years. He criticized Bush's tax cuts back in the day, too. I don't see anything wrong with argument, "The government shouldn't be letting me and other billionaires slip through this loophole."
- gwc 19y agoI think it's a stretch to call Buffet anything but consistent on his stance about inheritance tax. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/09/29/68098/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/... Key (and famous) quote: "[the perfect amount to leave children is] enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing." Notice the date - 1986.
- davidw 19y agoThis is probably the kind of content that isn't that good for a site like this: it's politics.
- garbowza 19y agoI think economics is great content for a community of smart commenters.
- davidw 19y agoI think economics is fascinating too. The problem is that there would certainly be big disagreements, combined with less actual expertise in the subject. That creates something of a toxic mix. So why not stick to discussing what we know best? That would be in keeping with the principle of comparative advantage:-)
- rms 19y agoThis community has done pretty well with disagreements and the editors are good at filtering the truly toxic trolls. I have faith that we can tackle economics without self destructing.
- davidw 19y agoDisagreements about things we know about are easier to deal with than disagreements about things that we are less knowledgeable about, and that often come down to fundamental disagreements about our philosophies of how the world ought to work. As a concrete example, I for one do not want to be spammed with a bunch of links from mises.org, and I know that there is a significant minority here who loves that stuff. I'd really prefer just to keep things about tech, startups, and the occasional science article (which generally do not elicit strong reactions).
- rms 19y agoI think your argument here is close to the generally held wisdom that you shouldn't talk about religion and politics. Precisely because these are considered toxic conversations is why I think it is important to discuss them. If we can figure out what our fundamental disagreements are instead of namecalling, maybe we can start resolving or at least understanding the other person. Generally, I think more information is better. Economics is important and broadly relates to startups. It's not inherently off-topic and I'd much rather get some additional wisdom from people on this board than never learn their economic opinions. As much as Ron Paul Republicans love mises.org, it seems extremely likely that they would launch a coordinated spam campaign here. Economics comes up here rarely enough that when it does, I think it's great. I doubt that random articles from mises.org would get upvoted here anyways. If so -- great, I can easily beat mises.org economists in argument. I've never seen a forum with mises.org economists where you could have a full on disagreement without descending into trolling, but if such a forum exists on the internet, it's this one. I remain confident in the concept of news.ycombinator -- if Paul Graham thinks there is a problem, he will fix it. This community can handle economics.
- patrickg-zill 19y agoI don't know if Buffet is a hypocrite; however his insurance business does stand to gain a huge amount of business should inheritance taxes increase in one form or another. Reason is that insurance companies sell lucrative insurance contracts on old founders who are near death, so that when they die the insurance payoff covers the tax penalties. The insurance contracts are written off by the company while the person is alive and then the payoff pays the death taxes.
- byrneseyeview 19y agoI had no idea that Berkshire was so involved in the life insurance industry, rather than reinsurance! He's very modest about it in their annual reports, apparently.
- patrickg-zill 19y agoA quick look at Wikipedia's entry on Berkshire Hathaway would have revealed that BH owns Geico, General Re (reinsurance) and yes, some life insurance companies as well.
- byrneseyeview 19y agoThat's true. Perhaps the part of my comment referring to Berkshire's presence in the reinsurance industry was a subtle clue that I was aware that they had a presence in the reinsurance industry. It would be helpful to explain why Berkshire's CEO would sacrifice his excellent reputation as a fair guy -- a reputation absolutely necessary to Berkshire's strategy of deploying capital cheaply by being the buyer of first resort -- in order to enhance the performance of "some [nameless? nonexistent?] life insurance companies" rather than his flagship holdings like Geico, General Re, MidAmerica, Marmon, etc.? It's a crazy theory. I think the death tax is a poor idea, but this Buffett fellow seems legit.
- Prrometheus 19y agoWhy give more money to the largest and most inefficient institution in the world - the US Government? And yes this is politics, not hacker news. I may not be able to restrain myself from market anarchist rants every time this comes up, which would tend to reduce the quality of the site.