REDRANT: THESE "PAY MORE TAXES" TYPES CAN ALWAYS WRITE A CHECK TO THE GOVERNMENT. I LIKE A LOT ABOUT WARREN BUFFETT BUT HE HAS COME ON THE BUSINESS CHANNELS TO TRY TO "CALM" RIGHT BEFORE A SERIOUS MARKET DOWNTURN. THIS COULD HAVE A "BACKFIRE' EFFECT WITH PEOPLE THINKING THAT IF WARREN BUFFETT IS TRYING TO CALM AND REASSURE IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN THOUGHT. NOTHING CRIMINAL BUT THE MARKET IS BASED HEAVILY ON PSYCHOLOGY.
Conrad Black has a dispatch on the risks of what he calls "Buffettism": A wealth tax or some other tax-the-rich scheme, Black warns, "would open the gates to terrible abuse, as legislators who are afraid to cut spending, pare entitlements to those who don't need them, raise the actuarial presumptions about Social Security 67 years after its adoption and after the average life expectancy of participants has risen by over ten years, and other steps that will have to be taken, would resort to tokenistic fiscal persecution of the most affluent. Few living things, animal or vegetable, are more tenacious than a politician clinging to an envisioned panacea to justify the deferral of hard decisions. The country waited for the bust of the stimulus monstrosity, and then for the Simpson-Bowles report to be shelved, and for various futile and demeaning bipartisan jawbonings; if anyone took this Buffettism seriously, it would push things out into the next presidential term."
Lawyers be warned that there is some lawyer-bashing in the Black piece, though if anyone's paid enough legal fees to be entitled, it's him.
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