Posted on 06/28/2006 3:56:00 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
No sooner had Warren Buffett made the single largest philanthropic donation in history than he was talking up the death tax. After signing over $30.7 billion to the Gates Foundation - and thus depriving the government of upward of $17 billion, depending on when he ultimately expires - Buffett told reporters, "I would hate to see the estate tax gutted. It's a very equitable tax."
It's understandable that Buffett believes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will do a better job spending his fortune than the U.S. Congress. For the impoverished, disease-stricken of Africa, the Gates Foundation is a far more reasonable source of hope than, say, the United Nations.
Less understandable is Buffett's opinion of the death tax, which he describes as an equalizer for newborns.
"It's keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country - not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged," he said Monday.
In fact, some Americans work their whole lives just for the satisfaction of knowing they're leaving their children with greater comfort than they themselves had.
Their children, that is, are their favorite charity - and there's nothing wrong with that.
Actually, it seems that even Buffett feels this way. Before signing over $30 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he made $1 billion pledges to foundations run by his children, Susie, Howard and Peter.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yes, They Have More Money
Warren Buffet has made the biggest “philanthropic” donation in the history of the universe. The largest part of the gift goes to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Why? Obviously, Mr. Buffet is just smart enough to make nearly $40 billion but not smart enough to know how to spend it. Well, then, he thinks, “Who’s smarter than me?” Translated, “Who’s richer than me?” There is only one answer, and that is Bill Gates. Besides, Gates, in devoting himself to misanthropy, has monopolized the headlines. What better way of getting revenge than to give more to Gates’s foundation than Bill has donated himself?
But neither Buffet nor Gates has the slightest idea of what to do with his money. Their “ideas” are the usual clichés of the Left: Kill babies, encourage women to hate their father and husbands, destroy religion and tradition and every other thing that might make life worth living. On top of it all, each, outside his little robber barony, is a miserable life-fearing nerd. It is hard to blame them for supporting leftist causes, when all they know is what they read in the newspapers or see on TV.
How does America produce such pathetic specimens, without blood enough in them to do either bad or good? Now Ted Turner, he is a villain on the heroic scale. As a businessman he frequently acted more like Blackbeard than Buffet; as a womanizer and party animal, he was a legend; and, to top it off, he was a damn fine skipper. Drunk on power—not to the exclusion of other things a man can get drunk on—Turner is capable of saying and doing anything he likes. He is usually wrong, but his “I don’t give a damn attitude” toward what people think has an aristocratic edge to it. Yes, Turner is one mean SOB even to old friends, but from everything I know about him, he is something like a man. He may be going straight to Hell, but, as Screwtape reminds us, people like Turner are unreliable agents of Satan. They have just enough anger and conceit to change their minds. Would Warren Buffet have the nerve to buck Hollywood and finance Gettysburg?
With Buffet, Gates, and too many of the other giants of American business, they have no understanding of the world beyond making more money, and since enjoying life requires knowledge and skill—more like fly fishing than watching TV—they cannot even have a good time on the money they have made . It has taken me several decades of observation to realize what Aristotle and Paul were talking about when they condemned pleonexia, the vice of always wanting more wealth. Paul often associates pleonexia (greed is an inadequate translation) with sodomy. Why? Because both are sterile and emasculating obsessions. Look at the bloated bovine bloodless faces of so many plutocrats. Below good and evil, they are truly to be pitied for what they have done to themselves.
There is much to be said in favor of the classical liberal tradition, even in its extreme libertarian form. But where has this tradition ended up: in the adulation of rich zombies who are the perfect illustration of all that has gone wrong in America life, our stupidity, our weakness and cowardice, our complete inability to enjoy life unless it is enhanced by Japanese computer graphics and soaked in MSG and sugar. A real human being, given a few billion dollars, might make himself dangerous or at least obnoxious, but America’s billionaire’s are too weak and silly to do anything but what will make them Time magazine’s Man of the Year.
I’ve said it many times before, but I’ll say it again: If they’re so rich, why ain’t they smart
Before I die, I hope to see a billionaire leave the bulk of his / her estate to the NRA. The left would have a cow.
Bull.
I have friends in Seattle and other cities who have mentioned that libraries and schools have been given whole computer labs by this foundation. Further what's so stupid about eradicating disease in the third world?
When little Susie, little Howard, and little Peter agree to surrender their one billion dollars each to the US government octopus, then I'll take seriously Buffett's utter phony baloney to the effect that, "It's keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country - not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged..."
Hypocrite with a capital "H" and HUMBUG with a capital "HUMBUG." His kids each get a billion as he stands off to the side and laughs while Uncle Sam gobbles up the family farm.
The level of obscenity embodied by this guy is inexpressible.
I realize this is the conventional wisdom when they release those rich people lists but the people making the lists never mention that if Sam Walton didn't split up his fortune before he died he would have been worth more than Gates and Buffett put together. I guess Sam wasn't liberal enough.
"but the people making the lists never mention that if Sam Walton didn't split up his fortune before he died he would have been worth more than Gates and Buffett put together. I guess Sam wasn't liberal enough."
No.
Sam Walton happens to be very dead.
The list is a list of the living.
A tax for thee, but not for me...
The Post makes an important point: Buffett uses the occassion of $17bn in tax avoidance to talk about how great the tax is...
...and the lefties give their nods and smiles and applause.
Would you care to elaborate on the good Fates fdn does in Africa? I have never seen anything written that made much sense.
I haven't done any estate planning of this magnitude, but it runs in my mind that if he gave it out of the estate after death, it would have the same effect, i.e. the taxable estate would be reduced by the amount of the gifts to charities.
If you're so smart, why can't you make a few billion and give it to a cause you believe is more worthwhile than what the Gates Foundation spends its money on?
I doubt that aid p rograms to feed and provide medicine to Africans will succeed. I thought we ha learned by the 1960's that feeding p oor people just begets more poor people. It satisfies the empathy gene, but that is all.
How can a man so smart make a statement so idiotic?
It was always about putting money into foundations that would enable both Gates and Buffett to avoid taxes.
I happen to agree with you. When Gates and Buffet join forces, it can't be good. It will only be more leftist causes.
Very true. The only thing worth spending money on in Africa is birth control. A few months ago, I read an article about the failure of a program that brought piped running water to an African village where women had previously walked miles every day to get water and carry it back. The program sponsors figured piping in water would raise the standard of living and in particular the dismal nutritional status of the village residents. Nope, the women just used every calorie they saved by not having to walk to get water, to have more babies. Nutritional status actually DROPPED! And of course that guarantees that yet another generation of babies there will be born permanently mentally impaired, just like their parents, due to being grown in the womb of a poorly nourished mother. And then the cycle will repeat itself, with yet another generation that can't figure out how to do ANYTHING but have more babies.
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