Mixed reviews for Obama speech among Davos mighty

Yahoo ^ | 1/25/12 | Ben Hirschler and Emma Thomasson - Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The rich and powerful were divided at their annual huddle on Wednesday over Barack Obama's threat to raise their taxes, with some saying it could hurt growth, but others arguing he was right to address capitalism's imbalances.

Obama's State of the Union address focused on channeling middle class anger at inequality, including a call for a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires that could make the wealth of Republican rival Mitt Romney a central election issue.

It was delivered on the eve of World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, which found many of the world's titans of industry and politics in reflective mood, focusing on whether capitalism needs to be more fair to survive.

"I happen to be one of the billionaires who believe that the rich do need to pay more taxes and I do support the Obama program in that respect," investor George Soros said in Davos.

"I'm very much a minority in the hedge fund community because they don't like to be taxed."

But other Davos regulars don't like being in the president's crosshairs.

"I don't think any presidential election in the history of America has been won on the politics of envy and I think if anything it divides the country more than unites it," said John Studzinski, senior managing director of investment and advisory Blackstone Group.

Unilever chief executive Paul Polman said Obama was right to address the inequality issue: "As a consumer goods company we sell to all, and it's important that all benefit from this growth, and this is what we're waiting for," he said.

But he took issue with singling out the rich: "It is not going to find a solution. This is an election speech. We need to play above that."

[NormsRevenge]

Mixed, not assorted. :-]

But nuts either way. ;-)

[pallis]

I’m glad I missed it. The lying, effeminate halfwit is nauseating.

[Ohioan]

The pity is that most of the very wealthy, in America today, have been conditioned by the Leftist rant over the past three generations, to be at least a little apologetic.

This is a mistake, both tactically & morally. One of the major considerations in tax policy, should be an understanding that taxes on Capital Gains, for a prime example of what is wrong, are often confiscatory. They, depending on how long the asset was held, may be taxing the effect of price inflation, rather than an actual gain--thus really appropriating part of the capital that has been legitimately earned, as the price gain may be less than the inflationary effect.

See Capital Gains Taxation.

Another injustice in tax policy, has been the Estate Taxes over an extended period, which has forced many family enterprises to sell out to conglomerates, without the local ties that the families forced to sell had to their communities. This has contributed both to our unemployment problems, and to the undermining of community values, etc.. It is something that needs to be better understood.

William Flax