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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (336310)	5/3/2007 8:54:13 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1573822

Class Warfare 'Victim' Warren Buffett Speaks Out Republicans would have us believe that the estate tax and progressive taxation are a form of class warfare on the wealthy. Which makes it doubly notable when the world's second richest person, Warren Buffett, takes a strong public stand against corporate backslappers in his yearly letter to Berkshire Hathaway investors. Via Reuters: ..."I am on my soapbox now only because the blatant wrongdoing that has occurred has betrayed the trust of so many millions of shareholders," Buffett said. "Hundreds of industry insiders had to know what was going on, yet none publicly said a word. It took Eliot Spitzer, and the whistleblowers who aided him, to initiate a housecleaning. We urge fund directors to continue the job." ..."Overreaching by CEOs greatly accelerated in the 1990s as compensation packages gained by the most avaricious -- a title for which there was vigorous competition -- were promptly replicated elsewhere," he added. Buffett has for years taken a $100,000 annual salary to run Berkshire, although with a net worth that Forbes magazine last month put at $42.9 billion, he can afford it. Interesting that the objective reporter writing this article for us would imply that a $100k yearly salary was something that only an independently wealthy person could afford to take. According to Forbes, Buffett is also keen to make the beseiged CEO class pay more taxes: ...Buffett said Berkshire's taxes rose more than eleven-fold to $3.3 billion from 1995 to 2003, as profits rose ten-fold to $8.15 billion. During the same period, federal income taxes paid by all U.S. companies fell by 16 percent, to $132 billion. "We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future -- it will mean we are prospering -- but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us," said Buffett... ..."Tax breaks for corporations -- and their investors, particularly large ones -- were a major part of the administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives," Buffett said. "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning." ...Last May, Buffett wrote a Washington Post opinion article criticizing a key element of Bush's tax package -- a cut in tax rates on corporate dividends. Buffett urged that any tax cuts should go to lower-income people or others "who both need and will spend the money gained." ... Also, according to the Financial Times, he took a dim view of the state of the dollar: ...Mr Buffett also highlighted a number of risks to the US economy that add to last year's warnings on derivatives and corporate governance. In particular, he singled out the weak dollar as a cause for concern and revealed that Berkshire Hathaway had $12bn invested in foreign currencies to balance its exposure to the greenback. "Prevailing exchange rates will not lead to a material letup in our trade deficit. So whether foreign investors like it or not they will continue to be flooded with dollars," said Mr Buffett. "The consequences of this are anybody's guess. They could, however, be troublesome - and reach, in fact, well beyond currency markets." ... Apparently, having money doesn't have to put you out of touch with reality.