Warren Buffet, along with Bill Gates, is perhaps one of the most head-lined philanthocapitalists. His company's vice-president is much more up front about the realities of capitalism.
During a discussion at the University of Michigan in 2010, the billionaire vice-chairman of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway firm, Charles Munger, was asked whether the government should have bailed out homeowners rather than banks. "You've got it exactly wrong," he said."There's danger in just shovelling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.' At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'"
But banks, he insisted, need our help. It turns out that moral hazard – the notion that those who know the costs of their failure will be borne by others will become increasingly reckless – only really applies to the working poor. "You should thank God" for bank bailouts, Munger told his audience. "Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies."
The 2013 Global Wealth Databook shows that U.S. wealth has increased from $47 trillion in 2008 to $72 trillion in mid-2013. But according to U.S. Government Revenue figures, federal income taxes have gone DOWN from 2008 to 2012. Even worse, corporations cut their tax rate in half. American society has gained nothing from its massive wealth expansion. There's no wealth tax, no financial transaction tax. The richest 12 million Americans -- gained, on average, nearly a million dollars in financial wealth between 2008 and 2013.
"Over the past 30 years the workers' take from the pie has shrunk across the globe," explains an editorial in the latest Economist. "The scale and breadth of this squeeze are striking…workers are getting a smaller morsel of a smaller slice of a slow-growing pie."
The capitalists can buy themselves out of any crises, as long as they make the workers pay. Four US states passed laws restricting the minimum wage, four lifted restrictions on child labour, and 16 imposed new limits on benefits for the unemployed. With the support of the corporate lobbies, states also passed laws stripping workers of overtime rights, repealing or restricting rights to sick leave, and making it harder to sue one's employer for race or sex discrimination. In 2008, Obama’s chief of staff to be, Rahm Emmanuel, said: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Ans so they are trying to balance the budget on the bellies of the hungry with cuts to food-stamps, fattening the coffers of the wealthy on the backs of the poor.
During a discussion at the University of Michigan in 2010, the billionaire vice-chairman of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway firm, Charles Munger, was asked whether the government should have bailed out homeowners rather than banks. "You've got it exactly wrong," he said."There's danger in just shovelling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.' At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'"
But banks, he insisted, need our help. It turns out that moral hazard – the notion that those who know the costs of their failure will be borne by others will become increasingly reckless – only really applies to the working poor. "You should thank God" for bank bailouts, Munger told his audience. "Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies."
The 2013 Global Wealth Databook shows that U.S. wealth has increased from $47 trillion in 2008 to $72 trillion in mid-2013. But according to U.S. Government Revenue figures, federal income taxes have gone DOWN from 2008 to 2012. Even worse, corporations cut their tax rate in half. American society has gained nothing from its massive wealth expansion. There's no wealth tax, no financial transaction tax. The richest 12 million Americans -- gained, on average, nearly a million dollars in financial wealth between 2008 and 2013.
"Over the past 30 years the workers' take from the pie has shrunk across the globe," explains an editorial in the latest Economist. "The scale and breadth of this squeeze are striking…workers are getting a smaller morsel of a smaller slice of a slow-growing pie."
The capitalists can buy themselves out of any crises, as long as they make the workers pay. Four US states passed laws restricting the minimum wage, four lifted restrictions on child labour, and 16 imposed new limits on benefits for the unemployed. With the support of the corporate lobbies, states also passed laws stripping workers of overtime rights, repealing or restricting rights to sick leave, and making it harder to sue one's employer for race or sex discrimination. In 2008, Obama’s chief of staff to be, Rahm Emmanuel, said: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Ans so they are trying to balance the budget on the bellies of the hungry with cuts to food-stamps, fattening the coffers of the wealthy on the backs of the poor.
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