Warren Buffett, billionaire, sage of Omaha, Berkshire Hathaway chairman, told CNBC that not only is the U.S. economy in recession, but that the data he is seeing from the companies Berkshire owns tells him that things are getting worse. He did not expect the Fed to cut interest rates today and they did not. But that doesn’t make him a genius, even I figured they wouldn’t.
Further, Buffett feels that for the first time in his life there is not excess oil capacity and that is what is driving up oil prices, not speculation. He also feels it’s wrong to tax oil companies on windfall profits (and I agree) especially since other commodities are going up as well. What are you going to do, tax farmers windfall profits because of higher grain prices? That won’t fly in an election year.
Of course, Buffett does favor higher taxes, why I have no idea, and feels it therefore appropriate to fund a presidential candidate about whom we know little more than his promise to increase taxes. Barack Hussein Obama is Buffett’s choice for President and you can rest assured that when Obama says he’ll tax the rich more what he means by rich is anyone with a decent paycheck.
(Please note that I think John McCain is about the worst candidate that the Republicans could put forward, essentially guaranteeing a Democratic win. Combine that with Bush’s blunder at the last election with Donald Rumsfeld and you really have to consider that both parties work for the same entity.)
I have great respect for Warren Buffett on business and the economy, zero for his attitudes towards taxes and politicians. He has enough money that he could actually give a guy like Dr. Ron Paul a real chance, but that will never happen. Buffett would have even been content with Hillary.
I guess every genius has at least one screw loose.
What Buffett wasn’t clear on was how we get the economy going again. One thing for sure is that a tax increase of any kind is NOT what we need.
