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Archive of posts published in the tag: Warren Buffet

The Secret to Berkshire’s Success

By Henry Oliner For the third consecutive year I attended the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha.  It has become a tradition for a group of us attending to meet the first night at Drovers Steakhouse where they marinate the

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Capitalism Requires Optimism – Thoughts 2016 04 26

The call for a higher minimum wage is an admission that policies are stifling economic growth. The best way to increase worker pay is to create a demand for their labor.  This means stimulating investment and encouraging risk taking.  Capitalism

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Risk Horizons

There are a lot of ways to lose money in the stock market, but far fewer effective ways to make money. Looking at two managed accounts over the same time period, one was far more profitable than the other.  One

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Feeding a Culture of Envy

During the question and answer session of the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting one from the audience asked about fuller disclosure of compensation of more than the top executives as required by the SEC.  Since there were so many managers getting

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Regressive Marginal Tax Rates

In the current debate of how best to increase revenues it is important to distinguish between marginal taxes and effective taxes.  Marginal taxes are the taxes you pay on an incremental amount of income.  If the marginal tax rate is

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I Would Prefer to Pay More Taxes

In 2008 General Steel, Inc, the company I run, had a good year. We generated record sales, profits and taxes. In 2009 volume fell sharply as a result of the credit collapse,  the collapse of the prices of the commodities

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The “Jobs Rule” vs the “Buffet Rule”

Rich Lowry writes The Jobs Rule in The National Review Online 10/7/11. Excerpt: Pres. Barack Obama loves his “Buffett Rule” for taxes. He’d be better served by adopting the “Jobs Rule”: Government’s role is to provide the structure of order and

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The Other Side of the Social Contract

While our political conversation should be focused on the deficit and unemployment, or the size and role of the government in our lives, we have been distracted by rhetoric on fairness and the wealthy. We are mislead by extreme examples

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An Obsession with Fairness

Suppose you had no job and no investments.   All of your assets existed in your checking account.  The only tax you paid was a six per cent sales tax.  A friend of yours has a job and pays 25% income

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Crony Socialism and Jobs

The Obama Jobs Bill is just so awful that I predict many Democrats will not support it.  After the losses they faced in 2010 and the particular losses in the recent interim elections- especially Anthony Weiner’s seat in New York- support for

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Accumulating Disincentives

from Pajamas Media- Zero Jobs 101 — the Psychology of Alienating Employers by Victor Davis Hansen – September 2, 2011 Experpts: In the last 30 months, the Obama administration has created a psychological landscape that finally just seemed, whether fairly

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A Better Use of Capital

Warren Buffet’s most recent call to tax the wealthy more has been bantered about in the press and has received several good responses.  I could sum them up as follows: The problem is the spending . Sending them more money

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They Already Have Their Money

Barney Kilgore, the man who made the Wall Street Journal into a national publication, was once asked why so many rich people favored higher taxes. That’s easy, he replied. They already have their money.

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How to Make Fools Look Competent

Unquestionably, some people have become very rich through the use of borrowed money.  However, that’s also been a way to get very poor.  When leverage works, it magnifies your gains.  Your spouse thinks you’re clever, and your neighbors get envious. 

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Why Remain Skeptical on the Economy

Does the rising stock market and improving unemployment numbers support Obama’s economic solutions? It may appear so, but I remain skeptical for several reasons. The stock market is rebounding off of the low of a year ago, which was largely

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Buffet’s Sweet Goldman Deal

While the players and regulators were struggling to get investors to commit capital to the major banks to avoid a meltdown, Warren Buffet was called upon several times.  He consistently turned them down because the assets were too complicated to

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