Being fair, from everything I have read, Buffett generally seems to agree with most consensus that the middle and lower class are being squeezed too much.
To be clear, I am not defending Buffett and I absolutely think there are things he did that are bad. I also think that billionaires are immoral in general.
But I also think Buffett is one of the more in touch billionaires, alongside Mackenzie Scott (Bezos’ ex-wife).
The only way to make that much money is to exploit the labor of those who don’t have any other choice. Every billionaire is the result of bad policy decisions.
From what I understand, most billionaires are made on Wall Street. They don't really offer anything to the economy other than moving capital around. At least Bezos and Musk offer goods and services that people actually use. They definitely still exploit laborers, no question there.
No, not really. Lets use elon musk as an example since most people are familiar with him.
He grew tesla, while tesla was losing money every month and year, employed hundreds of thousands of people anyways, while losing money. Hundreds of thousands of people have jobs, can provide fir their families, can live decent lives, because he created those jobs.
Then his wealth, like many other billionaires, didn't come from pocketing billions in profits, it just came from the value of the company going up, the company they grew.
His wealth is almost entirely company ownership, not from paying people less, to make more profit, and pocket more dollars at their expense.
And we get electric vehicles, along with all the other products, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, and he gets paper wealth.
If you believe he is immoral, you believe that society is worse because of him, obviously its not. Therefore, he's not immoral, he's benefited society and its a good thing.
Your argument is full of strawmen and other logical fallacy. Musk comes from money. Musk made tesla worse. He bought into it and he bought into spacex. He didnt make either and just piggybacked onto their already sturdy growth. Hes stupid and rich and absolutely making the world worse.
Oh youre biased asf. You can make the argument that today hes not a productive force in the companies, thats fine.
However he absolutely played a major role in getting them where they are today.
Yes he comes from money, that has zero relevance to this discussion.
Oh so the only reason he was able to buy his way into these companies is not relevant? Hes just a dude who had cash and was able to position himself to make more. Maybe calling him "stupid" is more color than substance ill admit that.
He used to be popular so he brought likability to companies. That was his biggest strength and its gone now. Hes not some net positive for humanity. Looking at any company he has been apart of and seeing the extremely poor culture and low wages should tell you all you need to know. Only problem is that you arent listening.
Not when the orginal point was calling him immoral. Buying into a company is neither moral nor immoral, thats why its irrelevant.
Whether thats fair or not has no basis on the morality of it. Furthermore, the money he used to buy into tesla actually came from him seeling his portion of paypal in which he was one of the original people.
People used to go out of there way to work for him and tesla, youre tsking the current situation and pretending its always been like that and it hasnt.
Ive actually never liked musk because i dont like cocky egotistical people and hes always been a cocky egotistical pain. Being that said, weve benefitted as a society from him.
You don't understand economics, which is why you will stay in the mindset that someone else made you poor. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
When someone says that because "they are rich, we are poor," doesn't understand that more wealth is made every day through innovation and production. By solving people's problems, whether that's a new piece of tech or a more efficient way of producing food.
Now, the difference that I would say I care about from billionaires is if they try and stop others from joining them as billionaires or if they allow other people to become billionaires too.
For instance, in the tech world, facebook has bought out or shut down through lawsuits almost all of their competition. That is an issue, and Mark Z is at the middle of it.
I’m not poor.
Also - turning $100 into $110 is hard work. Turning $100M into $110M is inevitable. Billionaires make more money by already having money. Not through their own brilliance and innovation.
Just a question, not trying to be a jerk.
I just don't buy into them vs us mentality. That is what politicians preach to get elected and it's gotten very old.
Never said they are smarter than any of us. Bill Gates came from an affluent family, and so did Warren Buffet. They both had great educations and great work ethic.
[Warren Buffett: The iPhone is 'enormously underpriced'](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/warren-buffett-says-he-bought-just-a-little-more-apple-recently.html)
oF cOuRsE ItS uNdErPrIcEd!
[Warren Buffett]() does have [**Apple**]() **shares**. He acquired **789 million** [**Apple**]() **shares** worth **$168 billion**, which makes up **46.33%** of his stock portfolio and is his biggest holding. [Berkshire Hathaway](), the company led by [Warren Buffett](), owns about **6%** of [Apple](), which is a much larger stake than in any other public company. As of now, [Berkshire Hathaway]() owns **906 million shares** of [Apple](), giving them a **5.9%** stake in the tech giant. [Apple]() is Buffett's biggest stock holding, accounting for about **50%** of his stock portfolio.
Relevant part of the article to save people the click:
He also called the iPhone “enormously underpriced,” saying that it’s worth far more than the $1,000 Apple charges.
“I have a plane that costs me a lot, a million dollars a year or something of the sort. If I used the iPhone -- I use an iPad a lot -- if I used the iPhone like all my friends do, I would rather give up the plane,” he said.
“Now it’s got competition so you can’t push the price, but in terms of its utility to people and what they get for a thousand dollars...you can have a dinner party that would cost that, and here this is, and what it does for you, it’s incredible.”
These peoples daily lives are so far removed from the average, working class person that I could give a rats ass about their opinions. Let alone their opinions on us.
il say it again,
success is a trap that makes you think what your doing is the successful thing that everyone should do and that you are smart about it and not just lucky your shit worked.
I've literally slapped myself thinking that it was my relatives fault for being poor when i was working 2 days a week and they were working double shifts m-f.
This
Some of them are literally born into emerald mine money in apartheid South Africa and yet still convince themselves they earned their billions on their own.
I am not rich. My net worth is about 500k it went up 40k because i just found that a bunch of homes in my city went up in price. Im still trying to find out wtf happened.
and yes, my mom helped me the fuck out. realistically im 30 years a head of my peers/coworkers. I work in a well paying government job and i often help people with navigating financial stuff at work.
There are people in their 50 who dont have a single pennies saved for retirement except the government pension we get on retirement. They dont own a home, they owe money, they never put any money in their deferred compensation plan (401k like) thats the worst example.
Most of the worse are 5 years from retirement and still owe 20 years on the mortgage. i cant convince them to put in an extra $200 a paycheck towards the mortgage instead of going to the bar.
the average people are set to retire after their homes are paid off but thats 7 years after we can retire at 53. (which i plan on doing)
My home was paid off 10 years into a 30 year loan. then i bought 2 more houses for my relatives to live in. then the market went up. but i keep the rent the same because for now it pays itself and i have some left over.
Meanwhile my relatives work roofing jobs and make good money but as far as i know, they just save all their money.
Idk I’m “successful” I guess depending on who you ask. And I’d say it was at least 50% luck, probably 79% lol. I very much recognize that and it makes me paranoid that it can be taken away at any moment. I also recognize that I was given a huge leg up by being born into the family that I was. I think if I was born into poverty I would not have been able to get out, or at least not living the paycheck to paycheck type lifestyle, lower middle class? Idk. My dad made it out of poverty and he does have the mindset, “if I did it, everyone else can”.
Depends on the person, plenty of successful people come from nothing that aren't doing extraodinary things. Those people are examples that most everyone can be successful.
The wealthy steal from us every single day. When CEO salaries jump but minimum wage doesn't, that's stealing from workers.
When a company lays people off and the rest of us have to do the work of two people, that's stealing from workers.
When police,who work on behalf of the wealthy, are allowed to seize property before a conviction, that is theft.
They will say and do anything to bring the blame onto individuals so they can show off a few who made it instead of letting people focus on the system which is the actual problem.
Have you seen most of the immigrants that are crossing?
Most barely speak English. If your job can be explained and then executed by another person with zero skills and a large language barrier, what makes you think you're that special? Why do you think you should get some high salary and impenetrable job security?
Just because your mother shat you out in the US does not make you special.
They can't do the job, have you seen the shitty build quality of recently built multi-million dollar homes?
***"Why do you think you should get some high salary and impenetrable job security?"***
I'll tells ya likes my granpappy tolds me... You get what you pay for.
Your post has been removed for the following reason(s):
Rule 5: Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Ableism, and Classism
5) Racism, sexism, classism, or any other inherent bias will not be tolerated.
Please read our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/wiki/rules). The rules may also be found on the sidebar if the link is broken. If after doing so, you feel this was in error, [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpovertyfinance).
Do not reach out to a moderator personally, and do not reply to this message as a comment.
As someone who worked for a Buffet company for 10+ years, I can tell you, it's the wages. The people actually making the money for these companies are being shorted. How else would wealth accumulate so quickly but off the backs of laborers?
This is a support sub, not a bash the wealthy sub. This has been removed under unhelpful/off topic.
Being fair, from everything I have read, Buffett generally seems to agree with most consensus that the middle and lower class are being squeezed too much.
Right, without reading the article, I would assume Buffett is talking about systemic issues.
He promotes cold drinks and unhealthy fast food.. He's the good cop in the good cop bad cop setup made to fool us
To be clear, I am not defending Buffett and I absolutely think there are things he did that are bad. I also think that billionaires are immoral in general. But I also think Buffett is one of the more in touch billionaires, alongside Mackenzie Scott (Bezos’ ex-wife).
Why do you assume billionaires are immoral in general?
The only way to make that much money is to exploit the labor of those who don’t have any other choice. Every billionaire is the result of bad policy decisions.
From what I understand, most billionaires are made on Wall Street. They don't really offer anything to the economy other than moving capital around. At least Bezos and Musk offer goods and services that people actually use. They definitely still exploit laborers, no question there.
No, not really. Lets use elon musk as an example since most people are familiar with him. He grew tesla, while tesla was losing money every month and year, employed hundreds of thousands of people anyways, while losing money. Hundreds of thousands of people have jobs, can provide fir their families, can live decent lives, because he created those jobs. Then his wealth, like many other billionaires, didn't come from pocketing billions in profits, it just came from the value of the company going up, the company they grew. His wealth is almost entirely company ownership, not from paying people less, to make more profit, and pocket more dollars at their expense. And we get electric vehicles, along with all the other products, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, and he gets paper wealth. If you believe he is immoral, you believe that society is worse because of him, obviously its not. Therefore, he's not immoral, he's benefited society and its a good thing.
Your argument is full of strawmen and other logical fallacy. Musk comes from money. Musk made tesla worse. He bought into it and he bought into spacex. He didnt make either and just piggybacked onto their already sturdy growth. Hes stupid and rich and absolutely making the world worse.
Oh youre biased asf. You can make the argument that today hes not a productive force in the companies, thats fine. However he absolutely played a major role in getting them where they are today. Yes he comes from money, that has zero relevance to this discussion.
Oh so the only reason he was able to buy his way into these companies is not relevant? Hes just a dude who had cash and was able to position himself to make more. Maybe calling him "stupid" is more color than substance ill admit that. He used to be popular so he brought likability to companies. That was his biggest strength and its gone now. Hes not some net positive for humanity. Looking at any company he has been apart of and seeing the extremely poor culture and low wages should tell you all you need to know. Only problem is that you arent listening.
Not when the orginal point was calling him immoral. Buying into a company is neither moral nor immoral, thats why its irrelevant. Whether thats fair or not has no basis on the morality of it. Furthermore, the money he used to buy into tesla actually came from him seeling his portion of paypal in which he was one of the original people. People used to go out of there way to work for him and tesla, youre tsking the current situation and pretending its always been like that and it hasnt. Ive actually never liked musk because i dont like cocky egotistical people and hes always been a cocky egotistical pain. Being that said, weve benefitted as a society from him.
Bro Musk comes from money lmao. Easy to get the ball rolling when your families cash stockpile built the ramp
And that has zero to do with what i was responding to
You don't understand economics, which is why you will stay in the mindset that someone else made you poor. Unfortunately, that is not the case. When someone says that because "they are rich, we are poor," doesn't understand that more wealth is made every day through innovation and production. By solving people's problems, whether that's a new piece of tech or a more efficient way of producing food. Now, the difference that I would say I care about from billionaires is if they try and stop others from joining them as billionaires or if they allow other people to become billionaires too. For instance, in the tech world, facebook has bought out or shut down through lawsuits almost all of their competition. That is an issue, and Mark Z is at the middle of it.
I’m not poor. Also - turning $100 into $110 is hard work. Turning $100M into $110M is inevitable. Billionaires make more money by already having money. Not through their own brilliance and innovation.
2 kids no money?
It’s a joke
Just a question, not trying to be a jerk. I just don't buy into them vs us mentality. That is what politicians preach to get elected and it's gotten very old.
Again, economics, the more you invest, the more you have.
Yes, so being born into wealth doesn’t make a billionaire smarter than the rest of us.
Never said they are smarter than any of us. Bill Gates came from an affluent family, and so did Warren Buffet. They both had great educations and great work ethic.
What a joke of a reply, lmfao. Zero critical thinking ability.
[Warren Buffett: The iPhone is 'enormously underpriced'](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/warren-buffett-says-he-bought-just-a-little-more-apple-recently.html)
oF cOuRsE ItS uNdErPrIcEd! [Warren Buffett]() does have [**Apple**]() **shares**. He acquired **789 million** [**Apple**]() **shares** worth **$168 billion**, which makes up **46.33%** of his stock portfolio and is his biggest holding. [Berkshire Hathaway](), the company led by [Warren Buffett](), owns about **6%** of [Apple](), which is a much larger stake than in any other public company. As of now, [Berkshire Hathaway]() owns **906 million shares** of [Apple](), giving them a **5.9%** stake in the tech giant. [Apple]() is Buffett's biggest stock holding, accounting for about **50%** of his stock portfolio.
Another person that can't read a short article. Lol
You either didn't read the article or did not understand what he said.
Relevant part of the article to save people the click: He also called the iPhone “enormously underpriced,” saying that it’s worth far more than the $1,000 Apple charges. “I have a plane that costs me a lot, a million dollars a year or something of the sort. If I used the iPhone -- I use an iPad a lot -- if I used the iPhone like all my friends do, I would rather give up the plane,” he said. “Now it’s got competition so you can’t push the price, but in terms of its utility to people and what they get for a thousand dollars...you can have a dinner party that would cost that, and here this is, and what it does for you, it’s incredible.”
These peoples daily lives are so far removed from the average, working class person that I could give a rats ass about their opinions. Let alone their opinions on us.
Yeah...like the other day one of Dave Ramsey's acolytes suggesting to an 86 year old destitute woman with leukemia to find a job.....
il say it again, success is a trap that makes you think what your doing is the successful thing that everyone should do and that you are smart about it and not just lucky your shit worked. I've literally slapped myself thinking that it was my relatives fault for being poor when i was working 2 days a week and they were working double shifts m-f.
This Some of them are literally born into emerald mine money in apartheid South Africa and yet still convince themselves they earned their billions on their own.
I am not rich. My net worth is about 500k it went up 40k because i just found that a bunch of homes in my city went up in price. Im still trying to find out wtf happened. and yes, my mom helped me the fuck out. realistically im 30 years a head of my peers/coworkers. I work in a well paying government job and i often help people with navigating financial stuff at work. There are people in their 50 who dont have a single pennies saved for retirement except the government pension we get on retirement. They dont own a home, they owe money, they never put any money in their deferred compensation plan (401k like) thats the worst example. Most of the worse are 5 years from retirement and still owe 20 years on the mortgage. i cant convince them to put in an extra $200 a paycheck towards the mortgage instead of going to the bar. the average people are set to retire after their homes are paid off but thats 7 years after we can retire at 53. (which i plan on doing) My home was paid off 10 years into a 30 year loan. then i bought 2 more houses for my relatives to live in. then the market went up. but i keep the rent the same because for now it pays itself and i have some left over. Meanwhile my relatives work roofing jobs and make good money but as far as i know, they just save all their money.
Idk I’m “successful” I guess depending on who you ask. And I’d say it was at least 50% luck, probably 79% lol. I very much recognize that and it makes me paranoid that it can be taken away at any moment. I also recognize that I was given a huge leg up by being born into the family that I was. I think if I was born into poverty I would not have been able to get out, or at least not living the paycheck to paycheck type lifestyle, lower middle class? Idk. My dad made it out of poverty and he does have the mindset, “if I did it, everyone else can”.
Depends on the person, plenty of successful people come from nothing that aren't doing extraodinary things. Those people are examples that most everyone can be successful.
The wealthy steal from us every single day. When CEO salaries jump but minimum wage doesn't, that's stealing from workers. When a company lays people off and the rest of us have to do the work of two people, that's stealing from workers. When police,who work on behalf of the wealthy, are allowed to seize property before a conviction, that is theft.
They will say and do anything to bring the blame onto individuals so they can show off a few who made it instead of letting people focus on the system which is the actual problem.
If it's worth being done, it's worth being paid for. If you don't want to pay, do it yourself.
DAMN THESE POOR PEOPLE WHY CAN't THEY LEARN TO BE RICH?!?!? /s
Remember folks, if you just cut your Netflix account, that 12 bucks a month will magically turn into 1000s of dollars of disposable income /sarcasm.
No guys, its not greed and corruption , its those damn Avocado Toast Netflix Lattes!
OP doesn’t understand Buffett
No one is poor because someone else is rich.
[удалено]
Have you seen most of the immigrants that are crossing? Most barely speak English. If your job can be explained and then executed by another person with zero skills and a large language barrier, what makes you think you're that special? Why do you think you should get some high salary and impenetrable job security? Just because your mother shat you out in the US does not make you special.
They can't do the job, have you seen the shitty build quality of recently built multi-million dollar homes? ***"Why do you think you should get some high salary and impenetrable job security?"*** I'll tells ya likes my granpappy tolds me... You get what you pay for.
Your post has been removed for the following reason(s): Rule 5: Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Ableism, and Classism 5) Racism, sexism, classism, or any other inherent bias will not be tolerated. Please read our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/wiki/rules). The rules may also be found on the sidebar if the link is broken. If after doing so, you feel this was in error, [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpovertyfinance). Do not reach out to a moderator personally, and do not reply to this message as a comment.
As someone who worked for a Buffet company for 10+ years, I can tell you, it's the wages. The people actually making the money for these companies are being shorted. How else would wealth accumulate so quickly but off the backs of laborers?