Forum Post: Warren Buffet has a plan!
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 18, 2011, 12:02 p.m. EST by hotdoghenry
(268)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the
best quotes about the debt ceiling: "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure. Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around. _*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*_ 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time. THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
This was a well crafted social engineering email that played toward the anger we all feel. However Warren Buffett does not support the email even though it did start with a quote from him.
For details see http://www.andrewtobias.com/bkoldcolumns/111018.html
This email smelled fishy but took me considerable effort to research as the usual sites snopes.com and others did not have it listed yet. It's a tricky world out there, be careful about what you believe.
Cheers, Tim Oey
When emails are circulated attributing endorsement to people who have not endorsed, this serves to discredit the legitimate issues of a movement. When I received this email, I responded to the sender to see who the source of this email is and she could not site anything but a quote from CNBC. When I researched CNBC I could find no such quote in a standard boolean search. I believe in much of what the OWS movement stands for, but am very uncomfortable with a movement that allows any poster to push forward un-authenticated quotes. This does not help the movement. When there are no "leaders" nothing gets vetted and that is a serious problem. I hope the various OWS groups can find a way to address this, because if they don't, OWS risks having all their messages disregarded by everyone, including the people who support them.
Questionable chain e-letter attributable to Warren Buffett
This past week an email attributable to Warren Buffett has been circling the World Wide Web, with the aim of fixing Congress and lowering the deficit. Its second paragraph reads “Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message… The entire text of the email is available at:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/congressional-reform-act-2011.htm
To the best of my knowledge the deficit that Mr. Buffett has been most vocal about over the years to the one that has been link to Berkshire Hathaway home page since November 2003, namely the U.S. trade deficit:
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf
In the book 2008 book I.O.U.S.A. Warren Buffett warns that persistent trade deficits may create real political instability down the line, and increase the possibility that demagogues come along, with very superficial arguments and do some very foolish things. In just 31/2 years, political instability is bringing demagogues out of the woodwork. The central question regarding the aforementioned deficit email is: “Are demagogues using one of the habits of a highly effective propaganda, namely, testimonial to fraudulently rally support to reduce a deficit that is not Mr. Buffet’s primary concern?
@MCC at least put some paragraphs into the spam that you keep posting on every thread. It is unreadable.
GE owns NBC. GE is the largest producer of medical testing equipment in the world. They also own Universal Studeos and several banks. This is why Oprah, Ellen, and Dr Phil were paid hundreds of millions to contantly plug Countrywide (sup-prime bank), Citibank, medical testing, and every over-paid celebrity pig on the planet. Greed has turned just about every TV show into a commercial for parent companies and corporate sponsors. It makes me sick. We have been mislead by Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, and nearly every other public figure. Economic growth, job creation, and actual prosperity are not necessarily a package deal. In fact, the first two are horribly misunderstood. Economic growth/loss (GDP) is little more than a measure of wealth changing hands. A transfer of currency from one party to another. The rate at which it is traded. This was up until mid ’07′ however, has never been a measure of actual prosperity. Neither has job creation. The phrase itself has been thrown around so often, and in such a generic political manner, that it has come to mean nothing. Of course, we need to have certain things done for the benefit of society as a whole. We need farmers, builders, manufacturers, transporters, teachers, cops, firefighters, soldiers, mechanics, sanitation workers, doctors, managers, and visionaries. Their work is vital. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that we need politicians, attorneys, bankers, investors, and entertainers. In order to keep them productive, we must provide reasonable incentives. We need to compensate each by a fair measure for their actual contributions to society. We need to provide a reasonable scale of income opportunity for every independent adult, every provider, and share responsibility for those who have a legitimate need for aid. In order to achieve and sustain this, we must also address the cost of living and the distribution of wealth. Here, we have failed miserably. The majority have already lost their home equity, their financial security, and their relative buying power. The middle class have actually lost much of their ability to make ends meet, re-pay loans, pay taxes, and support their own economy. The lower class have gone nearly bankrupt. In all, its a multi-trillion dollar loss taken over about 30 years. Millions are under the impression that we need to create more jobs simply to provide more opportunity. as if that would solve the problem. It won’t. Not by a longshot. Jobs don’t necessarily create wealth. In fact, they almost never do. For the mostpart, they only transfer wealth from one party to another. A gain here. A loss there. Appreciation in one community. Depreciation in another. In order to create net wealth, you must harvest a new resource or make more efficient use of one. Either way you must have a reliable and ethical system in place to distribute that newly created wealth in order to benefit society as a whole and prevent a lagging downside. The ‘free market’ just doesn’t cut it. Its a farce. Many of the jobs created are nothing but filler. The promises empty. Sure, unemployment reached an all-time low under Bush. GDP reached an all-time high. But those are both shallow and misleading indicators. In order to gauge actual prosperity, you must consider the economy in human terms. As of ’08′ the average American was working more hours than the previous generation with far less equity to show for it. Consumer debt, forclosure, and bankruptcy were also at all-time highs. As of ’08′, every major American city was riddled with depressed communities, neglected neighborhoods, failing infrastructures, lost revenue, and gang activity. All of this has coincided with massive economic growth and job creation. Meanwhile, the rich have been getting richer and richer and richer even after taxes. Our nation’s wealth has been concentrated. Again, this represents a multi-trillion dollar loss taken by the majority. Its an absolute deal breaker. Bottom line: With or without economic growth or job creation, you must have a system in place to prevent too much wealth from being concentrated at the top. Unfortunately, we don’t. Our economy has become nothing but a giant game of Monopoly. The richest one percent already own nearly 1/2 of all United States wealth. More than double their share before Reagan took office. Still, they want more. They absolutely will not stop. Now, our society as a whole is in serious jeapordy. Greed kills.
Good Start....