Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Warren Buffett & The War on Billionaires

I know what you’re up to Warren Buffett. You don’t fool me for a second. You may think you’re slick—but you are not, sir.

By now, most of us have read the article in the N.Y. Times written by Buffett where he chides us not to coddle the super-wealthy, like himself, and supports higher taxes for those in the top echelon of the tax bracket. I’m sorry. I’m not buying it though. Something smells fishy and I think I’ve figured it out.

Buffett is scared. And he has good reason to be.

The 2012 election is rapidly approaching and the Yes-We-Can Man that Buffett supported the last time around has become the Well-I-Tried-Really-Hard-But-The-Other-Guys-Are-Really-Mean Guy and he’s in danger of not being elected for a second term. And I don’t know if you’ve taken a good look at any of the Republican Party hopefuls but the group as a whole is crazier than a guy trying to do cartwheels up a flight of stairs.

And here are the facts: We’re in debt—big time. And the Repubs—well, they all like low taxes and starting wars. They’ve learned from the last dummy and this time around when they start lowering taxes they know they’ll need to climb out of debt somehow and no matter how many programs they cut, they’ll never do it that way which leaves one, fairly obvious plan.

Declare war on Billionaires.

Let’s face it. The groundwork has been set. The days of having to declare war on countries is OVER. We can now declare wars on groups of people. The Terrorists came first, but the War on Terror came about when our problem was being afraid. We needed to beat somebody up so we could feel better, tougher, safer and less afraid. Mission accomplished. Just a decade removed from the horrors of 9/11 we do nothing but whine and complain about long lines at airport security checkpoints. We’re positively arrogant, once again, in the face of terrorism.

The new problem is money. We don’t have any. And we don’t do or make anything here anymore. We’re a country full of people with desks, laptops and chairs with good lumbar support. The only thing we actually make are spreadsheets and power point presentations. We fill both of those things with information skewed to prove this point or that one. We talk about metrics and forecasts and synergy. We learned one thing really quick when the economy failed. The majority of the workforce is superfluous. A business owner can fire half of his or her employees and the only difference is less meetings to attend where people try to prove to one and other how smart and important they are and fewer spreadsheets to read.

So, what does this all mean for the future? Well, there’s a good chance that Crazy-Eyes Malone or Maverick McGee is going to be our next president and when they’re in charge there’s really only one possible course of action to take: The War on Billionaires.

It’s a win-win proposition.

These silly bastards have amassed their billions of dollars without ever having built personal armies or allocating vast portions of their wealth to defense! They’re practically helpless! We can invade Warren Buffett’s estate or Bill Gates’ mansion with virtually zero resistance! This is exactly what the GOP needs, a war without a single casualty and no need for an exit strategy! Hell, I’m sure the troops won’t mind occupying the Gates Mansion for a couple years anyway!

We kick guys like Buffett out of their homes, take all of their money and let them live on the streets so their bleeding heart liberal friends can feed them with foodstamps and in the process, we amass enough money to buy our way out of debt and probably even have a little surplus when it’s all said and done! So what if we make 600 former billionaire’s upset in the process? As long as we take care of the millionaires and those making six-figure salaries the Repub base will remain strong.

Oh, they won’t run on this platform of course, but if you pay attention, you can see it forming already. Warren Buffett has certainly seen the writing on the wall. It’s actually pretty comical that he thinks he can volunteer to pay a little bit more in taxes and somehow avoid the inevitability of The War on Billionaires.

It’s too late, I’m afraid. Barrack Obama will be a one-term president. He said he could, but it turns out he couldn’t. There isn’t a single good leader in the entire group of Republican candidates and even if there was, it would be impossible to tell because they all get their talking points from the same place. No, it’s inevitable now. President Palin will be running the show soon and The War on Billionaires will commence. She’ll be posing for pictures in a flight suit after flying onto an aircraft carrier anchored on the slip for Bill Gate’s yacht before you know it.

Debt resolved. Crisis averted. Problem solved. The billionaires may as well adopt a moose with a bad limp as their logo. You had a good run Mr. Buffett and this last gasp effort with the equal tax thing really was a nice try. I hope you make a mean spreadsheet.

1 comment:

Malachi said...

I cannot believe you wrote President Palin. That makes me want to puke. If she ever becomes the president, I will know this country is even dumber than I originally thought. I'd like to say I'd move to Canada but it's full of Canadians up there!