[JK37]

Lastly on the show, she said it wasn't fair that they would lose money on the house. What is fair? Life isn't fair. In fact, there's no such thing as fairness. I hate that word.

Heard at a basketball clinic recently, "The fight for fairness is the territory of the mediocre."

The truly great seek out unfairness, just for the opportunity to rise above odds stacked against them. By contrast, medicore people seek out fairness, and they remain medicore because - just as you said - life isn't fair, and it never will be.

[Now back to your regularly scheduled thread...]

[From the class of 09]

Crazy Buffett at it again great impartial article on his recent letter.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... taxes.aspx

[jbock13]

...so I'm assuming that Buffet is at his office, making out a voluntary check to the Federal Treasury as we speak?

My motto... pay up, or shut up.

[From the class of 09]

...so I'm assuming that Buffet is at his office, making out a voluntary check to the Federal Treasury as we speak?

My motto... pay up, or shut up.

Obviously you didn't read the article or you choose to ignore this...

Before that, let's get two things out of the way. One, Buffett explicitly says deep spending cuts are necessary. He calls this "job one" for the Congressional super-committee tasked with completing the recent debt-ceiling deal. Two, whenever Buffett calls for higher taxes, many respond with what they think is a clever rebuttal: "If he wants to pay more, he's welcome to donate his money to the IRS!" Folks, this totally misses the point.

But incase you want more detail please read below along with original article in full (which has really interesting data, for those who care about such details)...

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... oblem.aspx

highlights include..

But anyone who thinks this is a logical fix or a rational argument is both underestimating the size of our tax hole and ignoring a theory called "the tragedy of the commons."

what is "tragedy of the commons"? Ken Binmore explains

Critics ask how can it possibly be rational for a society to engineer its own ruin. Can't we see that everybody would be better off if everybody were to grab less of the common resource? The error in such reasoning is elementary. A player in the human game of life isn't some abstract entity called "everybody." We are all separate individuals, each with our own aims and purposes. Even when our capacity for love moves us to make sacrifices for others, we each do so in our own way and for our own reasons. If we pretend otherwise, we have no hope of ever getting to grips with the Tragedy of the Commons.

and when applied to Buffett's statement...

With Buffett's taxes, or anyone's taxes for that matter, the tragedy of the commons is relevant in the sense that you'd have to be certifiably irrational to voluntarily pay a higher tax bill than you're charged, even when you can, like Buffett, acknowledge how wacky and in need of repair the system is. Given a choice, the sensible thing to do individually is to pay in as little as possible while extracting as many benefits as possible. That's rational behavior, and actually explains a lot of why our deficits are so huge today. Frankly, I'm thankful we have people like Buffett who acknowledge the misfortune in this and push for the legal changes that the tragedy of the commons tends to prevent us -- even him -- from making individually.

[jbock13]

Sounds to me just like excuse making.

That and I disagree with the writer. He's right, it's natural instinct to pay as less as we can. So what? Does that make me evil?

Final point, I reject this because I reject Warren Buffet's idea of the "progressive consumption tax". That's an oxymoron. Should a man who makes $50,000 a year pay .50 for a donut? So this means Warren Buffet pay $4,784 for this same donut?