On May 22, 2015, Dan Bigman writes on Forbes:
The world’s third-richest man weighed in on the national debate over rising levels of income disparity in the United States yesterday, saying that while the gaps between the country’s haves and have nots are definitely increasing, it is not the fault of those at the top. Nor will it be solved by traditional methods, like improving education or hiking the minimum wage. His solution: a pragmatic, direct way of helping incomes rise for the working poor across America by increasing access to the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“No conspiracy lies behind this depressing fact: The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich,” Buffett, who’s net worth we clock in at $71.3 billion, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published late yesterday. “Nor are the rich undeserving. Most of them have contributed brilliant innovations or managerial expertise to America’s well-being. We all live far better because of Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton and the like. Instead, this widening gap is an inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy.”
That’s not to say the gap isn’t growing. Citing data from The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, he said that the total net worth of those on the list in 1982, the first year the list was compiled, was $93 billion. In 2014, that number was $2.3 trillion, up 2,400%. At the same time, median household income in the United States rose only about 180%, he said.
Improving education, won’t work fast enough, or go far enough, he said. And fighting to raise the minimum wage—currently in vogue among many on the left—won’t bridge the gap either, he says, and may actually backfire by hurting employment. “The better answer,” he said, is an expansion of the earned income tax credit, a federal tax credit targeted at working class Americans which gives them a credit starting with the first dollar they earn and rises until it hits a ceiling, then phases out from there.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 27 million taxpayers got the ETIC in 2013 and in the 2012 tax year, the average EITC was $2,982 for a family with children.
“There is no disincentive effect: A gain in wages always produces a gain in overall income,” writes Buffett. “The process is simple: You file a tax return, and the government sends you a check. In essence, the EITC rewards work and provides an incentive for workers to improve their skills. Equally important, it does not distort market forces, thereby maximizing employment. “
That distortion is the main criticism of opponents of raising the minimum wage. Arbitrarily increasing the amount employers are required to pay workers, as cities like Seattle, and most recently Los Angeles have done, is a disincentive to hiring or retaining workers, especially those at the lower end of the economic latter who most need a job.
“I may wish to have all jobs pay at least $15 an hour,” writes Buffett. “But that minimum would almost certainly reduce employment in a major way, crushing many workers possessing only basic skills. Smaller increases, though obviously welcome, will still leave many hardworking Americans mired in poverty.”
It’s an argument that probably won’t sit well with many on the left accustomed to blaming employers and the rich for the pain of the poor, but, like most things Buffett says and does, it isn’t aimed at being popular. It’s aimed at actually getting something done.
Warren Buffett in this article suggests that the wealthy aren’t responsible for inequality. He is WRONG. The wealthy are wealthy because they OWN the non-humans means of production and have rigged the system for their benefit by hiring all the lobbyist that create the financial mechanisms that continuously concentrate wealth-creating, income-producing capital asset OWNERSHIP among themselves and fix the tax loopholes and deductions which make the rich richer. Warren Buffett is clearly no progressive thinker.
Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man’s greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled. Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won’t use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership.
Any justice-minded person should be angry at the system and want to reform the system, but as well there are wealthy capital owners, such as Warren Buffett, who have been able to enrich themselves and have not lifted a finger to acknowledge that they are rich because they own wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets. Nor have they not spoken out about broadening capital ownership.
Those who are overwhelmingly benefiting from the current unjust system, such as Warren Buffett and others, should be shamed for hogging capital ownership and not seeking to lift ownership-concentrating Federal Reserve System credit barriers and other institutional barriers that have historically separated owners from non-owners and link tax and monetary reforms to the goal of expanded capital ownership. Doing so would enable the poor and others with no or few assets (the 99 percenters) to overcome the collateralization barrier that excludes the non-halves from access to productive capital.
