Warren Buffett praises bailout efforts

[Crabtownboy]

Buffett approves of the bail out and says kind words about G. Bush ...

Warren Buffett praised the U.S. government's efforts to bail out the economy during the financial crisis two years ago, preventing an economic collapse.

In a letter published by the New York Times, Buffett wrote that all corporate America's dominoes were lined up and were ready to topple at lightning speed in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008.

"My own company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace," Buffett, nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha, said.

He said the U.S. government's decision to buy up assets that many investors considered to be toxic had helped pull back the economy from the brink of collapse.

Buffett commended the architects of the bailout program including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and praised U.S. President George W. Bush for leading the program even as Congress "postured and squabbled."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101117/bs_nm/us_buffett_letter

 

[targus]

Sure - why not?

Our tax dollars were used to protect his billions.

Of course he would be in favor of that.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Still another level of dysfunction in America these days.

At all costs protect the banking industry, dont consider that they were running a reckless con game doomed to failure at the very beginning. Sure, lets all just believe anything that media moguls & billionaires tell us & forget all tenants of capitalism that made this country great in the 1st place. Lets make this 'To Big to Fail" be our new call to arms & use fear to motivate us to making disastrous decisions.

What ever happened to "True Capitalism" where the looser's actually loose so that new ideas people, companies can become winners-- they have now crippled our economy & kept millions out of work & damaged both your future & your children's & their children's futures.

Sorry, I dont buy that nonsense.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Sure - why not?

Our tax dollars were used to protect his billions.

Of course he would be in favor of that.

How many jobs does his company provide?
How many jobs, outside his own company, are dependent on his company staying solvent?
Now many people would be deprived of retirement if Berkshire Hathaway went under?

 

[targus]

How many jobs does his company provide?
How many jobs, outside his own company, are dependent on his company staying solvent?
Now many people would be deprived of retirement if Berkshire Hathaway went under?

Why should tax dollars be used to bail out a billionaire?

Why couldn't he just use his own money to keep the company going?

That's what small business owners do - they didn't get any bailouts.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Crabtownboy View Post
How many jobs does his company provide?
How many jobs, outside his own company, are dependent on his company staying solvent?
Now many people would be deprived of retirement if Berkshire Hathaway went under?[/quote]

Why should tax dollars be used to bail out a billionaire?

Why couldn't he just use his own money to keep the company going?

That's what small business owners do - they didn't get any bailouts.

Answer the questions asked. You claim to be a businessman and yet you ask such economically ignorant questions?

 

[targus]

Answer the questions asked. You claim to be a businessman and yet you ask such economically ignorant questions?

Ok.

Question: Why should tax dollars be used to bail out a billionaire?
Answer: They shouldn't.

Question: Why couldn't he use his own money to keep the company going?
Answer: He could and should.

Why should he keep the profits in good years - and then get bailed out in the down times?

Why are you in favor of saddling our children and grandchildren with debt in order to bail out a billionaire?

 

[Crabtownboy]

Ok.

Question: Why should tax dollars be used to bail out a billionaire?
Answer: They shouldn't.

Question: Why couldn't he use his own money to keep the company going?
Answer: He could and should.

Why should he keep the profits in good years - and then get bailed out in the down times?

Why are you in favor of saddling our children and grandchildren with debt in order to bail out a billionaire?

The ignorance you show in your questions are beyond comprehension. There is no use trying to explain. If you are asking honest questions, honest from your understanding, then there is no help for you.

It is like spitting into the wind. End of conversation.

 

[targus]

The ignorance you show in your questions are beyond comprehension. There is no use trying to explain. If you are asking honest questions, honest from your understanding, then there is no help for you.

It is like spitting into the wind. End of conversation.

IOW - Crabby again finds himself trying to defend the indefendable - so he disappears. :laugh: :laugh:

 

[sag38]

We need a Crabby section where he can post all his liberal praising, Obama loving, Global warming believing junk. Non liberals can only post if they answer his baiting questions. Much better though is the fact that I wouldn't go there and wouldn't stumble upon yet another of his threads.

 

[Crabtownboy]

IOW - Crabby again finds himself trying to defend the indefendable - so he disappears. :laugh: :laugh:

Not quite. But there is no point in attempting to have a rational discussion with such ignorance.

By the way, you still have not answered the question, how many people's jobs and retirement accounts depend on Buffet's company staying in business. So, how many do depend on this.

If, as you wish, nothing had been done, how many jobs would have been lost if the following companies had gone out of business?

Bank of America
Merrill Lynch
JP Morgan
Goldman Sachs
AIG

What would the fall out have been. How many jobs and people would have been destroyed financially if they had gone under ... and those are representative companies ... the tip of the ice berg.

Do you believe these companies are so isolated that their going out of business would not have affected untold numbers of people, including you?

Now T disappears or returns and asks an inane question to blow smoke or change the direction of the thread. LOL

 

[matt wade]

How many jobs does his company provide?
How many jobs, outside his own company, are dependent on his company staying solvent?
Now many people would be deprived of retirement if Berkshire Hathaway went under?

Crabtownboy, can you give us the answers to these please? I am interested to know the answers.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Crabtownboy, can you give us the answers to these please? I am interested to know the answers.

Thanks for a rational question Matt.

I have not been able to find that information. However I was surprised to see the had 257,113 employees in 2009 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway]. If there are 10 clients per employee, a very conservative number I believe, then there would be 2,571,130 clients.

Consider the other large financial companies and multiply that number and we get a small idea of how many people outside each company would be affected if they went out of business. It would be a domino effect going far beyond the clients.

Additional data points:

Merrill Lynch 60,000 employees
Bank of America 286,000 employees
AIG 116,000 employees
Citicorp 258,000 employees

Now consider the ripple effect if just these four company went out of business. A far greater number of companies were in danger of getting caught in the domino effect in 2008. I doubt anyone can give a really accurate number, but the financial industry would have come to a halt in the US and perhaps in the entire world. This would have brought manufacturing industries to their knees also. It would have been a complete disaster.


If I find additional information on this I will pass it on.

 

[rbell]

Now, let me get this straight: This guy wants to pay more taxes, but then praises the American bailout of his empire.


Riiiiight. Guess it's fun to have it both ways.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Any idea how many Americans are out of work, lost their homes, their 401K's due to Wall Street & their fraudulent bank activities? Any ideas how many of these guys will get performance bonuses this year? Any idea how many of them actually performed a service to the companies other than creating the biggest heist in our countries history?

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Crabtownboy should be banned from this site. Enough people have tried to debate him. Like Satan, he twists words and tries to trick. Enough is enough.

I will not be back while he is here.

I'm sure a few of you will be happy about that. The majority here are honest folks. Too bad about the leaven that is allowed.


Good=bye.

 

[targus]

Not quite. But there is no point in attempting to have a rational discussion with such ignorance.

By the way, you still have not answered the question, how many people's jobs and retirement accounts depend on Buffet's company staying in business. So, how many do depend on this.

If, as you wish, nothing had been done, how many jobs would have been lost if the following companies had gone out of business?

Bank of America
Merrill Lynch
JP Morgan
Goldman Sachs
AIG

What would the fall out have been. How many jobs and people would have been destroyed financially if they had gone under ... and those are representative companies ... the tip of the ice berg.

Do you believe these companies are so isolated that their going out of business would not have affected untold numbers of people, including you?

Now T disappears or returns and asks an inane question to blow smoke or change the direction of the thread. LOL

How do you know that even one job was saved?

Obama promised that the $1,000,000,000,000 would keep unemployment below 9%

He was wrong.

He mortgaged our children's future for nothing.

 

[targus]

It is like spitting into the wind.

I would say that is a fair description of the bailout fiasco.

 

[Crabtownboy]

T is wrong again.

How do you know that even one job was saved?

Would appear you are quite wrong, again. And note the two quotes are only for the auto industry. They do not account for the hundreds of thousands of jobs saved in the financial/banking industry.

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government avoided a $28.6 billion loss and saved more than 1.45 million jobs by bailing out the automotive industry, a research group said today.

The loss would have been caused by increased public welfare payments and lost tax receipts from workers had the government not provided $82 billion of assistance to the industry, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor industry group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-17/u-s-saved-28-6-billion-in-auto-bailout-study-says.html

The U.S. government bailout of General Motors, Chrysler and other automotive firms saved more than 1.4 million jobs, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101117...aved-more-than-1.4-million-jobs#ixzz165v1mbsu

Obama promised that the $1,000,000,000,000 would keep unemployment below 9%

GM Bailout Saved Millions of Jobs and Republicans Hate It

Seventeen months after veering into bankruptcy, General Motors has become the unlikely darling of Wall Street, poised to complete an initial public offering Thursday that will fetch more than $20 billion and rank as one of the largest in history.

The federal government seized the opportunity to recoup part of the bailout money it injected into the company in the spring of 2009. The Treasury agreed to sell at least $11.8 billion worth of stock, lowering its 61 percent stake in what has been disparagingly dubbed "Government Motors" to just under 37 percent, a senior administration official said. If underwriters take their over allotments, the Treasury will earn $13.6 billion and its stake will shrink to 33.3 percent.
http://robertbartholomew.newsvine.c...aved-millions-of-jobs-and-republicans-hate-it

T said:

He was wrong.

He mortgaged our children's future for nothing.

I'd like to see your link to this information.

Your opinion is well known, but you do not back it up with any facts.

And remember the first bailout was under Bush and IMHO this is one thing he did right during his term in office.

 

[targus]

Crabby, Obama and Biden are the only three people left in America that still haven't come to grips with the failure of the non-stimulus stimulus.


Why the Stimulus Failed by Brian Riedl - National Review Online
http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=MTViNmZiZmQ4NmMxM2Y5NmEzNWIwYWRmNmNhMWJlY2I=

Jeffrey Sachs admitted the stimulus failed.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/07/morning-bell-why-obamas-stimulus-failed/

Democrats' Trillion-Dollar Stimulus Failed
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37736

Harvard's Jeffrey Miron Explains Why the Stimulus Package Failed http://www.openmarket.org/2010/10/3...ron-explains-why-the-stimulus-package-failed/