Warren Buffett - White Privilege Calling

Warren Buffett – White Privilege Calling!
The View from the Middle

It makes me sad to see the level to which our political debate has devolved over the last 10 or 20 years. The United States is not perfect, and our founders knew that. They put in place two documents to guide us forever more towards our basic values and principles, and that is individual freedom and personal responsibility. In the long run these cornerstones would deliver equal opportunity for all and prosperity for our nation. It would lead us to a place where a person would not be judged by the color of his or her skin, but by the content of their character.

Despite the wisdom of those words and the obvious progress that we have made as a country, it has become acceptable, even vogue and fashionable to demonize, ridicule and dehumanize hundreds of millions of people just because of the color of their skin, as long as that skin is white. The “white privilege” smear campaign is designed to do two things. First, it suggests that if you are white and successful, you don’t deserve it and in fact should be ashamed of what you have. And second, your success has in fact caused others to fail. All the poverty and misfortune of others is actually your fault.

It’s a bit depressing that we have allowed one set of prejudices to replace another so easily. In this new era of “white privilege” demagoguery, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos must be the most despised men in America, right? Combined, these four men and their families have amassed fortunes totaling about a half trillion dollars. That’s half of a trillion, with a “T” or $500 billion dollars. They must have inherited billions or at least hundreds of billions, right? They must have grown up in the lap of luxury with armies of servants, limousines, private jets and of course the proverbial silver spoons, right?

No. It almost couldn’t be further from the truth. All four of these gentlemen grew up in families that offered modest to moderate resources. They did share, however, a common thread of experiences. They all took their education seriously and got a good, if not great, education. They all took risks and all had legendary work ethics. So now, should they or anyone else who followed that formula feel ashamed of their success? Should our government feel free to take 70, 80 or 90% of their annual incomes? Should our government have the power to even confiscate their wealth?

America today is very different than it was in 1865 and even different than it was in 1965. Every child in America has access to primary and secondary education for free. Should we continue to improve the quality of those educations? Sure, and I have already written about a few ideas that could accomplish that. Also, with athletic, academic and need scholarships, most of our young people have access to a college education. We have come a long way in providing equal “opportunity” for all who desire to exercise the “personal responsibility” to take advantage of it.

The message should be clear to all the young people growing up in this great country. Take your education seriously. Take educated, calculated risks especially early in your life, and work hard. Don’t have a child before you get married, and certainly not when you are in high school. If you do those simple things, the likelihood of your success goes up exponentially. And when you achieve that success you won’t want any greedy, narcissistic, corrupt and inept politician to take it away from you. In fact, you will probably do what all four of these men are also famous for. All four are giving back to the community in which they grew up and to the country that enabled their success through the freedom to pursue their dreams. Their generosity is often targeted at causes that empower the next generation to strive for and achieve their dreams.

Or we can teach our children to be jealous of the success of others. We can teach them that they deserve an equal “outcome” even if they choose not to take their education seriously and not to work hard. This, however would have at least two devastating effects on our society. First, it would punish and disincentivize the successful. Second, it would encourage millions not to work hard and not to take risks. If that were to happen, the idea of America, the land of opportunity, would cease to exist. We would crumble into the abyss of history only to be replaced by the economic, moral and even physical decline that will surely fill our void.

P.S. to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – Even if you confiscated all the wealth of the Fortune 400’s richest people, not taxed their income at 70% but actually confiscated all of their assets, it wouldn’t run our bloated, inefficient, corrupt government for nine months. And it wouldn’t run the government YOU are planning for even four months. The answer isn’t a bigger, inept, corrupt, inefficient government. It is a smaller one.