this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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Warren Buffet refuses to insure Elon Musk
aka the battle of geriatric nepo babies
Wait, how is Warren Buffett nepotistic? He's giving the vast majority of his wealth to charity. He gave his kids each $17.5M to start their organizations, and then donated like $5B total to their organizations once they proved their management skills. But he pledged to give away most of the rest (almost $100B), and has already given away about $50B (latest pledge is 99% of his assets).
I really don't see him as nepotistic, he's pretty much the best kind of billionaire.
Buffett himself is a nepo-baby. His father was a congressman who's connections were very helpful when starting out in business and investing.
Sure it isn't Emerald mine money, but you can't tell me being the son of a 4-term congressman didn't give him a leg up.
Sure, but he didn't start with millions or anything to invest, he started with money that he, himself, had saved up. He certainly didn't have a normal childhood (he bought his first shares at 11), but this timeline doesn't show much financial assistance from his parents, it shows a lot of hard work.
That's a very different story from people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump.
Just stop
They have to believe in meritocracy, that wealth isn't intrinsically tied to exploitation and a long history of classism.
Look at his history. He started out selling gum and candy to kids at school, then took increasingly demanding jobs (delivered newspapers and whatnot) until he went to college, after which he worked for his professor (IIRC, I don't recall specifics).
And he never was a day trader, so he's not the type that's making money on the margins off other traders, he's actually investing and sometimes buying a controlling stake in companies that he believes in. If you look at his lifestyle, he very much doesn't look like your typical billionaire, he lives in the same house he bought in his 20s, and generally lives a pretty modest life, especially given his wealth. Yeah, he makes a ton at his job, but he seems to be doing it because he loves his work, not because he loves money.
In my mind, he's basically the best possible example of a billionaire. He didn't do much of anything shady to get rich, he worked hard in his youth and invested wisely the rest of his life. And he started a pledge for other billionaires to donate the vast majority of their wealth, leading by example by giving away half of his wealth to drop from #1 to #2, and now to #10 or so.
If you're going to criticize billionaires, start with Gates, Bezos, Musk, Trump, or Zuckerberg, not Buffett. Buffett is about as ethical of a billionaire as you can get, and while there's room to criticize him, he should be nowhere near the top of the list.
I hope you get paid for this becuase this hellava shilling by one adult for the benefit of another adult man
Jfc... The bootlicking, never seen anyone do it this strong on fediverse.
It is a tankie strategy too, just keep repeating falsehoods with home it resonates with somebody since clearly people ain't buying it
You're underestimating the effect of his father knowing the right people. Yes, there was no "small million-dollar loan" and yes Warren actually hustled quite a bit to capitalize on the advantages given to him by his father, but that doesn't erase those advantages when talking about his success.
Hard work is not the thing that got him where he is. If it were there are millions of people working multiple who should also be billionaires. Or, better yet, no one should be a billionaire at all and we make it so people don't have to work multiple jobs to survive, but I digress.
No other investor has his track record, or anything close to it, so I really do think it comes down to hard work.
Whether the type of work he did should be compensated as well as it was is certainly a valid discussion to have. That said, he's pretty much the top of his industry and extremely well-respected by his peers, so it makes sense that he has an outsized portion of the wealth of those in his industry. That said, I absolutely agree with Buffett that we should have higher taxes on the wealthy (like Buffett) because that level of wealth concentration doesn't benefit anyone, including the wealthy individual.
What got him to the top of his profession absolutely was hard work. What got him to become one of the richest people in the world was that plus the tax system and other legal structures that reward that work. In other words, "don't hate the player, hate the game."