America, as an idea, is so strange

Is the drive-thru pickup or the McDonald the strange idea. Actually, wait, both are strange.

That being said, McDonald did know how to do business. I’ve found myself there several times because their spaces are well located and they invested well in their interior that it made it a good place to grab a coffee alone, with a laptop or for a random meet.

America was the first influencer country in the history

>America was the first influencer country in the history

Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Britain, pre-Columbian Mexico and India would like a word with you after class.

I meant to say modern-day influencer. Like instagram/tiktok like. All this "American-Dream" style things were promotional material with twisted reality. Movies showing luxury lifestyle of a "regular" American/US person.

Although per-person adjusted income is really high compared to many parts of the world, day-to-day lifestyle is hardly comparable to "Home Alone" or Wolf of Wall Street themes.

But yes, each era had prosperous countries trying to attract talent obviously. From Egypt to Persians then Rome and even Ottomans too. Later on France/Britain during industrialization.

America is awesome.

No America as an idea is awesome. In reality ? Quite strange

Being genuine here - what is heroic about those two things?

Nothing. We shouldn't dilute the term hero. Let's call it what it is "groundedness"

> We shouldn't dilute the term hero

Buddy you're fighting against 3000 years of dilution. Let people have their word

> what is heroic about those two things?

America threw off a king and founded a republic. Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. A rich man keeping his habits despite his wealth, and doing so next to the rest of us, is a role model for other up and comers.

(The Romans had a similar thing about pastoral farmers. Every culture has its myth, and we like it when those in power try to live up to it.)

> Equality is a founding value and one we still respect.

Easily stated by someone who was not a slave. Equality had fuck all to do with the founding of this country. Some people were *literaly* slaves. You *literally* could not vote unless you were a male land owner. Fuck this nonsense propaganda. Every bit of freedom in this country had to be fought for against this country and against the majority of white men. And we are still far, far from equal. Not until the vote of a Californian for President is equal in weight to someone from Wyoming. Not until the systemic structural advantage for white men in rural areas is eliminated. It's just such fucking bullshit to preach equality when our entire history has been a counter example.

What a strange and naive post

I don't think so. They are deliberately ignoring the side of the coin they don't like (a non ethno-state based on freedom and equality who has had a positive role in the history of mankind) because they are afraid that we don't take into account the side of the coin they care about, namely that all those rights and laws are mostly paper until some decide to make them more real.

If anything those perspectives need to be reunited rather than ignoring one for the other.

The history of humanity is filled with horrors and humans have done the worst to other humans but it is also true that nowhere in history has humanity been, on average, safer.

For that we have to thank all of those who believed in something better and made actual efforts to make a difference

I think it comes from the all-billionaires-are-evil mindset, which I see more and more of

It might be a you-problem then because that is not what they were about is about and yet you are the one grouping them together.

I am not saying categorization is bad, nor even that yours was unreasonable, but let's not forget the purpose of categories: Not having to think about difference, complexities

You would have done better to address and/or counter their points

There's probably some truth in that resentful language, but if you grade in a curve of history what has been achieved by the idea of the United States and its focus on freedom and equality of opportunity has been miraculous.

p.s. Because this probably matters to you, this is said by a non-white son of immigrants.

It's sarcasm

Poe's Law could very well apply here.

No.

I think they meant hero in the sense of archetype rather than heroic.

But I agree with the person suggesting not diluting the word.

I think they just meant it's very stereotypically american to drive a very walkable distance and eat McDonald's every day

I’m familiar with this neighborhood. If this were my commute I’d probably walk often.

But:

It’s 42 minutes by foot one way, which is on the longer end for most people. About half of it is pleasantly walkable, the rest looking like no trees and along a busy street.

… For probably six months out of the year, the rest being too uncomfortably hot or windy/cold for most people.

And he’s probably wearing a suit and leather shoes every day, so you risk wet/muddy shoes, road salt, or dripping in sweat or rain. Mess up your hair with a hat in the winter.

And if you are going anywhere after, you’ll need a car anyway. The rest of Omaha is not walkable and quite hilly.

And he’s old, quite old. He’s been old for decades. Some people can do 3.6mi/day in their 50s-80s but most will not.

And his time value in literally among the… top ten in the world or so? And has been for decades?

I say all this as a relatively extreme walking advocate: for most people in some locales (including most of America), it just doesn’t make sense, and this criticism is very silly.

He’s Warren Buffet, so he could make this work if he wanted to. He could insist everyone come to him at his home while he wears pajamas.

But it’s not unreasonable to drive this commute.

And you can get a decent breakfast at McDonald’s too :D

He is extremely rich. All of these problems are easily solvable with the resources he has.

And yet he chose his choices.

A 7 minute drive for me is about a 10 minute walk. A 7 minute drive in America could be 5 miles!

Or 10 depending on how late you are ;)

Any American worth that much is safer in a discretely armored car than on foot.

If you let fear dictate your life, you are correct.

He could have a discrete security detail nearby.

You should. And you do too. Otherwise, you would’ve never looked both ways before crossing the street, and you would already be dead.

Do you feel that road safety dictates your life?

Your example seems to miss the point.

Of course I look both ways but I still cross the street.

I've watched people (friends included) who have let fear so overcome them that they frankly miss out on life. Won't travel, nervous about even leaving their home…

Looking both ways is letting fear dictate your life, at least enough that it changes your behavior in major ways. Fear is an important component of staying alive. Fear not dictating your life means not looking and expecting everyone to stop for you.

Not just relative to other billionaires, relative to the average American, he never went after get rich quick schemes, has a reputation less dirty, values life-long relationships more, and fell to not one of so many traps and dynamics that see many successful people trash their own legacy.

The internet citizen is so often convinced that everyone with a high net worth is crooked, cheated to get where they are at, and would be even more morally corrupt if only they weren't so undeserving as to be incompetent of the ways to do so.

So often the ambitious can believe that to succeed one must perform ultra sexy acts of innovation multiplied by inhuman hours of naive young team members. This pressure can drive us to be impatient, reckless, and unscrupulous.

When we look at most startup CEOs who make it big, we say "don't try to emulate them" because we know they took huge risks and rolled at least a few good numbers. A person can emulate Warren Buffet. It's just patient and prudent, avoiding self-deception for decades. Yet it is excruciating. If not for Warren Buffet, so many would say, "It's not worth it" or "It will never work because you'll slip up."

Being at least an anecdote that being honest and right can work out in the long run is a herculean counterweight against the vast traps of cynicism that can lead many to defeat themselves before they even try. It's tough to keep going or commit to that path, especially as your options keep going up. Few else tried because it takes an entire lifetime. Making it work saved a lot of people from a lot of imprudent choices and will continue to save more. That is heroic.

In his youth he was heavily inspired heavily by the book "1000 ways to make 1000 dollars", quite literally a get rich quick book.

Also his bets on GEICO were probably a little impatient, reckless, and unscrupulous, but that's fine.

He is one of the finest businessmen to study and certainly one of the more moral billionaires.

Here comes the internet doing internet things. Happy 2026.

Not seen in a photograph with Jefferey Epstein.

(yet)

At some point the biggest enemy is the inner cynicism that would tear down perfection manifest to avoid seeing even the bare idea of an aspiration and the consequent actions it would motivate.

It's just a sarcastic take. I wouldn't read into it too much. If it didn't make you grin like a goofball, it failed and you should just move on to the next comment.

On the one hand yes, on the other hand I would hope that if I was a bazillionaire that I would still keep the comforting habits that worked for me when I was a normie.

I would argue “normie habits” are more depressing than this. Habits like stressing out about feeding your family. Counting the number of days until your money runs out and figuring out what odd jobs you can cover the shortfall with. Not going to the doctor because of the cost.

For many people, stopping by McDonalds inspires guilt, and not just because it’s a bad nutritional choice, but rather because that’s how thin the margins are. I still remember all of these things about my 20s. Now, a couple decades later and by no means super-wealthy, I will happily ignore grocery prices, pay for specialist care and sort of just eyeball my checking account every week or so to make sure I don’t need to shuffle something around.

Not dogging anyone who wants to enjoy the “simple” things in life, and I’m probably one of the more pro-billionaire people on this site (which is hilarious given what this site is really about), but I think most of us are out of touch with what the average American experiences. Midnight Taco Bell runs are an escape for those folks as much as they are a guilty pleasure. I’m happy that for me they can just be the latter.

I think they are being hyperbolic.

It's down to earth.

We expect the ultra-wealthy to eat at the French Laundry in California, to have chauffeurs, to live in New York penthouses…

I always salute at the McDonalds drive-thru.

The man has enviable health.

Take a Caesar salad at a McDonald's every day, and your health will likely also be enviable.

The word "salad" doesn't imply "healthy".

It has plenty of green vegetables, and croutons, sauce, and chicken nuggets are all optional. (Ask me how I know.)

Stress is the #1 killer. Being rich likely helps the stress levels. Not worrying about rent/mortgage can likely extend someone's life by 10% easily.

Genetics is the #1 killer.

Most of a person's potential life expectancy is pre-determined.

Wealth does that.

Also, consistently eating 1 item from McDonald's every day is probably not going to tank your health (if it's one of your few diet vices).

We've got people drinking 600 calorie frappucinos before they touch a bite of food.

Also, breakfast items are typically the "healthiest" fast food items. An Egg McMuffin for example has a fresh egg, piece of ham and an English muffin. Hardly a disaster meal diet wise.

*wealth

McDonalds has healthy food options. Getting a quarter pounder, a salad, and a cup of water is reasonably healthy.

It's the soda and the shakes and the fries that'll getcha.

I used to enjoy the salads at McDonald’s, but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen them on the menu.

None of what you described is either healthy or tasty. McDonald food is hyper-processed. They add a lot of sugar to a lot of ingredients.

The quarter pounder is loaded with sugar too unfortunately. The sweet bread is one of the worst things about it. The salad dressing will be too. It's not healthy and doesn't even taste good. But it's addictive.

It has 10g of sugar, which isn't good but no where near a medium coke. Though not a healthy meal because of high sodium, but with some added fibers isn't very bad.

It's a bit more subtle than that. The sugar is there to make it palatable and addictive. The real problem is it's hyper-processed and ridiculously easy to digest. It'll spike your blood sugar levels then have you wanting more an hour later. There's no point looking at a single food in isolation, you have to look at the entire lifestyle and the kind of lifestyle that includes McDonald's is not a generally a healthy one.

Then again Buffett apparently did it for 6 decades. But he also only had to drive a few minutes to work and probably had a mostly stress free life. You can eat all the healthy veg you want but if your day is punctuated by a dreadful commute and generally filled with stress, that's what will get you.

The hamburger buns I buy at the grocery store taste like cake to me. There's only one brand of bread in the store that doesn't add sugar, and they only stock a couple loaves at a time (and it's the one I buy).

The sugar in the McBurger is nothing like the amount in a coke or a shake.

And no, McBurgers are not addictive. I don't want more than one or two a month.

Idk about hero, but he's definitely american. What a fast food warrior!

Yet another example to me of how he literally engineered his life for success, using principles like choosing which variables to hold fixed. What discipline.

If he was poor, people would call him lazy for eating mcdonalds everyday...

Poor people should properly budget and cook at home to avoid staying poor

If you can afford to eat McDonald's nobody cares (well it's not healthy either but that's a different matter that doesn't really have to do with being poor or not)

You don’t have time to do those things if you are poor and working 2-3 jobs. Properly budgeting and analyzing costs takes a lot of time, and unexpected expenses and cost of living increases destroy your budget a lot more than McDonald’s.

> Properly budgeting and analyzing costs takes a lot of time

For family? Not really

> You don’t have time to do those things if you are poor and working 2-3 jobs

I know multiple folks who did this. Poor people aren’t mentally deficient. (Often they’re sturdier than those of us who grew up comfortably enough.)

> unexpected expenses and cost of living increases destroy your budget a lot more than McDonald’s

This is correct. But it’s true for most Americans when we consider medical debt.

Budgeting and analyzing spending and risk is still sensible.

Most poor humans managed to store food for the winter prior to the industrial revolution avoid overeating and draining their stores. I'm sure the poor 2-3 job worker can meal prep with cheap easy meals.

They also had a lot of time to do it. In much of Europe it seems subsistence farmers worked a lot fewer hours than one might expect. Especially in the winter

Cooking at home saves you time if you do it right. A slow cooker, frozen meat, frozen veg, stock powder. Cook a batch and put into containers for the week. It’s not hard to develop a healthy, cheap, quick approach to eating. Most people find ways to keep justifying their existing opinions, that’s the real problem of poverty. It’s rare that people adopt an experimental approach to their problems to learn unexpected solutions. So to my mind, poor is more about being rigid, rather than a lack resources.

> poor is more about being rigid

Oh no please broaden your mindset. This is not a healthy way to look at wealth inequality in 2025. Being poor can happen for arbitrary reasons, and the impact can vary greatly across countries and continents. E.g if you get and recover from cancer in Europe you will be OK financially, while being ruined in America.

This is an extreme example, but the point is not to weigh individual examples but rather to recognize that you as an individual don't understand the circumstances that create or alleviate poverty, because entire government branches are dedicated to doing this and haven't figured it out.

Bottom line poverty is bad news for everyone, there's money to be made solving poverty. It's not a trivial problem to solve.

"Poor people should" You should demand more of people with power before you criticize those with none

Why do you read it as a demand and not just good sense?

I'm not demanding anything just giving common sense advice but I guess common sense isn't very common these days

> Poor people should properly budget and cook at home to avoid staying poor

You can't budget your way out of being poor. Most actually poor people (as opposed to people who have a substance abuse problem) I know have a very good grasp of their budget as they are constantly shifting money around figuring out which bills they have to pay and which bills they can put off.

You get out of being poor by getting more money. Period. Nothing else works.

Yes, more money doesn't guarantee you get out of being poor, and we all know people who got a windfall and then were worse off than before.

However, insufficient money absolutely does guarantee that you will be poor indefinitely.

You can't budget your way out of a genuine lowest-quintile income without going to ridiculous lengths that are more difficult than getting a higher-paid job.

You can absolutely reconsolidate and budget your way out of debt, though. Or budget your way to having a savings account when you're earning the median income.

Yes and can avoid debt in the first place so that when you are making more money it's not just going to interest payments

How much money you have depends on how much you make and how much you spend

While you can't budget your way out of being poor if you have a very low income you absolutely can keep yourself poor by not budgeting no matter how much you make

I don't know why you seem to take offense with a simple suggestion that will help reduce how much you spend

There are people who make six figures who are in debt because they overspend and food is often one of the biggest factors in that

> There are people who make six figures who are in debt because they overspend and food is often one of the biggest factors in that

Those people aren't "poor". They aren't worried about eating or staying warm.

"Poor" is when you are deciding between fixing the car you need for work and whether or not you will have electricity the last 4 days of the month. You don't fix that with "clever budgeting".

If you have a negative net worth then I consider you poor no matter how much money you make

But yes obviously there are levels to it however regardless if you are buying overpriced fast food when you could be cooking at home for much cheaper that's not good for anybody especially if you don't make a lot of money... So what's your point other than trying to argue over the definition of poor?

If you don't have an emergency fund and your car breaks down and then you have to get into debt to fix it and then you have to spend more paying interest on that debt and you get stuck in a cycle... Compare that to reducing your expenses by not buying fast food and building up an emergency fund and not getting stuck in that situation to begin with

> So what's your point other than trying to argue over the definition of poor?

Because people make political decisions about programs that support the "poor" and the definition matters.

In particular, if a program supports the "poor" and winds up handing money to someone who is making $100K, there are a lot of people who will scream about that and attempt to cut off all support for all poor people.

This was the whole the point behind the racist "welfare queens" dog whistles, for example.

I guess that distinction in poor matters some to me, because when I read your original comment (budgeting to avoid staying poor) the first thing that came to mind was someone I know who often says things like poor people should just work harder and variations of that. And then I'm thinking like food deserts or people dealing with more pressing issues where there's probably a general inability to do any long term planning. And in that context it comes across as out of touch or like a naive solution to a complex problem, but then I guess you also have broke college students and others who could certainly heed this advice, not just necessarily low income people.

Even if you live in a food desert you could make cheap unhealthy food at home and it will always be cheaper than McDonalds and with even just a little bit of creativity it will be much healthier too

Whole point of being rich is to have freedom to do whatever you want. Including fancy dress like poor and eat like them for personal marketing at times.

Pretty sure Mr Buffet mostly eats salads.

If you define success as number going up and to the right, sure.

You think the same people who say Buffett was successful would also praise a guy who wins the lottery?? There's more to it than money.

His whole "I love fast food and coca cola" thing is a fake persona

Well, impossible to prove of course but it reminds me of Ingvar Kamprad (the man behind IKEA) who used to drive an old Volvo when in Sweden to appear as a "man of the people".

In fact he had his main residence in Switzerland and was filthy rich which is a bit of a hard swallow especially in Sweden, a country still very much affected by the "Law of Jante".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

A reporter that was doing a documentary about his wealth asked him once directly when stepping out of his old Volvo and Kamprad kinda lost it; it was a big kerfuffle at the time on the telly.

For those paying attention it was really revealing about the true nature of the man (let me add he was a young Nazi back in the day).

Most people came to his defense like the red-blooded capitalist gentleman commenting above about Buffet being a 100% American.

The older generation still swallow the farce hook, line and sinker. For the rest of us it's pretty clear it was a well thought-out facade to placate the plebeians to sell more cheap furniture.

> he was a young Nazi back in the day

He remained a Nazi member well into the 1950s, which I find truly bizzare.

I didn't know that, talk about being late to the party.

On a tangent I also found this recently about Le Corbusier:

---

Research from the last decade, primarily from a series of books published in 2015 and released correspondence, has confirmed that the influential modernist architect Le Corbusier was a fascist and antisemite with ties to the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime in France.

--

He wanted to build this in Stockholm in 1933:

https://ptpimg.me/om1779.png

As a red blooded capitalist who loves this country as much as the next patriot, I can assure you admiration for fast food and coke is 100% real.

Admiration for how American it is maybe but it’s goddamn preservative and sugar ridden slop.

Yes but many of us love it all the same.

IDK. I'm living in Italy atm and I see a lot of people drink regular Coke presumably b/c they like it. What's different from the US is that's it's more of a single serving treat, instead of 2 gallons of free refills.

if one is to make a fake persona, fast food and coke (the drink) probably won’t make top-100 list

I seem to recall the secret service was driven crazy by Bill Clinton going for a run out of the white house only to pick up a Big Mac at McDonald's.

Au contraire, larger-than-life people may desire to pass off as normal & common.

Or that's just what he feels. He also sleeps in a fairly normal home. Wouldn't he have a secret mega mansion if he was just putting on a show?

It's all fake to fool you!! Coca cola is only the popular beverage it is because the illuminati chose Warren to shill for it!!

If it's secret, then how would you know?

Berkshire Hathaway holds over 9% of Coca Cola's shares, worth $28 billion and returning over $800 million a year in dividend payments. Isn't that worth being seen visibly supporting Coca Cola products?

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXwAtQqkN6c/XM3Brj-ZkuI/AAAAAAAAv...

one thing is being visible, everyone is visible that is sponsoring a product in some way, e.g. athletes with gatorade. it is a whole other thing to accuse someone of creating a “fake persona” if he just wanted to “promote” coke there are many other ways this could be done (especially with virtually unlimited money for PR etc)

Coca-Cola is a great energy drink. But you have to expend this energy, say, by thinking really hard.

Buffet is not a good guy. Our society’s greatest problem right now is concentrated corporate power being used to destroy the ability of working people to prosper.

Buffet had an active and direct role in making this happen. He supported and advocated for monopoly, and profited from it.

He lived a lavish life that included opulent mansions and private jets, and used his resources to deftly drive a media narrative of himself as a regular guy, with apparent success as your post demonstrates.

Not doubting you, but any specific examples of him supporting monopoly?

Or are you saying the general environment of high finance supports this?

No doubt he had more money than he needed but if this is referring to his preference for coka-cola and apple stock / any stocks with the ability to set their own prices because of market dominance, I feel like that’s not a totally fair criticism.

Tons of evidence it’s all hiding in plan sight:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/warren-buffett-americas-f...

The Verisign investment was a minority holding.

And this bit is tripe: “Buffett is the avatar of monopoly. This is a guy whose investments philosophy is literally that of a monopolist. I mean, he invented this sort of term, the economic ‘moat,’ that if you build a moat around your business, then it's going to be successful. I mean, this is the language of building monopoly power.” (Seeking moats isn’t monopolistic. It’s inherent to competition.)

Which “opulent mansions”?

He lives in the same home in Omaha that he had in the 60's. BH does not own any corporate jets but they do own NetJets that sells/leases fractional shares of their jet fleet of which Buffet uses for his travel.

They did directly own/operate aircraft in the past as well, as disclosed in letters to investors.

https://sentinel-aviation.com/blog/warren-buffett-nicknamed-...

The 6000 sq ft home in Omaha. The $10m+ home in Laguna Beach. Plus purchasing the home next door as overflow

That actually sounds pretty meager considering his wealth.

Funny how the goal posts shift. From modest house in Omaha to multi-million dollar property in Laguna Beach. If more properties are revealed are those "pretty meager" too? It's amazing the degree to which normal people will simp for billionaires.

Since I hadn't established any goal posts, I couldn't have shifted them.

But I get your point. I'm happy to make billionaires illegal by taxing them back to being millionaires, but to try and hoist Warren Buffet up as the problem ignores the much, much worst offenders out there.

Do you feel this way about all billionaires or is it something about Buffet?

I do feel exactly that with few exceptions.

What would warrant an exception? I generally don’t like billionaires either, but I wouldn’t put Buffet at the top of my shit list just for curating a public persona.

There are couple of artists for example that had managed to become near- or full billionaires. Of course I do not know the details but in my view this warrants an exception

Do artists who make business deals also warrant an exception?

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/180675/trump-the-ar...

Why does an “artist” get an exception for being a billionaire?

I think you must have at least some sort of antisocial and sociopathic personality qualities to become a billionaire.

It's very obvious that some of the lesser plutocrats have public PR campaigns now. Zuck obviously got a stylist too.

Can’t even remember if Zuck testified before the Congress or Senate, but his super weird fucking haircut on that day is indelibly etched into my brain. So a stylist is probably a solid strategic choice for him.

Legend has it that Meta was having difficulty making their metaverse Mii characters look human, so Zuck solved that problem by making himself look like a Mii.

That was his biggest win in quite some time if true. Really hit the mark. My guess is he refused to acknowledge his receding hairline so he just kept having hard "bangs" cut further and further back.

Like he said, an American Hero

Sorry, a person who life is built around greed is no hero.

I respect Buffett greatly on a professional level, and think it's the height of arrogance to believe any one of us personally has the moral right to decide which level of lawful activity becomes turpitudinous greed.

THAT SAID...

My uncle (he's 98) had a passing acquaintance with Buffett during their overlap at Penn, and in the one econ class they shared, he remarked having heard Buffett say in almost salivating eagerness as he rubbed his hands that if only there could be another Great Depression, he would make a killing. The dude has value investing in his DNA beyond anything else, I truly believe. But he's argued for changing complex and unfair taxation, and always been a good citizen as far as I can tell. I think if all of Wall Street were like him, the world would be a much better place.

With $150 billion dollars he could have done a lot more than "argue for" changing taxation. If he had spent that money actively fighting for a better system, maybe that'd be worth something. To sit back on your billions and say "aw shucks, this really shouldn't be possible" is not much of an effort.

Edit: Some people seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm saying if he thought taxation was unequal or thought wealth inequality was a problem, he could have used his wealth specifically to fight against billionaires like himself, not just give money towards generic charitable causes.

It seems buffet has taken “the giving pledge” along with Bill Gates and others. “More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death.” - https://www.givingpledge.org/pledger/warren-buffett/

Yes, that's giving it away (some after death), not specifically using it to address wealth inequality.

> that's giving it away (some after death), not specifically using it to address wealth inequality

Because the money isn’t being spent on your pet issue it’s being mis-spent?

I was responding to a comment that defended Buffet by saying he "argued for changing complex and unfair taxation". I'm saying if you have billions that could be spent on taking tangible action to change such taxation, simply "arguing for" changing it is not very impressive.

> if you have billions that could be spent on taking tangible action to change such taxation

Do you have evidence he didn’t try? He’s been a prolific (albeit measured) donor to candidates who have pushed for this [1].

From what I can tell, Buffett enjoyed making money. He outsourced his philanthropy to Bill & Melinda Gates. Their focus has tended to be global poverty.

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=warren+buffe...

Those numbers are a pittance relative to his wealth. He could have established a foundation and given it hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to push for a more equitable taxation system. He did not do that.

> He could have established a foundation and given it hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to push for a more equitable taxation system

You want another billionaire to create a super PAC?

Seems to be the only way anything gets done around here. :-)

philantropy as those billionaires sold it should never exist in a just society

He tasked that to his kids:

  He turned 95 years old on August 30. He was 75 when he began giving away his fortune, announcing plans in June 2006 to give away the bulk of his wealth to five foundations, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He changed his will in 2024, designating 99.5% of his remaining fortune after his death to a charitable trust overseen by his three children and also announcing in June 2024 that donations to the Gates Foundation would cease upon his death.

https://www.omahamagazine.com/giving/buffetts-6b-gift-a-hist...

Is that charitable trust going to fight for wealth equality and a more progressive tax system?

See

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/buffett-kin...

if you want to know what his kids are up to.

That article seems to accurately describe the charitable activities of Peter Buffett and his NoVo Foundation, but it's worth pointing out that Howard G. and Susan Buffett have charitable foundations of their own that seem to have a more conventional philanthropic approach, one that may perhaps be more amenable to a clearer focus on getting the right outcomes. It seems unwarranted to assume that the description in the article applies to the Buffett children's activities as a whole.

Just think, if that charitable trust is structured correctly, it could be used to pay a modest believable "administration" salary to many many generations of offspring all while paying out some token pittances to make the whole thing seem genuine.

Do you believe that wealth was cash sitting in a bank account?

I think you're referring to Scrooge McDuck cash vaults. I'm not aware of any that exist.

Banks do not store their deposits in a cash vault. They loan it out (except for a reserve percentage), and charge interest on the loan. That's how they make money. That's why they offer free checking - so they can loan your money out and charge interest. They will even pay you to deposit your money, so they can loan it out and make money on it.

Wealthy people know how to make money, which means putting the money to productive use creating goods and services that people want. If that money is confiscated from them, there's that much less money creating goods and services people want.

People buying a house also hope for a dip in the market so they can buy in cheaper.

People with a lot less economic knowledge than Buffet still understand that another Depression could easily render them jobless and unable to pay a mortgage on a cheaper house. Wishing for a housing market downturn is not the same as a widescale GDP pullback.

I know a lot of investors who wait for a dip in the market to buy stocks.

Personally, I am terrible at timing so I just buy stocks and let them stew for years.

A man who built what he loves and produced so much surplus value for the rest of us to enjoy (read: profit) is _exactly_ a hero. I’m sure I could find ways critique him, but not in the context of celebrating his career.

> A man who built what he loves and produced so much surplus value for the rest of us to enjoy (read: profit) is _exactly_ a hero.

Life imitates art, I suppose.

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

My friend, Earth has never been a better place for humans to live than it is today. I hope more entrepreneurs come along to make it even better.

The idea that humans have destroyed the planet is quite silly.

Tell me more about the surplus value that Warren produced

Look at a stock chart of Berkshire Hathaway over time.

I believe the point is that price is not value.

Perhaps, but the price is the value.

Art vs artist debate is tired, as is celebrity distance appraisal. If you want to know if someone is good or bad your best bet (still iffy) is to ask their kids or spouse. That’s he’s skilled at the financial game is obvious. Whether that’s valuable is a philosophical question that has little to do with Warren Buffet.

He literally sits around and reads financial reports all day.

I’m not convinced.

Hey, with all the de-industrializing Europe has been doing, everything is now made in China and the only decision western civilization has to make is how do we equally distribute those goods. I mean why do absolutely anything if they just do it China? You can just demand your share of the goods as a human right. They can't shut you down, you're the heroic consumer after all without which the economy wouldn't exist. /s

I don't think built around greed is fair. If he was greedy he'd be spending the money rather than giving nearly all of it to charity.

Mostly true, compared to other billionaires he's a much better flavor and a stronger record of appearing human but still, agree. I'd recommend reading The Snowball for a more complete understanding of him.

He is an _American_ hero

He made his billions by figuring out who were worthy people to give money to.

He's not exactly curing cancer but i could think of a lot more underhanded ways to make billions. I think he is above average ethically relative to his billionaire peers.

He owns a lot of companies and keeps his distance from their reputations. Companies make money and stay on top by doing awful things. Think about coca cola and plastic pollution. Buffett has to own that when he has a controlling stake.

> Think about coca cola and plastic pollution

Does Coca Cola make plastic bottles? I thought their whole deal is they sell syrup to local bottlers.

What’s the counter-factual here? Coca Cola not allowed to exist? Plastic not a permissible material for soft drink bottles? Nobody allowed to drink soft drink? Companies forced to clean the streets?

I dislike plastic pollution as much as you do, but your elected representatives have more responsibility here than Buffett.

Imagine what a world we would live in if people held themselves to the same standard they hold billionaires to. After all, coca-cola would change their ways pretty quickly if people stopped buying things over the issue.

Berkshire owns less than 10% of Coke. That’s means Berkshire’s voice is represented in the boardroom, but is more than a factor of five from the common definition of “controlling stake”.

And he’s giving away most of his fortune to help others when he dies.

Idk how that can be considered a “life centered around greed”

Actualy, he didn't. He's probably the one billionaire alive today for which you could not make that case. I know of one other (but he's dead).

He was greedy when others were fearful ;)

Yvon Chouinard has a stronger claim

> He's probably the one billionaire alive today for which you could not make that case.

Is this Stockholm Syndrome?

You ever see Good Will Hunting? The scene where he talks about where he can “just play” and then describes the most talented people in history at what they do. That’s Buffett in his chosen life’s work.

Buffett didn’t get, for example, a small loan of a million dollars to start. He’s been working at this longer than probably anyone what will ever read this comment has been alive.

He doesn’t care about the money in the sense I feel you’re implying.

Nobody is perfect, and holding anyone to that standard sets an impossible threshold.

I don’t know how familiar you are with Warren Buffett, but I would encourage you to dig into his Wikipedia page at least, however accurate we think that is these days.

Have you ever read Elon's wiki? Or any other individual rich enough to curate whatever views they choose?

Warren buffet did good and he came up with a winning strategy. Momentum was ultimately his friend and what drove his success. When ETFs are great today and their popularity largely because of Warren, I think a lot of what's increasingly becoming obviously wrong with the markets ties back to the original strategy behind ETFs.

There's no more self selection or focus on fundamentals. All pensions are now exposed and regular contributors to the markets, so winner and losing picking doesn't really exist in the same way and performance is no longer tied to reality. I dread what that means as populations stagnant since it puts some risk on future pensions and their somewhat ponzi-esque structure.

All the pessimistic rants aside - it's insane to refer me to a billionaire's wiki as an attempt to get to know them. I largely look at people based on how they might treat family, friends, strangers, etc. In that regard, I'm mixed.

Elon and Buffet are polar opposites.

Musk at one point was one explosion away from bankruptcy.

I wasn't talking about tech, but about their character.

Risk tolerance is a component of character. Musk has put his entire fortune on the line more than once, and more than once was a whisker from bankruptcy.

I'm far less of a risk taker than he is, and have consequently not made big scores like Musk.

You're also not an asshole, but Musk is.

> You're also not an asshole

Some disagree with your assessment(!)

> but Musk is

I'm going to reserve judgement on that because the media lens is pretty distorting. He's not afraid to stand up to bullies, and I've seen that interpreted as assholishness.

Steve Jobs also had a reputation as an asshole. A couple of my friends had encounters with him, and I asked is he really an asshole? Both confidently said yes. !!

But can you infer this from their Wikipedias?

Why do I need to go to a website when I'm fairly well informed about the lives of both?

Because the prior OP tried to direct me to wiki to learn about them. This chain has context.

Yes he did start with a "small loan of a million dollars"!

Buffett started with 1.2 million dollars (105K in 1956) in investments from his family, i.e. his aunt, sister, and father in law.

It is very nearly impossible to get rich without starting with a huge chunk of money, Buffett is no exception.

You should read his whole bio.

Don't get me wrong, I like him, he's a quick wit, it's just not true that he started with nothing, he started with a lot.

Better late than never, I don’t know if you’ll see this. He started investing well before people started giving him money. Like, decades.

Wikipedia page on Buffett:

At 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister Doris Buffett (who also became a philanthropist).[20][21][22] At 15, Warren made more than $175 monthly (equivalent to $3,057 in 2024) delivering Washington Post newspapers. In high school, he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a 40-acre farm worked by a tenant farmer.[23] He bought the land when he was 14 years old with $1,200 (equivalent to $21,434 in 2024) of his savings.[23] By the time he graduated from college, Buffett had amassed $9,800 in savings (equivalent to $129,511 in 2024).[18]

Gates/Allen started Microsoft with $5000. Jobs started Apple by selling his VW bug.

Jobs is probably a good example here, and obviously there aren't many Jobses in the world. As far as I know, he started with nothing really.

Bill Gates however was born rich and had powerful, well-connected parents and grandparents.

Obviously Bill did better with those tools than most people would, but would it have been possible if he started as an average kid with an average amount of money? He wouldn't have gone to a prestigious school with nice computers, or have been able to fail at traf-o-data and keep going, for example.

His mom was on the board of a charity which included the CEO of IBM, which is how IBM got involved with Microsoft. Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft without that deal, or without Mary Gates, or the money that facilitates all these kinds of things.

The older I get, the more I believe that "you can start with nothing and make it" is essentially a lie told to the working class to keep them from cannibalizing the rich (via taxation).

> Obviously Bill did better with those tools than most people would, but would it have been possible if he started as an average kid with an average amount of money?

Yes. Remember Woz had no money and no computer and still wrote Apple Basic. He wrote it in a notebook and hand-assembled it. An 8 bit Basic can be written in about 2K bytes.

I designed and built a 6800 computer in 1978, and wrote the software for it all in asm (the result was a VT-100 terminal workalike). I did have an assembler available which certainly made me more productive, but it was still small enough to do by hand. There were only 40 instructions or so in the 6800, and after a while one inadvertently had them memorized. You could hand assemble them as fast as you could write. In those days I wrote code asm in pencil in a spiral notebook.

What made Gates & Allen special was not their families, but their ability to see the opportunity that everyone else missed. When the MITS computer was the front page on Popular Science magazine, Allen saw it and ran to Gates exclaiming that this was the opportunity they were looking for, and they needed to get to work on it immediately.

> His mom was on the board of a charity which included the CEO of IBM, which is how IBM got involved with Microsoft. Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft without that deal, or without Mary Gates, or the money that facilitates all these kinds of things.

IBM gave Gary Kildall the opportunity first. Gary whiffed the deal, and then IBM went to Gates. Gary Kildall did not have a wealthy background, and he became quite wealthy off of CP/M.

His retirement was sad and his death tragic. I wish his family would release the second half of his autobiography.

I agree and would also like to read it, but I understand his family's decision. I'd probably do the same.

In retrospect, I wish I had pressed my dad to write an account of his wartime experiences. Fortunately, his letters were saved, but unfortunately, the letters were censored and so were kinda cardboard.

Very likely. Billionaires can afford to cultivate a persona for the masses. It’s so odd when the majority actually buy it.

Not everyone can afford to waste energy on angry and envy directed toward private citizens who have literally nothing to do with them

It's fascinating how even smart people like you become so utterly naive when it comes to politics. This guy partly owns some of the most evil companies humanity has ever created ffs. Zero ethics, 100% capitalist greed.

It's not that hard to see evil in everyone and it doesn't make one that much smarter

Yeah let's give the billionaires the same benefit of the doubt we give our friends & family & working-class people.

Fortunately, we have you to keep naive people like me in their place.

Happy New Year to you too.

But hey, he also owns Sees Candy.

He built his life around developing successful businesses. That's not greed.

I don't want a society where you have to be a hero to produce mass benefit to others. I want a society where greedy people feel like they have to serve the needs and wants of others to fulfill their greed.

I don't know to what extent Buffet does it. Nor does our current quasi-fascist society where the government is highly embedded with industry and regulating who is the winner and who is the loser and then taxing/inflating the working class to make sure they stay afloat.

But in the idealistic version of America, it is supposed to be a place where becoming a billionaire means you are not just producing billions of profit for yourself, but billions of value for others. That every deal, both sides are better off. This is what we aspire to, the whole ideal towards voluntary trade and capitalism as a method a tide that rises almost all boats and at the very least doesn't involve sinking another boat lower.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.” — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

If he built his life around greed, you must have numerous examples, so give specific instances to support this charge. No handwaving.

Buffet has also made a lot of money for his investors. People can buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway.

> People can buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway.

They can buy stock, but B-H doesn't pay dividends. So the only way to make money with its stock is to flip it to someone who's willing to pay more.

By several accounts, Buffet has a "McGold" card - good for free food for life, at least at Omaha-area McDonalds locations.

Combined that with his "frugal" and "creature of habit" reputations, that might explain is morning routine.

If Buffet was a customer of mine, I'd give him such a card, too. It's good for business!

also incredible that america is safe enough for a billionaire to do this alone without security

He spends big money on security.

He shamelessly advertised companies in his portfolio, whether it was always having a can of coke or candies on the table or stopping at a McDonald's in a documentary.

I refuse to believe that his lifestyle was what was on display.

He lived in the same house for 60 years, sure, but his private jets kept getting upgraded. Good for him, but I find the frugality theater very off putting.

He definitely had a multi million (vacation ?) house in Laguna Beach, California

He has owned a couple of planes as well. Jokingly nicknamed the indefensible.

https://sentinel-aviation.com/blog/warren-buffett-nicknamed-...

Besides, the chances that you get to that age, with his good health, on a diet of Coke and McDonald's when sitting all day are very low.

Much lower than the chance it's just marketing.

You should read one of his many biographies. Every one of them has him drinking like 6 cherry cokes a day, and eating ham sandwiches, mcdonalds, and steak nonstop.

You don't have to believe anything, but the many people who spent the most time with him have reported on this extensively.

I don't know the details, but large personal residences tax your brain (as well as your bank account).

Instead of spending hours of his life negotiating RE purchases, maintaining his properties, cutting checks to plumbers, doing renovations, etc. (that I hear many other billionaires do), he was practical with his (luxury) purchases focusing on time saving (living near work, fast food, private jet) and the experience (luxury vacation).

If you don't appreciate that, I think you're missing the point of his frugality.

I have read enough on Munger and Buffet that I don't think it was quite theater. I think they really believe/believed their own bullshit.

Like the way Munger would promote reading but Andrew Carnegie built 2500 libraries. They would view building libraries as an opportunity cost and waste of capital.

"Ah shucks, I wish people like me would pay a lot more in taxes" but of course these guys didn't spend a dime on actual lobbying to make that happen. Again, that would be seen as a giant opportunity cost and waste of capital. They wouldn't want to go outside their "circle of competence" into something like politics or policy. How convenient.

I think the only way to have this image of a saintly grandpa when actually an absolute cut throat , money obsessed, richest person of all time is to believe your own bullshit.

damn you guys are gullible

noooooooo he’s the billionaire with a heart of gold nooooooooo he’s just a sweet old man who likes mcdonald’s!!!!

I have legitimately no clue whether you're being sarcastic or not. Only an American could say that doing that amounts to being a hero. Personally, I call it misery.

you're going to get a lot of flack because some will only accept if he walked to work and ate vegan gmo-free granola at a granola stand on HackerNews I think to be called a "True American"