Posted by
Dave Kooker on Friday, August 24, 2007 3:15:19 PM
Mid July 2007, Warren Buffett the well-known billionaire investor endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
It has always puzzled me why a billionaire would endorse a Liberal (Socialist) candidate. On the surface it seems to contradict all laws of economics why someone who believes in free enterprise and the accumulation of wealth would endorse a political candidate that believes and campaigns about the redistribution of wealth. Socialists are very generous with someone else’s money but that is another story.
While smoking my daily Rocky Patel ‘The Edge’ cigar last night, a theory came to mind that seemed to explain Warren Buffett’s actions based on an experience during my first career position out of college.
I was a data processing manager of a large homebuilding company. I reported to a senior level accountant. Over the course of a year, my supervisor was promoted to Chief Financial Officer. His background was not Ivy League. He acquired his college education at night while working as a bookkeeper by day. He was a very temperamental individual so people tended to shy away from him.
Once he became CFO, he immediately raised the standards for all accountants before they could work for him. All accountants had to have a Masters in Accounting and to be credentialed as a CPA. In essence he arose to a position that he wanted to be and then slammed the door on the other employees around him to keep them from progressing up the corporate ladder and to be able to compete with him over time.
Several times in my life in Corporate America, I have observed individuals changing the rules to stop competition of others around them for protection of competition. That is one reason why I am self-employed.
Warren Buffett is at a position where he wants to be and now he wants to slam the door on others who could compete with him in free enterprise and the accumulation of wealth. Socialism (or the redistribution of wealth) would have never allowed Warren Buffett to achieve the wealth that he has acquired. With the Democrat’s assistance, he could now use the socialistic policies to severely restrict other individuals from accumulating wealth and to be able to compete with him on investments. Secondly he can also reduce the economic variables that affect his investments by basing his predictive investment models on the Democrat’s Social Engineering policies.
I can tell you first hand as a real estate investor; more money is to be made in times of recession than in economic booms.