Thursday, February 05, 2015

February 5, 2015

Investment guru Warren Buffett, (click here) the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, said it would be "very tough" for the Federal Reserve to lift interest rates this year because of the stronger US dollar.
"That would exacerbate the problem," Buffett said in an interview on the Fox Business network. "I don't think it'll be very feasible to do."

US economic growth, outperforming most industrialised counterparts, has helped push the world's largest economy's currency close to the highest level in more than a decade, making it cheaper for Americans to buy imported goods and helping to lower inflation that's already below the Fed's goals.

The US Dollar Index, which the Intercontinental Exchange uses to track the greenback against currencies of six trade partners, climbed 5 per cent last quarter.

The dollar's strength is pushing long-term US Treasury yields to record lows as overseas investors look to profit from the rising currency.

With Fed policy makers weighing when to raise rates which they have kept near zero since December 2008, Buffett said risks still lurk for investors who accept those yields....

A Quotable Quote by Warren Buffet

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

August 14, 2015
Op-Ed by Warren Buffet

OUR leaders (click here) have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.
These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places....
Americans tend to think of their middle class as being the richest in the world, but it turns out, in terms of wealth, they rank fairly low among major industrialized countries,” said Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University.
Globally, middle-class Americans are only the 19th richest in the world with a median net worth of $44,900 per adult. The U.S. falls below Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and a slew of European nations. Super-affluent Americans skew the average wealth upwards creating the large discrepancy between America’s average and median net worth.

“The U.S. has 42 percent of the world’s millionaires and 49 percent of those with more than $50 million in assets,” CNN Money adds.
If anything, the drastic gap between the two measures point out the big elephant in the room: The growing wealth inequality in Americ
- See more at: http://madamenoire.com/437769/wealthy-think-18-countries-richer-middle-class-u-s/#sthash.kUhWhTE6.dpuf
Americans tend to think of their middle class as being the richest in the world, but it turns out, in terms of wealth, they rank fairly low among major industrialized countries,” said Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University.
Globally, middle-class Americans are only the 19th richest in the world with a median net worth of $44,900 per adult. The U.S. falls below Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and a slew of European nations. Super-affluent Americans skew the average wealth upwards creating the large discrepancy between America’s average and median net worth.

“The U.S. has 42 percent of the world’s millionaires and 49 percent of those with more than $50 million in assets,” CNN Money adds.
If anything, the drastic gap between the two measures point out the big elephant in the room: The growing wealth inequality in Americ
- See more at: http://madamenoire.com/437769/wealthy-think-18-countries-richer-middle-class-u-s/#sthash.kUhWhTE6.dpuf