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
