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Paul B. Farrell Archives | Email alerts
Nov. 1, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) "” Yes, "there is class warfare, all right," declared Warren Buffett. "But it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
Yes, the Rich Class is at war with you, with the 99%, a war against America. This class war actually started a generation ago, in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. Since then, the Rich Class has been winners. Big-time. And the 99% are the losers. Real big-time.
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I am going to keep reminding you over and over of this Rich Class declaration of war and how they're defeating America.
Why more reminders? Because, except for Buffett, the vast majority of the Rich Class really are engaged in a massive cover-up, a widespread conspiracy that includes the Super Rich, Forbes 400 billionaires, Wall Street bank CEOs, all their high-paid Washington lobbyists, all the Congressional puppets they keep in office by spending hundreds of millions on campaign payola and all the conservative presidential candidates praying the same Rich Class dogma.
They're fighting you, winning big-time, and you're the loser. It's just one generation since conservatives put Reagan in office: In those three short decades the income and wealth of the top 1% has tripled while the income of the bottom 99% of all Americans has stagnated or dropped.
Yes, they are at war with you, fighting to gain absolute power over America "¦ and they will never stop their brutal attacks.
Buffett didn't admit to this Declaration of Class War on America till five years ago. It happened in Omaha, Neb., in Buffett's "unpretentious offices" back in 2006 during a New York Times interview with Ben Stein, a former Nixon speech writer. Here's Ben describing the declaration of war:
"Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.
"It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn't use any tax planning at all.
"He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. "?How can this be fair?' he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. "?How can this be right?' Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare."
And to that comment by Stein, Buffett made his famous declaration of war: "There's class warfare, all right," Mr. Buffett said, "but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
In spite of that unequivocal declaration, Buffett's Rich Class buddies still want you to believe that it's the Occupiers, the lazy unemployed, the 99%, someone else, anyone other than their Rich Class that's fomenting class warfare.
So you need occasional reminders, because the "Rich Class" has been spending mega-bucks for decades to shift responsibility. Fortunately today, folks like the Occupiers aren't buying the con job. Here's a few:
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Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The... Expand
Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The Millionaire Code," "The Winning Portfolio," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing." Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology. Collapse
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