Warren Buffet, the world’s second richest man, has publicly taken issue with President Obama’s policies on Card Check and Cap and Trade, which formed the heart of Obama’s run for the presidency and remain high priorities for his administration. Buffet also says he objects to the Obama administration’s demonizing of corporations and corporate CEOs and to their use of the economic crisis to shove high dollar liberal policies and vote-buying earmarks for Democrat s through Congress.
In spite of these core differences, and in spite of the fact that, under Obama, net income for Berkshire Hathaway, the company Buffet heads, has plummeted to 4% of what they were under Bush, Buffet says he voted for Obama, still supports him, and believes Republicans have an obligation not to oppose him.
Huh?
Buffet voted for someone whose policies he opposes? And then he’s surprised when, after being elected, that politician works to implement those policies?
That’s stupid.
And then Buffet tells the rest of us we shouldn’t oppose this politician and his policies?
That’s crazy.
It is also exactly what I mean when I say Obama is not going to be held accountable for the results of his policies even when those policies go very sour and cause great harm.
And Warren Buffet isn’t the only big-time capitalist helping me make this point.
Jack Welch, who took GE from a value of $14 billion to $410 billion and authored the books Straight From the Gut and Winning, takes issue with Obama “throwing all these initiatives (Cap and Trade, etc.) into this game in the middle of a crisis.” he even calls Obama “crazy” for doing so and says he’s “lost in another world,” and then he gushes,
“I love the guy. I think he’s great.” Welch says this even though GE’s stock has plummeted from more than $42 under Bush to less than $6 under Obama—a drop of more than 86%.
Hedge fund cofounder Barton Bigg objects to Obama’s intent to raise capital gains and other taxes targeting “the real entrepreneurial, long-term investment part of the economy” and says this and other elements of the redistributionist part of Obama’s social agenda “has bothered the market a lot,” On the basis of this he says, he’d like to see Obama “back off.” Then he adds,
“I voted for Obama. I’m a fan of Obama.”
Jim Cramer, host of the TV show “Mad Money” added himself to this list. On an interview on NBC’s “Today” TV show, Cramer said,” Obama is causing the greatest destruction of wealth I have ever seen by a president,” After enjoying a few days of celebrity on conservative talk shows because of his comment, Cramer hedged it with this statement: “But the truth is I actually agree with almost all of Obama’s agenda right down to having the rich pay more taxes. I just think it’s the wrong time.”
Marxists call people like this “useful idiots.” Many of the rest of us might want to ask them “If you’re so rich why aren’t you smart?” But before the rest of us start thinking of ourselves as superior to these ultra-rich icons, we should know that plenty of the rest of us are just as guilty of the same idiocy.
A recent Rasmussen poll reveals that 53% of the American people say it is likely we are headed toward a depression similar to the thirties while 56% of us approve of Obama and the policies he is enacting that will create that depression.
What does this have to do with the environment? Plenty. First, it gives all of us a more clear idea of how someone who helps create policies that exterminate populations of endangered species such as the spikedace, or desertifies pieces of rangeland such as the Drake Exclosure can call themselves an environmentalist. They can do it in the same way that the people I have just mentioned can support policies that are aimed at destroying capitalism and still be absolutely convinced they are good capitalists.
And maybe they are.
Most of the people I know who support the policies that have exterminated the Verde River Spikedace and desertified the Drake exclosure and tens of millions of acres like it consider themselves good environmentalists.
And maybe they are.
They love wildlife, undeveloped land, beautiful scenery, uncut forests, and undammed rivers. They hug trees and rescue prairie dogs and try to get obscure species of fish and bugs protected as endangered.
However, the actions of Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, Barton Bigg, Jim Cramer, and plenty of the rest of us show how people who consider themselves to be totally, spiritually, cellularly committed to the cause of environmentalism, who even consider environmentalism the most important cause in their lives, can be presented with examples of how their actions have caused the extermination of populations of endangered species, caused nonnative species to invade and replace native species, and desertified tens of millions of acres of land across the West, as I have done time and time again, and say, “I voted for those policies. I’m a fan of those policies. I support those policies,”
And how they can tell those of us who see that this emperor has no clothes that, when we oppose these policies, we are the problem.
(For specific examples see “Seeing is Believing” and previous posts)