Anodyne
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
 
Via the New Yorker's George Packer:

"In The Audacity of Hope [Obama] quotes the investor Warren Buffett—who’s since become a[] supporter and adviser—saying something similar in a comment about his fellow billionaires:
They have this idea that it’s “their money” and they deserve to keep every penny of it. What they don’t factor in is all the public investment that lets us live the way we do. Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner. But I was lucky enough to be born into a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing—and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.
What this suggests isn’t socialism, but wisdom."
- posted by cjb @ 6:55 PM


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