Most entrepreneurs and work at home types just want a fair shake to make a living for themselves.
They don’t want to government to give them anything… they just don’t want to be hassled.
So they hate it when they hear about people who are supposedly “icons” of “capitalism” turn out to be socialist welfare state suck ups.
Here’s one regarding Warren Buffett, the stock market guru who “buys low and sells high”. Turns out that may be his political theory too if the complaint below applies to him as well… a few bucks to a grasping politician reaps huge financial rewards long term.
“Buffalo is a city awash in subsidized projects. Warren Buffett, who owns the Buffalo News, got $100 million in government giveaways to open a call center for his GEICO General Insurance Company, the one that uses cavemen and a talking lizard to pitch its products. A special subsidy zone had to be created just to lavish the money on Buffett.
“The call center cost $40 million. So, basically, Buffett’s company is getting back what it invested and then collecting a $60 million gift from local and state taxpayers. The call center may eventually create 2500 jobs. If that happens the subsidy would equal $40,000 per job, which is more than a year’s pay and benefits for each of the call center workers….
“As the GEICO call center opened, another call center, owned by a Canadian firm, shut down. The net gain in jobs was zilch. Still, the Buffalo News wrote story after story about how the GEICO center was a wonderful economic development, while giving little attention to the one that closed….
“James Ostrowski, a hard-line libertarian who has been fighting the subsidy culture of Buffalo, said it took him a few years to realize why the city, and Erie County, fathers were so eager for these deals: ‘There are about 50 people who make things happen here and they are all in on the subsidies,’ said Ostrowski. ‘Everybody is in on the take in some fashion. We are drowning in high taxes, but if you are connected or wealthy you make a few phone calls and you get relief. The politicians just get to dole out money to enrich people and it gets them all sorts of favors…Give $100,000 to the right politicians over a couple of years and get a $20 million construction contract or a $500 million deal that guarantees you make out even if the whole thing fails. All these families volunteer to serve on all these authorities — because they get so much back.” — David Cay Johnston, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill) (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), 121.
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