The "Buy Like Buffett" game is wearing thin.

Wikibin Great Depression research recounts a tale of "leadership buying" by the banks in order to bolster the confidence of the people in the stock market con game that was collapsing back then:

"From the very beginning of Black Thursday, things went downhill... Across the country, boardroom tickers showed a frightful vertical collapse. By 11:30 everyone was trying to sell. They did not know what was actually going on and, it was a true panic. ... At noon, reporters learned of a meeting to be held at 23 Wall Street, the head quarters of J.P. Morgan. It would include the heads of all the major banks, who would meet to figure out how they could come together to put a stop to the panic.

They reached a decision in record time, and by 12:30 the bankers had gone to the Stock Exchange and began strategically buying stocks, in an attempt to stop the landslide. When the people saw the bankers buying on the floor they also began to buy; they were reassured by the fact that the banks had come together and formed a plan to stop the blood letting. The bankers also went out of their way to send high level, highly recognizable figures down to the floor to place the bids. Also, they acted very calm and self confident. It is not known how much the banks spent that day to try to keep the economy floating. It is estimated that it was $250 million collectively."

Of course, none of the efforts mattered in the end.  The people had grown wise to the fact that stock markets which do not pay a dividend are mainly a Ponzi scheme.  The Dow continued on from that day to crash 89% from its high before finally putting in a sustainable bottom. 

Well, we've come a long way since then even if it has probably been nothing more than progress in a great circle.  Warren Buffett seems to be taking the leadership role in calming the un-calmable herd this time.  $5 billion appears to be today's price tag for calming the herd (up quite a bit from $250 million of yesteryear) as Warren Buffett recently took a massive stake in Bank(rupt) of America.  In the first wave down of the crash, Buffett bought a similar stake in Goldman Sachs which has since been repaid.  Buffett looked like the hero on that one because shortly after his Goldman investment the government suspended accounting rules which meant that the big boys no longer had to admit they were bankrupt.  Buffett thus was able to recoup his investment in Goldman this year based on the dead cat bounce the rule changes created.  You can determine for yourself whether or not Buffett had advance knowledge of that coming action through his contacts in government and in the banking arena. 

But rule changes don't change the facts, they just change the group of people who know the facts.  Rule changes also pick new winners and new losers.  But most of all, the rule changes simply allowed the corrupt con men who ran their banks into the ground even more time and opportunity to spirit more money out the back door thus making the problems much larger in the future.  Nothing has been fixed, the can was simply kicked.

With his latest move Warren Buffett builds upon his recent and even more recent legacy of acting as a banking-government shill, trying to spread calm upon the people while telling us that higher taxes in any form are beneficial.  Buffett knows better than that.  He knows that any taxes paid to government will be in large part pissed away by waste fraud and abuse of the federal government and its military machine.  Buffett wants us all  to see him asking for more taxes even if it is only being done in order to save the corrupt system that he gamed into becoming incredibly wealthy.  He is trying to buy our confidence and our compliance.  It is the same type of "leadership spending" that the con men tried to do in the collapsing stock market that led to the Great Depression.  They all cry "follow me, men" and act like they are jumping out of the trench into the withering fire of a losing economic battle.  Of course as soon as they are done with the public show they slide back into the trench and run for cover leaving anyone foolish enough to have gotten conned into battle to take the bullet. 

Personally, I am having none of it and I suggest that everyone consider the stupidity of listening to advice from those captured by the system as well as the type of person who has been sucking value away from working people via his intuitive knowledge of how the scam works.  I also want to point out that uber rich minus more taxes still equals ridiculously uber rich.  Buffett's ramblings about giving up a billion dollars means nothing.  He's within 5-10 years of meeting his maker anyway.  He could give it all up except for 10 million and still live like a king for his remaining years.  When he gives all of it up and has no home, no car, no job, and no income then I might start taking his calls for more taxation seriously.  Until then his calls for higher taxes are nothing more than a disingenuous shout out to the patsies to continue participating in the con.  While foolish people will think that more taxes on the rich is a good thing they overlook that there is no such thing as just taxing the rich.  Once the additional tax gates are opened, everyone will be asked to "pay their fair share" toward keeping bloated government fat and happy.  Taxation of the rich is nothing more than a foot in the door.  We need smaller government and less taxes, not more taxes (no matter who pays them).  Smaller taxes and the cutting of debt based spending are the only ways to drive toward smaller government, more freedoms, more privacy.

Let me be a bit more clear: Warren Buffett is a workaholic.  I mean that in a good way.  He works hard, thinks hard, is practical and pragmatic.  He's not just intelligent - he's also calculating and cunning.  But in no way has he by his individual work contribution added billions of dollars worth of value to our economy.  One man simply cannot work that hard or that smart.  It is not within us to do so.  But still, he is worth billions somehow.  How did Warren get all that money?  Economically speaking it could only have happened by standing on the shoulders of other hard working people, not as their peer but as their overlord. 

In my past management of engineering teams we were able to accomplish some really cool things.  Yes, I was the leader and I had much of the vision for the work.  But I did not collect an outsized salary for this work even though I was often at it for 12 hours/day because management is just another function in the team.  I did not get to collect a portion of everyone's salary who was working for me because that's not how it works in an honest team working relationship.  All of the senior members of the team made about the same money because they all worked hard and contributed greatly to the success of the achievement albeit in different ways.  But Buffett somehow did get an outsized portion of the wealth generated by every person in each one of the companies that his fund owned.  He was effectively a king with the power of taxation. 

All new value is created by the labor of man and since Buffett is worth billions it means he has somehow received the payment associated with millions of man hours of work.  This is not possible in an equitable economy because no one man is so much better than another that his work is paid at a rate which is thousands of time higher than the rest of the workers in society. In short, Buffett conned the money out of other people.  It was an intricate con and one that used great leverage (a fine thing in casinos but not so much when people are all just working together trying to live and to care for their families).  IMO it was a con because Buffett fully understood the power of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking and the power of government to pick winners and losers.

I am NOT accusing Buffett of doing anything illegal at all because I don't think stooping to illegal acts is required in order to make huge sums of money given that the monetary system itself is so completely corrupt and fraudulent.  All you have to do is to understand that corruption and understand that fraud and to work within the rules of the corrupt, fraudulent framework.  Buffett has simply gamed the system very well while always staying within the law IMO.  Some might call him immoral for doing this because he knew he was fleecing those who were working hard but who did not understand the game.  Others might say that since everyone had the opportunity to play by these same rules that it is just sour grapes to complain when someone gets ahead.  I say that if a man cannot achive the value that he works each day for, something is terribly wrong and nobody should be happy with such a system.  Those calling to perpetuate the system are, like Buffett, the biggest beneficiaries.

Each healthy person was put upon this Earth with the ability to feed and clothe and shelter himself and his family.  He was also given enough gifts in his youth (physical strength, intelligence, energy, motivation, endurance, etc.) to produce enough wealth in his youth so that he could afford to live a reasonable life in his retirement years when his deteriorating body (and in many cases even his deteriorating mind) no longer allows him to compete with younger workers.  When we start to see that large numbers of people cannot follow this model because all of the wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few then we have to question how it can possibly have come to this point in an honest and fair system.  In truth, it cannot which means that the system itself is neither honest nor fair.

And so we should expect to continue to see disingenuous people like Buffett making a big show in order to perpetuate the Ponzi because they stand to lose the most if it collapses.  At the end of the day their efforts will fail because too many people have woken up to the truth about the great Ponzi supported by debt (aka fractional reserve banking) and fiat currency (yet another form of debt).  In other words, people will stop accepting Wimpy Promises in exchange for their labor as Buffett et al. would like them to do.  The awakening populace will continue to scramble to convert their paper salaries into tangible stuff (commodities) and into real money (gold and even silver).  Without people accepting promises instead of actual payment the uber wealthy will collapse under their own corrupt weight and will be discredited.  Buffett shilling for the government and the banks is speeding the fall of his crediblity and of his stature in world economics.