Obama meets with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett to discuss how to expand economy

“President Barack Obama met billionaire philanthropists and businessmen Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on Tuesday for a conversation that touched on how to expand the economy, the White House said,” Reuters reports.

MacDailyNews Take: Asking a thief and a famed investor (who ought to know better, but may be more than a touch batty nowadays) for economic expansion advice? What advice did Gates offer, “Copy Apple and illegally abuse the resultant monopoly, it worked like gangbusters for me?”

Reuters reports, “Gates’ wife Melinda was also at the meeting, which focused on an initiative to encourage the wealthiest Americans to give the majority of their wealth to charity.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Oh, for Jobs’ sake. Note to Melinda the former MS Bob manager and the rest of the esteemed panel: No economy has ever been driven by having the “wealthiest give the majority of their wealth to charity.” It’s patently unsustainable.

That said, if Gates and Buffett want to give all of their vast wealth to the U.S government to pay down the national debt, by all means have at it! Let’s see… that’s $45 billion for Buffett and – wow! – $54 billion for Gates, so that’s $99 billion to subtract from $13.853 t-t-t-trillion *gack!* or, in other words, Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s entire fortunes combined are a meaningless drop an ocean of U.S. debt plus there’s the added bonus that two more potential job producers will be broke and therefore no longer able to produce jobs. Wonderful. Great idea, Melind! Sheer genius.

57 Comments

  1. This shows that Obama has no clue. Buffet and Gates, who want to give money away…….thats a solution there. Instead of investing it and starting new businesses…..

    When are we just going to call this recession a depression?

  2. What is wrong with Al Gore? Does he not know anyone at the Federal Government any more? Why is he on the board if he can’t get someone from Apple in these “How to” meetings at the White House.

    Steve Jobs could suggest putting something positive that people want to be a part of after the President says, “Just one more thing.” People still run for cover when president Barack Obama says that.

  3. Well, whenever Apple or SPJ makes any kind of progressive-leaning statement or action, the troglodytes come out and rant about how Apple should stay out of politics for fear of offending half of their customer base (actually half of half their customer base, given that 50% of their business is generated abroad).

    Well, if you don’t want Apple involved in the discussion and development of public policy (which is what politics is), don’t be surprised when others take up the slack.

    Many of you should be happy: no member of the Apple hierarchy was at the meeting supporting the search for solutions to the issues facing the US economy, so they can’t be accused of supporting a president that many of you believe to be disqualified to hold the office.

    So don’t whine.

  4. @Wade Smith

    No, Obama met with Steve a month or so ago… alone. This meeting was show balance and to verify that if they said the opposite of Jobs, then he’d definitely follow Job’s advice.

  5. One, there’s no limit on how much you’d like to pay in Federal taxes. If you think you should pay more, just write the check. The US Treasury will cash it.

    Two, the government could raise the Estate Tax, so that when you die, you can give it to the biggest charity case there is, the US government. There’s no need for Melinda to waste money on running her charity which should be redundant.

  6. It seems to me that people like Gates got so stinking rich by overcharging for their products. Americans go into debt to purchase products that really could be much less expensive and the people at the top get rich, both the merchants for overcharging, and the banks for charging interest and fees for the debt.

    Maybe they should give back billions to help middle class Americans pay off their debt.

    Gates and Buffet are symbols of what’s wrong with this system. It seems to me that Americans could have the same high quality of life without the over burdensome debt, the only difference is that people like Gates and Buffet wouldn’t be quite as rich.

    My overly simplistic opinion regarding a overly complex problem.

  7. I love how the common people defend the wealthy’s right to keep and do whatever they want with their money, until they decide to give it to charity, then suddenly it’s some sort of crime.

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