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Comment by chris_t | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but I don't think it's fair to characterise loaning money successfully as "parasitic". Credit is a useful thing to provide, many endeavours valuable to people would not exist without it. Moreover, loans (and trade more generally) aren't necessarily zero-sum; Warren Buffett getting rich doesn't automatically mean somebody somewhere else is losing out.

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>Warren Buffett getting rich doesn't automatically mean somebody somewhere else is losing out.

I guess my point wasn't that somebody else was losing out. But that Warren Buffet could have made 1/1000th the amount of profit as he did and the world itself would not have lost out. Only Warren Buffet gains, not the world as a whole. Ultimately what value does Warren Buffet's success in terms of dollars bring to the world? Again, ignoring his eventual philanthropic choices.

The companies he owns make and sell stuff and services. You know, a bit like the company owned by Bill Gates, whom you seem to hold in better regard.

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They have, and do, sell products and services. Celebrating Warren Buffet is analogous to celebrating someone who was a provider of capital to Microsoft rather than the people who provided the products and services. The people who found and build companies are "Makers". Warren Buffet is not a "Maker", he profits off of "Makers".

For some reason, it really sounds like you have an axe to grind with Mr. Buffet or maybe with captialism in general. From my perspective, the problem with finance today is the tendency to think short term. The endless pursuit for profit next quarter. This is not the method Buffet uses... I find it refreshing to hear someone like him suggest that a longer term view is needed. Sure, he isn't changing the world directly by running a massive software company but he contributes in the way he can and that's all you can really ask of anyone.

I have no axe to grind with Buffet in particular. He just happens to be the topic of this post. What I do take issue with is the making of what I would call "meta-money". People making money by doing little more than manipulating the money of others. Warren Buffet just happens to be a great example of this. If you think of the world as producers and consumers, then what is it that Warren Buffet produces? What is he doing to add value to the world such that he is justified in making billions of dollars doing that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he is a bad person or that he is not highly intelligent or even shouldn't be successful. What I am saying is that it's hard to justify that he has added proportional value to the world that is worth the money he has made. To each his own, but if this were a world full of people who only wanted to benefit upon the production done by others, then this would be a troublesome world. Just imagine, could Linus Torvalds have chosen to turn Linux into a profitable venture? Could he have been all about the money and not about producing a truly great OS that people could build upon? I just don't think it's wise to put Warren Buffet as a success story above, say, Linus because he made so much more money. I'd rather live in a world of mostly Linus' than a world of mostly Buffet's.

Buffett's a poor example of the meta-money problem. A lot of the finance industry probably adds negative value and is a problem. Buffett does add some value. If you think sound finance has no value take a look at Venezuela, Argentina, the dot com bubble, the housing bubble and so on.

He makes capital. Capital is a resource that you need to run, say, a software company. Makers don't usually go too far without it. And they, makers, are the ones who put their creations on the market, for good reason.

> I am saying is that it's hard to justify that he has added proportional value to the world that is worth the money he has made.

Donating almost everything back to society, that does not count?

Try building a very successful company without someone else providing capital. It's almost impossible. Apple was VC funded for example.

By your logic Bill Gates parasitically took the wealth of his shares when he could have given them to others from the beginning.

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