Buffett worked, at least informally, with the Obama administration on some financial policy issues. And he is a proponent of greater taxes on the very rich. Here's one short video (2:46) in which he talks about it:
This could motivate the private sector to go back to the Bell Labs model, too.
I agree that free markets are great in principle but your comments seem dogmatic - all free markets and only free markets. The conversation would be much more interesting if it was about the nuances.
Then their parents must have been billionaires, generating it with investments. If the inheritors divest from those investments, then they incur enormous income taxes. So it's likely to stay.
> by buying favorable laws and regulations,
Then it's not free market. There is no government system that is immune from buying influence and corruption.
> by anticompetitive practices (we've seen a few in the IT sector), and by other problematic behavior.
Nothing is perfect.
> The conversation would be much more interesting if it was about the nuances.
Perhaps, but nuances do not drive prosperity. It would also be more interesting if you showed me a prosperous socialist economy.
But isn't this sidestepped buy the "buy, borrow, die" approach, often criticized?
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/03/tax-loop...
I'm not an expert on taxation, but this is something people have been complaining about for a long time.
The point is that if you're forced to put your money into industries / r&d etc then you don't have enough money to bribe people / political parties / news outlets etc.
> nothing is perfect
The same could be said about anything, including free market economics. It's meaningless.
> nuances do not drive prosperity
They certainly do. The differences are often in the details.
> Perhaps
That's honest, at least ...
Being rude is not persuasive.
> including free market economics. It's meaningless.
I've explicitly said many times that free markets work even if they're not ideal or perfect.
That seems to be what Buffett is suggesting.