Buffett's latest hypocrisy & Berkshire Hathaway Buys $3.45 Billion Stake In Exxon Mobil 8&14NOV13

I used to admire Warren Buffett because of his expressed views on taxing the rich more and the poor and working and middle classes less. That, and what I had read and heard about him seemed to make him out to be someone who understood the economic struggles of the 99% and who might have social justice tendencies. But this from SumOfUs shows how wrong I was about Buffett and what a hypocrite he really is. Here he has $3.45 billion to invest in exxon mobile but is threatening to fire hundreds of employees at the rail yard he controls in Chicago if they attempt to unionize because they can not live on their wage of $9.00 an hour! What, is he taking business management tips from mitt romney??? Please sign the petition demanding Warren Buffett honor his employees by respecting their rights to organize and to pay them a living wage. This from SumOfUs and HuffPost.....

"We don't need to have the extremes of inequality that we have. The people at the bottom end should be doing better.”
That was superstar investor Warren Buffett, and statements like that have made him a progressive icon. But Buffett doesn’t exactly walk the walk: he’s threatening to throw nearly 200 workers onto the street just for trying to lift themselves out of poverty.
Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest people, owns a huge railroad company, but the workers in a major Chicago rail yard his company relies on are barely scraping by on $9 an hour. They’ve come together to form a union, Buffett’s company says that they’ll all lose their jobs if they try to fight for better pay.
Tell Warren Buffett to stop bullying rail yard workers. Practice what you preach and respect their right to organize.
The rail yard workers are organizing with Warehouse Workers for Justice, the same group that organized workers in Walmart’s warehouses outside Chicago. All these workers are part of the same fight -- warehouses and rail yards once provided good, middle class jobs, but in the era of Walmart, supply chain workers have poverty wages and next to know security while corporations enjoy outsized profits. Like workers in Walmart stores and warehouses, these workers know they’ll only share the wealth if they fight for it, and they’re ready to strike for living wages.
Legally speaking, workers can’t be fired for striking, but Buffett’s company is ready to skirt the law and fire their whole subcontracting firm if they stand up better pay.
We’re never going to get inequality under control if workers can’t organize to make big corporations share the wealth. We need to come together and expose his rank hypocrisy.
Sign our petition to Warren Buffett: respect rail yard workers’ rights
Thanks for all you do,
Rob, Kaytee, and the rest of us

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More information:
Buffet: Stop Bullying Drivers, Warehouse Workers for Justice
SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Berkshire Hathaway Buys $3.45 Billion Stake In Exxon Mobil

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Thursday disclosed a new $3.45 billion stake in Exxon Mobil Corp, after buying 40.1 million shares in the world's largest publicly traded oil company.
The purchase was disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that detailed Berkshire equity investments, mostly listed on U.S. exchanges, as of September 30.
Berkshire also disclosed other changes to its holdings, including a reduced stake in another oil company, ConocoPhillips.
U.S. regulators require large investors to disclose their stock holdings every quarter, and the disclosures can offer a window into their strategies for buying and selling stocks.
(Reporting by Luciana Lopez and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gary Hill)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/berkshire-hathaway-exxon-mobil_n_4277067.html

How McDonald's & Walmart Became Welfare Queens & Audio of McResource "Help Line" 13NOV13

People who spend their money at these corporate welfare queen businesses are being played for fools. They are not saving money because they are paying for the product and their tax dollars are subsidizing the company's underpaid workers, allowing the corp executives to increase their profits, which they will probably send to an offshore tax shelter. See more on these corporate welfare queens at YOU'RE PAYING FOR MCDONALD'S $35 MILLION CORP JET AND THEIR EMPLOYEES HEALTH CARE, FOOD STAMPS, AND OTHER SOCIAL SAFETY NET BENEFITS & Workers at biggest fast food companies need billions in public assistance 25&15OKT13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/youre-paying-for-mcdonalds-35-million.html

Bloomberg View: It seems that welfare queens are back in the news these days. The old stereotype was an inner-city unwed mother -- that’s dog-whistle-speak for black -- having multiple babies to get ever bigger welfare checks (throw in a new Cadillac and the myth is complete). Regardless, welfare reform of the 1990s ended that narrative.
No, the new welfare queens are even bigger, richer and less deserving of taxpayer support. The two biggest welfare queens in America today are Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
This issue has become more known as we learn just how far some companies have gone in putting their employees on public assistance. According to one study, American fast food workers receive more than $7 billion dollars in public assistance. As it turns out, McDonalds has a “McResource” line that helps employees and their families enroll in various state and local assistance programs. It exploded into the public when a recording of the McResource line advocated that full-time employees sign up for food stamps and welfare.

Published on Oct 24, 2013

Find out more at www.facebook.com/lowpayisnotok

http://youtu.be/olUsgn-Ubh0 

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private sector employer, is also the biggest consumer of taxpayer supported aid. According to Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, in many states, Wal-Mart employees are the largest group of Medicaid recipients. They are also the single biggest group of food stamp recipients. Wal-mart’s "associates" are paid so little, according to Grayson, that they receive $1,000 on average in public assistance. These amount to massive taxpayer subsidies for private companies.
Why are profitable, dividend-paying firms receiving taxpayer subsidies? The short answer is, because they can. The longer answer is more complex and nuanced.
Both McDonalds and Wal-Mart are engaging in perfectly legal behavior. The system was set up long ago in ways that failed to imagine companies doing this. Yes, they are taking advantage of the taxpayer, but they are also operating within the law.
Which means it is time to change those outdated rules.
The simplest solution is to raise the minimum wage. If full-time employees are living below the poverty level -- especially those with children -- its no surprise they are going to need public assistance. Raising the minimum wage over a period of time will eliminate much of this corporate welfare. The costs will be slightly higher prices at fast food restaurants and low end retailers.
The next proposal is more severe: Charge back the amount of public assistance any employee receives to the company he or she works for. It would be separate from tax filings, and simply be a direct penalty charged to the firm. I doubt there is much political will for this proposal, but I can see some people -- especially on the Left -- supporting it.
The most radical idea is bit of pure fantasy: Guarantee every person in America a minimum salary. That is a proposal under discussion today in Switzerland. Its hard to even imagine such a concept gaining traction in the U.S. outside of the Great Depression era.
My politics are pretty middle-of-the-road, and I find myself offended by subsidizing profitable companies this way. As a taxpayer, there are much better things I would like to see my monies go towards. Some rule changes are needed to end this wasteful spending.
We should get corporate welfare queens off of the public teat. Regardless of your politics, it is an issue that politicians on both the Left and the Right can agree upon.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/walmart_n_4267907.html