Fortune published an interview with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates in their Oct. ’05 issue.

I have to admit, I’ve been something of a Warren Buffet fan lately.  The more I read about him, the more I admire the man.  Here is a guy that just seems to be the role model for all aspiring capitalists – amazingly successful, thoughtful and insightful, fair, humble and modest. (Maybe he just has a really good PR/Marketing team that is going a phenomenal job of spinning his image.)

Anyways, he makes some really interesting comments I wanted to share.  Here is one on the comments on the joys of being one of the priviliged wealthy in the US in recent years.

What has gone on in this country in recent years is a huge benefit to the very rich and not that much relief to people below…They [ed: presumably Buffet meant the Bush Administration] have really taken care of the rich.

Here is Buffet’s view on inheritance and his interpretation of the implications of America’s much vaunted Equality of Opportunity:

Our [Buffet and Bill Gates’ respective offspring] kids are going to be rich, in the top half-a-percent of the world, but…[w]e are not going to turn out superwealthy kids.  They’ll be wealthy…but the idea of dynastic fortune turns me off.  If you talk about equality of opportunity in this country and really having everyone with talent having a fair shot at getting the brass ring, the idea that you hand over huge positions in society simply because someone came from the right womb, I think it’s almost un-American.

Interestingly, Bill Gates chimes in some related comments on what America’s Equality of Opportunity:

[On advocating philantrophy] If you can accumulate some of society’s wealth through luck and skill and then make sure that consumption overwhelmingly goes to the less fortunate, it’s a little bit like Robin Hood – you’re recycling wealth from that top part back.

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