Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: November twenty seven, twenty twelve, Comedy Central's Worldviews headquarters in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 3: This is the Daily Show with John Stewarts.
Speaker 4: Welcoming to Daily Show Prison.
Speaker 2: Why are we down? Show?
Speaker 4: Miname is John Stewart.
Speaker 2: My guest tonight, Warren Buffett and financial journalist Carol Loomis.
Speaker 2: They are on the show tonight and tonight meeting for
Speaker 2: the first time on this show, so they wrote a
Speaker 2: book together. As you know, if there's one thing all
Speaker 2: Americans can agree on, we love Black Friday, whether you're
Speaker 2: a fan of shop thing or trampling. Which is why
Speaker 2: I was just I was so upset to see on
Speaker 2: this holiest of days a news story about people protesting
Speaker 2: in front of their local Walmart.
Speaker 5: Thousands of Walmart employees or stagey walkouts and protests over
Speaker 5: this holiday weekend. The workers are upset about having to
Speaker 5: work on Thanksgiving Day, and they're also speaking out for
Speaker 5: better pay and benefits.
Speaker 6: What past.
Speaker 2: You get to work at Walmart on Thanksgiving Day?
Speaker 4: A ringside seat to the greatest show on Earth. It's
Speaker 4: a Black Friday tradition, Carol, We'll stand. What do you want?
Speaker 2: Do you know how much people pay to go to
Speaker 2: fights like that.
Speaker 4: You get paid some to see it.
Speaker 2: Isn't that benefit enough?
Speaker 4: Truly? Your vest runneth over.
Speaker 2: But that's not enough for you greedy hourly slightly over
Speaker 2: the federal poverty line employees.
Speaker 4: Now you want to unionize.
Speaker 2: Besides, everyone knows comparatively speaking, in the Walmart world, you've
Speaker 2: got it pretty big good.
Speaker 7: Violent protests in Bangladesh this morning after a deadly garment
Speaker 7: factory fire. Saturday's fire killed at least one hundred and
Speaker 7: twelve factory workers. The factory is owned by an exporter
Speaker 7: whose clients include Walmart.
Speaker 2: See where I work at Walmart in the United States,
Speaker 2: I can't avoid to take my kids to the doctor.
Speaker 4: Well, at least where you work there are.
Speaker 2: Exits and the worst part of that fire, the worst
Speaker 2: part of that fire is the devastating impact that it's
Speaker 2: going to have on Walmart.
Speaker 8: This is the big giant prize for for for unions.
Speaker 8: This is a big giant prize for those who are
Speaker 8: anti capitalism. If it's not this, it will be something else.
Speaker 8: I think it's a stretch of amazing stretch to sort
Speaker 8: of try to pin this on Walmart.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a worst target. Oh I actually
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 2: That's Walmart's slogan, think of a worst target. But I'm sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was Joe.
Speaker 1: Joe came up with that in the meeting, and we're
Speaker 1: all like, we're using that.
Speaker 4: But I'm sorry you were.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry you were being callously dismissive about the working
Speaker 2: conditions in Bangladeshi to score points against American unions.
Speaker 1: Continue.
Speaker 8: Don't think that the people in Bangladesh who perish that
Speaker 8: didn't want or need those jobs as well. You know,
Speaker 8: I know we like to victimize everyone in this kind
Speaker 8: you're particularly when it comes to the for profit motivation,
Speaker 8: which is being assaulted again. It is tragic, and you know, listen,
Speaker 8: it's one of these things. I don't think something like
Speaker 8: this will happen again.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a relief.
Speaker 2: So your first argument appears to be, yes, okay, they
Speaker 2: died in a fire, but they had jobs. You know,
Speaker 2: I think it's reasonable to assume your job won't entail
Speaker 2: some kind of inferno unless it's mentioned in the ad,
Speaker 2: which it's oh, okay, well that I didn't realize. Now
Speaker 2: your second argument is this. Your second argument appears to
Speaker 2: be Your second argument is, hey man, this is just
Speaker 2: a one off, which could be a powerful hypothetical argument
Speaker 2: that I might buy into if moments earlier, the giant
Speaker 2: graphic next year head had not mentioned the five hundred
Speaker 2: people over the past two decades killed in garment fires.
Speaker 2: Although perhaps you're just saying this type of fire won't
Speaker 2: happen again in this particular now burned down factory, to
Speaker 2: which I would say touche. But I guess the point
Speaker 2: is unions will stop it. Nothing to destroy our way
Speaker 2: of life, and Walmart is not the only American treasure
Speaker 2: on their hit list.
Speaker 9: If you love twinkies, sorry, brace yourself for this one.
Speaker 4: Let me stop you right there.
Speaker 2: If you love twinkies, you've probably already used to being
Speaker 2: told to brace yourself for bad news, only usually from
Speaker 2: a guy who looks like this.
Speaker 1: But all right, continue.
Speaker 9: If you love twinkies, sorry, brace yourself for this one.
Speaker 9: Time is run out for America's iconic baking company.
Speaker 1: Chapter eighty two years.
Speaker 6: Hostess is shutting down following a bankruptcy filing.
Speaker 5: No more Twinkies, no more hoes, no more snowballs.
Speaker 4: No more ring dings, no more ding dongs, no more
Speaker 4: dong rings.
Speaker 10: No right, Oh my god, that's not cream Hostess.
Speaker 11: Will it's jelly.
Speaker 4: Hostess? Will be no more? Oh no?
Speaker 2: Where will I go now for my stomach aches and
Speaker 2: self medication? Where will I get the crap to fill
Speaker 2: the bottomless pit? And me that will never be filmed?
Speaker 2: Boxed wine.
Speaker 4: Armies.
Speaker 3: I'm not going back there.
Speaker 2: What could have destroyed this beloved American diabetes dispensary?
Speaker 8: That the unions really did it in because they would
Speaker 8: not allow host Us to operate efficiently.
Speaker 2: Hostess, which was forced to close its doors due to
Speaker 2: union demands they couldn't afford to stay in business during
Speaker 2: a long worker strike.
Speaker 8: The union preferred killing the company to accepting what they
Speaker 8: thought was a bad deal unions.
Speaker 2: You gotta imagine Gingrich has taking this hard. He is,
Speaker 2: after all, half snowball on his father's side, just to
Speaker 2: play devil dog's advocate here. Could there be another reason
Speaker 2: Hostess went bankrupt?
Speaker 1: This company could not run itself efficiently.
Speaker 2: In the last ten years, they've had seven CEOs. Oh uncertainty,
Speaker 2: I'm told the market abhorse it.
Speaker 6: After the two thousand and four bankruptcy, the workers took
Speaker 6: wage and benefit cuts.
Speaker 4: It wasn't enough. The CEO gave himself a three hundred
Speaker 4: percent raise, so the.
Speaker 2: Unions had already taken a cut in somewhat inverse proportion
Speaker 2: to the CEO's rising compensation, which he totally deserved for
Speaker 2: convincing the union.
Speaker 1: To take that cut.
Speaker 2: Anything else other than unions that could have sabotaged the company.
Speaker 6: Sales dropped as moms began swapping out those fat filled
Speaker 6: goodies and white bread for healthier lunchbox foods.
Speaker 3: Moms, how d you moms?
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I just love America this much, but
Speaker 2: I say, let Mars have them. So Mars needs I
Speaker 2: see a lot of children's movies because I have children, You.
Speaker 4: Know what I also think?
Speaker 1: And this is just a marketing tip.
Speaker 2: Let's not forget that the hostess mascot is some kind
Speaker 2: of high spirited country western bildo. But as always, the
Speaker 2: real victims here be the children.
Speaker 4: I just said that they're not gonna know what chinnkeys are.
Speaker 4: They're gonna grow bat no e, what chickies are? You know,
Speaker 4: each generation, it's burdens.
Speaker 2: My kids might never know the pleasure of doing donuts
Speaker 2: in their high school parking lot.
Speaker 1: In at AMC gremlin. I grew up not knowing polio.
Speaker 2: You get both, and if we're really craving a hit
Speaker 2: a twink we can always make our own.
Speaker 6: There are thirty seven ingredients in this little cake. Many
Speaker 6: you'd expect some flour, lots of sugar, corn syrup, but
Speaker 6: how about corn dextrin. That's the sticky glue found on
Speaker 6: the back of envelopes, and that smooth, creamy center. It's
Speaker 6: made from cellulose gum that's used in hair gel, shampoo,
Speaker 6: even rocket fuel.
Speaker 2: Rocket fuel that explains the blue flame that shoots out
Speaker 2: of my ass whenever I eat a twinky.
Speaker 4: Wreck. Don't we have a problem.
Speaker 2: You know what, though, when I was making my twinkies.
Speaker 4: I forgot the cellulose gum.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm an idiot, but you know what, I made
Speaker 2: myself twinkie using only thirty six ingredients. They probably won't
Speaker 2: make that big a difference. I'm sure it's going to
Speaker 2: be about the same, right, it's going to be. Oh,
Speaker 2: they're ready, let's see what we got.
Speaker 3: Kill me, Please kill for me. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Guy to He is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. She's
Speaker 2: the senior editor at larger Fortune Magazine, as well as
Speaker 2: author of the new book tap Dance in the Work
Speaker 2: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, nineteen sixty six two twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Please welcome to the program, Warren Buffett and Carol Lewis.
Speaker 3: How are you never a better? Never better?
Speaker 4: Great to see you, guys.
Speaker 2: The book is called tap Dancing to Work. Tell me
Speaker 2: about this collaboration. First of all, you are a very
Speaker 2: renowned and well respected financial writer. You run so let's
Speaker 2: as I got into it, overhall, how did this come
Speaker 2: to be?
Speaker 12: How the book coming to be?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 12: Oh, well, I got the idea for it actually when
Speaker 12: we had been covering more and for forty years. I
Speaker 12: thought we had to pull all this together because we'd
Speaker 12: had a great collection of stories, many of them written
Speaker 12: by other writers, not me at all, and I thought
Speaker 12: we should do it. And then it only took me
Speaker 12: six years to get it done.
Speaker 2: Now, are you a font of wisdom?
Speaker 1: To some extent?
Speaker 2: Is that the Were you aware that someone was collecting
Speaker 2: your thoughts from nineteen sixty six on until now?
Speaker 13: I've had very few since that, actually, But Carol's been
Speaker 13: an observer for a long time. We talk almost every day,
Speaker 13: and she knows more about me than I hope she
Speaker 13: put in the book.
Speaker 12: That's for volume too, vo too.
Speaker 1: I like this the more salacious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now we're getting somewhere.
Speaker 2: Obviously, you've been at the forefront of the news because
Speaker 2: of this argument that we're having in this country now
Speaker 2: about taxation, how to fund the government while dealing.
Speaker 1: With a deficit. You have suggested.
Speaker 2: Something which coincidentally is called the buffet rule, which I think,
Speaker 2: like Luke Grig's disease, is very.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable that this rule would just happen.
Speaker 9: To be.
Speaker 13: The diseases were already taken exactly endurable.
Speaker 1: It's not right. I assume bufferin has something to do
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: You have come out and said you would prefer something
Speaker 2: where the rich pay a flat at least thirty percent
Speaker 2: on their money.
Speaker 13: Why do you say, Well, if they make over a million,
Speaker 13: I say, on the amount over a million, they ought
Speaker 13: to pay at least thirty percent, and then over ten
Speaker 13: million they ought to pay thirty five percent. Most of
Speaker 13: the people that virtually all of the people in my office,
Speaker 13: twenty or so people between payroll and income taxes pay
Speaker 13: more than thirty percent, and a number of the extremely
Speaker 13: wealthy people pay less than fifteen percent, and some pay
Speaker 13: less than ten percent.
Speaker 2: And now they say, because of capital gains and the
Speaker 2: Cayman Islands, the whole bags that are kept dangling.
Speaker 1: You're getting warm exactly.
Speaker 2: What then about the argument where they say, you know
Speaker 2: that's double taxation if you do capital gains, and that
Speaker 2: will hurt investment. This is clearly something that you also
Speaker 2: have to deal with it at the magazine.
Speaker 12: Well, we hope soxation.
Speaker 11: Double taxation, but what is that a valid.
Speaker 13: Well, if somebody out there is making seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 13: a year, whatever their job, they're paying income tax on it,
Speaker 13: they're they're paying payroll taxes on they're getting tax twice too.
Speaker 13: In my own case, I paid a very low rate
Speaker 13: in two thousand and nine, which I wrote about. Practically
Speaker 13: all my capital gains came from bonds. There was no
Speaker 13: double taxation there.
Speaker 1: So it's not about investment.
Speaker 2: They're saying that unless the rich can pay less, they
Speaker 2: won't invest in companies and America that the job creators
Speaker 2: must be and we should also get them.
Speaker 1: I guess it's called feather beds.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'll do this.
Speaker 13: I'll call you at one o'clock tonight, and I will
Speaker 13: tell you, John, I've got the best idea I've ever had.
Speaker 13: I'm going to put every penny i've got in it.
Speaker 13: You want to come along?
Speaker 1: And will you say?
Speaker 13: How much tax do I have to pay when I
Speaker 13: make a fortune.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing I would say is why
Speaker 2: are you calling me at one eight?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I would say, this warrant? What's this
Speaker 1: really about?
Speaker 2: Here's what's been fascinating me is sort of now. The
Speaker 2: traditional conservative argument is we must have low taxes or
Speaker 2: the economy won't flourish. But I guess in my mind,
Speaker 2: I think of traditional economy being the post New Deal
Speaker 2: economy of relatively robust, high tax rates on high earners
Speaker 2: and a social safety.
Speaker 1: Net that is part of the social compact. To me,
Speaker 1: that's tradition. That's eighty years.
Speaker 13: That's America. And I've you know, I've been working in investments.
Speaker 13: Well really, I bought my first doog one is eleven.
Speaker 13: But I started selling stocks when I was twenty, and
Speaker 13: I sold stocks when in personal income tax rates got
Speaker 13: as high as ninety one percent. I've sold them on
Speaker 13: capital gains rates high as thirty nine point six percent,
Speaker 13: And actually we had some wonderful periods of growth in
Speaker 13: GDP and the middle class as well as the rich
Speaker 13: prospered when tax rates were much higher than they are now.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we'll tell you. Commercial will come back.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about an op ed that you wrote which
Speaker 2: laid out some of the math of this and some
Speaker 2: other financial goings ons in the world. Will be right back,
Speaker 2: more from Warren Buffett and Carol Loomis right after this.
Speaker 4: What about talking with Warren Buffett and Carol Lumits. You know,
Speaker 4: we're talking a little bit.
Speaker 2: I almost I consider you sort of an icon of
Speaker 2: the value economy as opposed to I didn't want to
Speaker 2: say the growth economy, but this, like, for instance, the
Speaker 2: financial sector became I don't know the exact thory, but
Speaker 2: something like twenty percent of our.
Speaker 1: Economy over the last ten or twenty years.
Speaker 2: That seems like an awfully volatile sector to be relied
Speaker 2: upon to drive that much of the GDP.
Speaker 1: Is that incorrect or correct?
Speaker 13: Well, and more and more of the Forbes four hundred
Speaker 13: come from the financial arena. I mean it, We've got
Speaker 13: a huge economy and people that catch the crumbs falling
Speaker 13: off the table can make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: That's an incredibly honorable way to describe them.
Speaker 3: I Trump and catch us.
Speaker 2: Do you think we have a satisfactory domestic economic policy?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 13: I think what made America great is going to continue
Speaker 13: to work. But I think that that you know, the
Speaker 13: last year couple of years, Washington's kind of tested the
Speaker 13: patients of the rest of it. But we've got three
Speaker 13: hundred and twelve million people that I don't think five
Speaker 13: hundred and thirty five can impede their progress over time.
Speaker 2: Now you you guys have been friends for for a
Speaker 2: long forty five years.
Speaker 1: For forty five years, right.
Speaker 2: He is I don't know if it's the eighth largest
Speaker 2: company or the.
Speaker 12: I think seventh thing, which is anyway high.
Speaker 2: And you were a very nice woman who's done very
Speaker 2: well for yourself. Do you resent his success?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you? When you talk to him?
Speaker 11: Do you say why don't you distribute?
Speaker 12: You know, that's the initial five minutes of every conversation
Speaker 12: we have.
Speaker 13: Get that first question. She asked me, why aren't I
Speaker 13: your will?
Speaker 2: I mean, so, well, let me just why isn't she
Speaker 2: and your no?
Speaker 12: I want to hear the answer.
Speaker 13: Yeah, let's chase the subject.
Speaker 4: I will I will point out in.
Speaker 13: The last ten years, I have probably paid taxes counting
Speaker 13: payroll taxes at a higher rate or a lower rate
Speaker 13: than Carol has.
Speaker 2: Right, is it because we've gotten to a place where
Speaker 2: we are valuing the investor class more than the working class.
Speaker 1: Because I'm I'm stunned now at.
Speaker 2: The conflation of unobstructed capitalism and the American dream. Somehow
Speaker 2: that's been conflated on that side the right wing economics
Speaker 2: that you cannot impede the capitalists in any way if
Speaker 2: you want the American dream. But that strikes me as false.
Speaker 2: At unions, worker protections, that's an inoculation against socialism and communism.
Speaker 13: They think I'm a protected that I should be a
Speaker 13: protected species, you know, kind of like the bald eagle
Speaker 13: or the some kind of thing. I mean, you know
Speaker 13: that if anything is done, that he'll safe your ball
Speaker 13: and I'll play someplace else exactly. And and twenty years ago,
Speaker 13: the Forbes four hundred had an aggregate wealth of three
Speaker 13: hundred billion. Now it's more than quintupled. That has not
Speaker 13: happened in the middle class.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Also, productivity of workers has I think doubled. Medium median
Speaker 2: income has stayed stagnant.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, and I don't think I don't think the
Speaker 13: American public really understands that they've kind of snuck up
Speaker 13: on them.
Speaker 4: The tax rate.
Speaker 13: I mean, you've got of the four hundred highest incomes
Speaker 13: in the United States in two thousand and nine, the
Speaker 13: most recent years, we have figures for a quarter of
Speaker 13: the people paid taxes at are rate less than fifteen percent.
Speaker 13: The payroll tax was fifteen point three percent in that year,
Speaker 13: and six of them paid nothing at all. I mean
Speaker 13: they were part of they were part of the forty
Speaker 13: seven percent. I mean, these people were big time movement.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it seems like too that this idea of people
Speaker 2: were black not out of time, but this idea because
Speaker 2: in Bangladesh and China they accept working conditions that Americans
Speaker 2: would not consider optimal. That you can't ask for anything
Speaker 2: anymore because hey man, we'll just send our stuff over there.
Speaker 1: And I understand that.
Speaker 2: But there has to be some sense of domestic policy
Speaker 2: that keeps that in there.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, well, I'm very glad.
Speaker 2: I would like the two of you, if I may,
Speaker 2: to keep you in a curio cabinet because you are
Speaker 2: the two nicest people I think I've met, And if I.
Speaker 4: Could just keep you in there and open it and
Speaker 4: go in and visit with you ever Now it's good
Speaker 4: tap dancing to work.
Speaker 2: Warren Buffett on practically Everything. It's on the bookshelves now.
Speaker 2: Two of the nicest communists you will ever make your life,
Speaker 2: Warren Buffett and Carol hoom As, Berkshire Hathaway and Fortune Magazine.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after.
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