Warren Buffett Should Listen To Bernie Marcus On Jobs
The SCOAMF Is Beyond Help

I am sick to death of King Barry the Green trotting out Warren Buffett as his go-to CEO. "Tax me more" begs Buffett, when he could just write a check.

Oh, wait, that would blunt the effectiveness of his charitable giving estate tax avoidance plan. My bad.

Notice, though, that Obama only has a handful of people to use as examples. When you get past the ultra-wealthy like Buffett and Bill Gates, Sr. and rent-seekers like GE's Jeffrey Immelt, there's not much left.

So how many jobs has Buffett created, anyway? He invests in established businesses after others have done the heavy lifting and is famously hands-off when it comes to management of his portfolio companies. I guess he's good at saving jobs or something, but creating ... not so much.

On the other hand, there are people like Bernie Marcus that anybody but a SCOAMF would love to have on his team. Marcus was one of the founders of Home Depot, which employs about 320,000 people in over 2,200 retail locations and sucks dollars out of my wallet on a weekly basis.

Together, with the help of New York investment banker Ken Langone who assembled a group of investors and business partner Arthur Blank, they launched the highly successful home-improvement retailer The Home Depot in 1979. The store revolutionized the home improvement business with its warehouse concept and the three became billionaires as a result. He was the company's first CEO for 19 years and served as chairman of the board until his retirement in 2002.

Also, if you've ever been to the outstanding Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, thank Bernie Marcus - he's almost singlehandedly responsible for its existence.

This is a guy that knows a thing or two about what it takes to create a business and hire people. Here's his assessment of the administration (from CNBC's Squawk Box):

About a year ago I was on this program, and we had this great conversation. If you remember, I said something like Geithner does to small business what Debbie did to Dallas.
...
Look, a year ago I predicted what was going to happen. Things were looking good, Obama was out there saying we're turning things around, the money was out there, we're putting money in, we're spending money, we're creating jobs. And after speaking about this, and I did a lot of work beforehand ... I visited a lot of small business people beforehand to see what the real world was like which is what the people in Washington don't have a clue about.

I mean they really don't know. You know, when you go into Washington, it's never, never land. Unemployment is low as hell. You can't find people for jobs. People are making tons of money. They're spending money in restaurants. I mean there's no problem in Washington. It's like a state unto itself. It's like a country unto itself. (emphasis added)

Bingo! I hear DC metro has some nice golf courses too.

The government doesn't need to Pass This Bill™! It just needs to get the hell out of the way.

(Video below the fold)

posted by Andy at 05:22 PM

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