Quote of the day

"I told my husband that "lying" was an unfairly strong word to use about Obama's discussion of Buffett and his secretary's tax rates. That was back when we thought she was making $200K+. But since it turns out she makes $60K, I think "lying" is putting it mildly. (See the end of this post by +Megan McArdle )."

- Virginia Postrel

While the figures are almost guaranteed to be bogus (to be fair, unless his secretary convinced WB to do his taxes for him, WB seems unlikely to have exact figures), the fact remains that WB probably had a lower effective tax rate (but much higher tax PAYMENTS) than his secretary. Whether that is a bad thing or not is not obvious though. The very wealthy still have the option to leave a country, and in a sense countries are competing for them. I believe there was a time when a lot of the English rock stars found it pointless to live in England.