Buffett’s Son Defends Occupy Wall Street
By Andrew Frye and Alan Bjerga - Oct 13, 2011 12:00 AM ET
Howard Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) director and son of Chairman Warren Buffett, said Wall Street protesters were provoked by abuses from corporations amid a widening disparity between rich and poor.
“I think it takes that to make things happen sometimes,” Howard Buffett, 56, said of the demonstrations in an interview yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa. Over the past 15 years, “we saw large corporations really screw people.”
Occupy Wall Street has drawn out protesters from New York to Seattle and gained empathizers among the top executives at Citigroup Inc. (C) and Blackrock Inc. Warren Buffett, the world’s third-richest person, has said he is concerned about inequity in the U.S. The younger Buffett, a farmer and philanthropist, said obtaining enough food has become more difficult for more people.
“There has never been a larger gap between earnings in this country,” said Howard Buffett, who was in Des Moines to deliver a speech at the World Food Prize conference. “There has never been a time in my lifetime when the government is going to cut an incredible amount of programs that support poor people and feed them.”
Protesters criticized the government for propping up financial firms including Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) in 2008 while individuals struggled with unemployment, depressed wages, foreclosures and reduced retirement savings. Republican lawmakers oppose raising taxes to reduce the U.S. deficit and have pushed for cuts to government programs.
Much more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/howard-buffett-defends-occupy-wall-street-protests-to-make-things-happen-.html
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