Who Is Warren Buffett's Secretary?

Slate:

For nearly two decades, Debbie Bosanek has fielded press calls, investor queries, and sundry other requests for her boss, billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Now, she herself is in the middle of a very bright spotlight.

Read the whole story: Slate

Comments

[shankapotomus]

04:29 PM on 09/22/2011

A video from the left and the right.

http://www.care2.com/causes/who-is-warren-buffetts-secretary-video.html

[tuberider]

10:05 PM on 09/21/2011

All I can say is, no doubt, she's a "real pro."

[gonealreb]

05:35 PM on 09/21/2011

Gotta love this Lady who wears a T-Shirt which reads: "Warren is not available and I have no comment".

If she's making less than a million a year, she's underpaid.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

04:25 PM on 09/21/2011

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[CSNC]

04:14 PM on 09/21/2011

"Who Is Warren Buffett's Secretary?"

A rich woman, not by Buffett's standards, but a rich woman nevertheless.

H

[Kinniver]

02:30 PM on 09/21/2011

If he is making most of his money off capital gains then sure, she might be paying higher taxes, he is also taking a much bigger risk.

Most people don't live like this, they earn money, it is taxed and then they invest it, which is again taxed. You raise that cap gains tax to much a lot of people will stop investing.

Buffett's also has a dispute with the IRS which claims he owes the gov ~1b in back taxes, why is he fighting this? Why does he not just pay the IRS the 1b they claim he owes? He wants to pay more taxes but when it comes time to do so he fights it?

[gonealreb]

05:44 PM on 09/21/2011

you said: "You raise that cap gains tax to much a lot of people will stop investing." The Capital gains tax was temporarily reduced to 15% in 2003 by a Republican Congress and President. The tax level set by the 1986 TRA is only 28% (after Obama's last shortsighted extension. It did not inhibit investment then, nor will it in 2013 since the wealthy control 85% of total investment in this Nation.

[Kinniver]

07:06 PM on 09/21/2011

We also take the biggest risks of anyone in the nation. I am not talking about the relative few mega rich that will keep investing but rather the not so rich that do invest for the future.

These are the people that will be impacted. There should be no capital gains taxes at all, they got their taxes already and the people took what they could of the remaining money and invested it. Why should they be taxed again? You keep focusing on the uber rich which is a very small percentage of the population, you could take all their wealth and it would run the government for several months before all the cash was gone.

[hapiguy]

02:12 PM on 09/21/2011

Tax Rate Increase to the Wealthy,,only means hiding more bucks in Switzerland ,,,Bermuda
and other off shore havens...and of course,,they push every deduction to the limit,, and
then some,,lets finally get a straight % tax,,no deductions,,no scams...everyone wins..
oh,,and the taxes come out up front for everyone,,,then try to cheat,,or ship it offshore,,
Debt solved...level playing field,,,for all

[gonealreb]

05:48 PM on 09/21/2011

I've advocated a fixed rate tax in the past, but the biggest issue is the unemployment it will cause. An estimated 8 million people are employed mostly due to our convoluted tax code.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

10:19 PM on 09/21/2011

Government bureaucracy and convoluted laws creates jobs.

I had an issue with the IRS and I had to speak to so many people to correct it (I had to call one department only to be transferred to another department--the rep I was transferred to told me "we do not do that" and hung up--and so on).  And this is just on the IRS side.  When the IRS issued a levy and an eventual lien I received and am still receiving countless advertisements from tax help firms and attorneys looking to reduce my tax debt.

Of course I could have just used one of the many tax firms or tax software initially.

It is so crazy how many people are employed just because of tax law.

The same thing happens with the military as well.  Not just the personnel, but those employed by suppliers and institutions/corporations doing military research.  People really do not realize that there are jobs that only exist because they US is doing things incorrectly or inefficiently.

[rMatey]

02:12 PM on 09/21/2011

It must piss her off that her boss pays less taxes than she does.

[verycold]

01:58 PM on 09/21/2011

"Schroeder says that someone as professional and skilled as Bosanek would easily make six figures on Wall Street. "But it's Omaha," she says, noting that nobody in the Berkshire offices makes much and guessing she makes less than $100,000 a year. "Warren does give her some Berkshire stock every year, either on her birthday or on Christmas.""

For a moment, I am going to pretend to be Buffett.  If I made billions I sure as heck would bestow generous compensation to my employees, their families even if they do ONLY live in Omaha.  The above statement is just plain awful.  It feels frugal to the point of cheapness. 

I have said all along with this Buffett nonsense is that he could easily CHOOSE to make his fortune by changing the way he receives compensation.  He CHOOSES to only award himself a 100,000 salary taxed at a higher rate, although not the highest please notice.  He could choose to give himself  25 million in the form of a salary and thus would pay the top marginal rate. 

The guy is cheap.  He is contesting taxes back to 2002 and you can be sure it isn't because the taxes owed aren't high enough.  So I am saying he doesn't want to pay one thin dime more than required and he pays lots of people to make sure he pays as little in taxes as possible. 

Obama surrounds himself with hypocrites saying one thing while doing something altogether different.  It started with Timmy, morphed into Jeffrey and now Buffett.  If you checked all the people that are giving Obama financial help I would bet you would find out they all have outstanding taxes due,  just like Buffett. 

I am fine with fair taxation as it should be.  I am NOT fine with lies and hypocrisy.

[FoonTheElder]

01:18 PM on 09/21/2011

The constant right wing whining about how the rich are paying all the taxes is totally phony. The only taxes they want to talk about are federal income taxes because they are about the only taxes in America that attempt to be progressive. Most other taxes fall more heavily on the non-wealthy.

When you look at ALL taxes as a percentage of ALL income, the top 1% pay less than the next 19%, and not much more than the next 60% after that.

For example, the top 1%ers average about $1.4 million in ALL income and average 30.9% in ALL taxes. Someone with $66,000 in ALL income averages about 30.0% in ALL taxes.
www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf

So where is this unfair taxation on the wealthy? The U.S. tax system is practically a flat tax system already, which is to the great advantage to the people at the top. All of the proposals by Paul Ryan and the Republicans are nothing more than attempts to have the top 1% to pay even less and everyone else pay even more.

[econ1]

12:38 PM on 09/21/2011

To be fair, the Associate Press has just confirmed that in 2009

Taxpayers who made over $1m paid an average of 24.4 %
those at $100,000 to 125,000 paid 9.9%
those at $50,000 to 60,000 paid 6.3%

So we are already there. Sometimes you wish folks in Washington would check on things.

[Tarpon22]

12:29 PM on 09/21/2011

She is someone with a HUGE attitude, nasty dispostion and has let the job go to her head and has created a huge over inflated eago.

The rudeness to others is a disgrace.

This is what the article does not report, and that makes this article TRASH and missing facts.

[Barista]

10:29 AM on 09/21/2011

Debbie does Omaha.

[Disdain]

10:23 AM on 09/21/2011

If she is so invaluable and he is so concerned about her paying so much in taxes, why not give her a raise?

[Logicalthinker10]

10:58 AM on 09/21/2011

$60,000 in Omaha is considered doing very well.

[Tykete]

01:25 PM on 09/21/2011

Plus she gets stocks in the business, not too shabby

[ejhickey]

01:47 PM on 09/21/2011

good idea . since WB is worried about her high tax rate because of her middle income salary, he could raise her salary to $1 million + . then she could pay a lower tax rate , just like old WB. Come on Warren , give her a raise . make her a millionaire. No skin off your teeth.

[AmySeow]

10:15 AM on 09/21/2011

Who cares who his secretary is. It's distraction articles like this that are most of our countries problem.
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Wealth-Mr-Andrew-Costello/dp/1463523017/ref