(I just decided to repost this from scratch as there were so many errors and bad writing in the first one. Somehow when I went through and edited the original, none of it saved. Also, B18 made a point that should have been in the original, "It Is an employer subsidy paid for by the same workers through the income tax system." I added this thought into it.)

I have no doubt Warren Buffett is smarter than me... which scares me because I disagree with him so much. I just finished reading about an interview with the Oracle of Omaha on Yahoo!Finance:

Warren Buffett Proposed A Way To Ensure 'Anybody Who's Willing To Work 40 Hours A Week Has A Decent Living' — And It Wouldn't Cost Employers Anything

The short version is that Buffett is against raising the minimum wage, but, he wants to the government to give people working 40 hours a week enough money to make them have decent earnings at the end of the year.  A noble cause, to give people a living wage. As stated in my title, Warren Buffett is one of the greatest financial minds of our time and smarter than me. That doesn't mean at the end of his run, like many rich people, he is trying go out being known as philanthropist, great guy and man of the people.  

From the article:

"We have to make sure that in a super-rich country, anybody who’s willing to work 40 hours a week has a decent living,” Buffett said. He cautioned against setting unrealistic wage floors that could exclude millions from the workforce because of a lack of necessary skills.

When probed on why the responsibility for ensuring a minimum income should fall on the government rather than on businesses, Buffett offered a pragmatic perspective. He explained that imposing higher wage requirements on businesses could disrupt the market system and lead to a reduction in employment.

Buffett proposes this extra money for low wage earners to be given by extending the Earned Income Tax Credit.  I have a couple of major issues with this.  

1. No company is ever going to pay the proper wage to an employee if they know the government will just make up the difference of what they are underpaying them.  If they know a cashier is worth 15 dollars an hour, but, they can pay them 10 because they will get the rest from the government, why would they pay them 15. In fact, Buffett's plan would quickly lead to an increased minimum wage, because the government would be forced to do it to keep companies from purposely underpaying their workers.

2. I have a real problem with someone with 400,000 employees admitting he wants the government to step in because he doesn't pay them enough. Berkshire Hathaway has made billions off of companies employing low wage earners. If Buffett feels this strongly about workers needing to be paid more, then pay them more.

3. I bring this up often, the US government is 34 trillion in debt. This billionaire is asking the American taxpayer to pay taxes and interest to make his employees whole. I am not sure why the title of the Yahoo article seems to make the point that Buffett's plan will cost companies nothing. All it is saying that instead of companies paying their employees, the tax system will pass the cost on to the taxpayers.  Since corporations don't really pay taxes, they pass this cost along to customers, the tax burden is moved to the people.  In fact, this is a double whammy as the government is very inefficient. Instead of a corporation paying a decent wage directly, the money will be funneled though the bureaucracy of Washington, essentially halved as everyone gets their share, and then passed on to low wage employees. 

4. Finally, the article keeps saying Buffett believes in a capitalist economy. Of course he does, he is a billionaire. You can't have it both ways, though. You can't say we have to leave the companies alone and then have the government dictating what fair wages are and even paying employees for these companies. Capitalism doesn't work that way.  At least a minimum wage is set in stone and companies know what they are dealing with.  With government intervention such as Buffett is suggesting, companies will be left to game the system to maximize profits, which maximizing profits, by definition is the goal and duty of a business. They system will only be gamed for so long, though. Soon, the government will feel the need to step in and dictate what businesses need to do, and why shouldn't they? They are paying their employees for them, of course they get a say.*

*Also known as the "Law Of Unintended Consequences."

(I think I got this down to my normal amount of grammatical errors.)