Saturday, February 18, 2012

Roddick's Serve and Buffet's Earnings: Is the Game of Tennis Smarter than the American Electorate?

Andy Roddick has the fastest serve (163 mph) in men’s professional tennis. Warren Buffet’s investment earnings are the equivalent of Roddick’s serve. The game of tennis does not change the weight of the balls or the strings of the racket “to make it fair” because one person serves so fast.

Obama uses an extreme outlier, Warren Buffet, to make his case for consequential and, in my view, negative  changes in our tax system that affect middle-class investors. Most investors earn modest returns on their investments, and much of their gains are eaten up by inflation. To use Buffet as a model for the average middle class investor makes no sense. We should forget about Buffet for the time being.

Tennis players are too smart for that. How about the American people?

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