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" That Warren Buffett is a rich man goes without saying. The kind of rich man he is, however, is worth talking about, because for the first time in a long time we are confused about rich men in America.  We don&amp;#039;t know if we like them anymore. For the last thirty years, we have liked them. We have lionized them, emulated them, and, most importantly, forgiven them. Our regard for the rich hasn&amp;#039;t been a matter of boom and bust; it has resisted the fluctuation of markets and been perhaps the most powerful unifying force in American culture. It has seemed, indeed, a settled thing, almost like capitalism itself, and it happened to coincide with a run-up toward the greatest accumulation and concentration of wealth in human history. Not only did we like rich men; we were happy there were so many around. And the richer they got, the more we liked them.  And so the collapse of the markets in 2008 was more than a signal event in the history of capitalism. It was a signal event in the history of the culture, because it put into question the culture&amp;#039;s relationship to money. We were supposed to root for the rich, because our fates were supposed to be entwined with theirs. We were supposed to root for them to get their money back, because then we would get our money back. But when they got their money back, and it turned out to be our money \u2014 well, how could America root for Jamie Dimon? Enter Warren Buffett. He has always been the kind of rich man America admires \u2014 the kind of rich man whose search for value as an investor seems an extension of his personal values. He is not the kind of rich man who enriches himself by moving his money around but rather by spending his money on companies and industries he believes in, including old-school American companies like Kraft Foods and the Burlington Northern railroad. He is not the kind of rich man who has leveraged his company in order to leverage his lifestyle but rather the kind of rich man who has lived most of his life where he was born and who has pledged 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropy. He is not the kind of rich man who has taken refuge behind spokesmen but rather who speaks for himself, especially on the subject of rich men like himself, and so he emerged this year as both a savior and a scourge of his own exalted class. He began 2011 by receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. He ended it being accused of not living &amp;quot;in the real world&amp;quot; by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. In between, he lost money on an electric car before the government lost money on Solyndra; accepted the resignation of his presumed successor at Berkshire Hathaway after an insider-trading scandal; bought Berkshire Hathaway shares because he considered them a bargain; called Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke &amp;quot;very, very smart&amp;quot;; called the impasse over the debt ceiling &amp;quot;asinine&amp;quot;; got paid back the $5 billion he lent to Goldman Sachs in 2008, then turned around and lent $5 billion to Bank of America, thereby saving its ass. He not only evinced skepticism about the likelihood of a double-dip recession; he demonstrated optimism by going on a spending spree for stocks he regards as undervalued. At a time when the panic over &amp;quot;socialism&amp;quot; reveals capitalism&amp;#039;s own crisis of confidence, he has stayed unflappable, resolute, and, above all, cheerful \u2014 acting as capitalism&amp;#039;s human face even as his brand of capitalism remains voracious. And yet even as he assumed an almost extragovernmental role in steadying markets, he was accused of being insufficiently capitalistic and a traitor to his class. It was one thing for him to make money; it was quite another for him to volunteer to pay a higher marginal tax rate on it and to lend his name to a tax on rich men proposed by a president whom rich men despise. Of course, when Warren Buffett explained his association with the &amp;quot;Buffett rule&amp;quot; by saying, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a boyhood dream. I wanted to have a tax named after me,&amp;quot; he was acting no less in the service of capitalism than he was when he bought $5 billion in Bank of America shares. He understands that for American capitalism to continue as an unbridled force, Americans must continue regarding rich men as their heroes \u2014 or even their friends \u2014 instead of simply accepting them as their masters. He understands that Americans will root for rich men only as long as rich men seem to have a rooting interest in America. And so he has not changed, in that way. He continues to be the kind of rich man who cares about being the kind of rich man Americans admire. What has changed is that suddenly he is the kind of rich man who stands very nearly alone. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/interviews/a11746/warren-buffett-1211/>