[Jcrew]

[ QUOTE ]
"Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline," Buffett said. "A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy."



[/ QUOTE ]

So the crux of his argument is that a vast amount of monetary resources are being held hostage by people who have not shown that they are equipped to put it in productive use via the inheritance mechanism.

The 2nd quote is an observation/conjecture that the difficulty for upward economic/social mobility has been increasing steadily and is at relative peak.

IMO, both statements are correct. The question is whether or not the estate tax should be increased to provide more opportunity(or the perception of more) to the lower factions of society. At that point it is just a matter of opinion and what a person wants for society. I would prefer more estate tax if it lowered income tax(at any level).