Billions Donated to Charity 1245
Anonymous Philanthropist writes " Warren Buffet , the world's second-richest man, announced over the weekend that he will soon donate 85% of his entire net worth, weighing in at around $37 Billion, to charities, with over 80% of it going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This makes it the single largest monetary donation in history."
Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Informative)
Although, it's hard to believe that the timing is entirely coincidental... especially since Bill said he'd be leaving Microsoft over the next two years, and Warren said [cnn.com]:
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like Andrew Carnegie?
Yep if the Gates foundation actually develops a vaccine that can prevent malaria then yes Microsoft will be nothing but a footnote in history. Any ruthless business practices will be pretty much forgot just because a millions of children will not have to suffer. Life just isn't fair.
Hell if they pull it off I might actually stop putting pins in my Bill Gates voodoo doll.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
AIDS, 3 million deaths annually and rising.
Diabetes, alzheimers and flu more important you say? BTW, there already is a cure for 90% (type II) of all diabetes: Eat healthier, exercise more!
The sad thing is the pharmaceutical companies has the same priorities. No money in saving african peoples lives but lots of money in selling life long medication for life-style illnesses in the rich western world.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Funny)
No, if they find a cure for Alzheimers then surely the public *will* remember!
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, not really. Carnegie's complete and utter destruction of the unions cripped industrial growth for decades due to his tactics. The lack of a minimum wage (pay wages in the CENTS per day and the Ford Model T was priced at a 'cheap' $350), the methodology of simply decreasing workers' pay instead of increasing productivity or quality (sales are down? Fire some workers while maintaining the status quo!) and his own self-proclaimed "it was necessary at the time for the growth of the nation" while creating a permanent lower working class group of people in the U.S. (Oh yeah, building libraries is real helpful at a time when child labor is commonplace.)
Carnegie was a fool, even in retrospect. By the time his charities were felt by the masses, his company had already left its mark. Corporate intimidation and bullying was used for decades (and arguably to this day). Violence between factory owners and factory workers sparked on and off WELL into the 20th century. Unions have NEVER shaken off the image of essentially being puppet creations made by the corporations for calming the masses (unions in the U.S. are a joke compared to European counterparts and in many cases are being dismantled in some industries).
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Funny)
Bill? Is that you? Or are you Stevie B? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Insanity
2. Alzheimer's
3. A paid MS shill
Hello, McFly? Ghandi, Clara Barton, Willam Booth, Mother Teresa, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Jefferson,
I've said this to the BG cultists over and over, but it bears repeating: BG's "philanthropy" is meaningless... to BG. Show me some single mom struggling to make it who give $10 to the United Way and I'm impressed. If there's a middle income family donating 10% of what they make to charity, I think that's noteworthy. When a man gives away a portion of his wealth, but it's so little that he never notices (except for the fawning news articles), that's meaningless. Think widow's mite here.
The mistaken hero worship in the parent is so smarmy it's sickening.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, its clear he's always planned on ensuring they would be taken care of, but I don't think he ever planned on simply leaving them his billions.
A charitable foundation is probably the most effective way to spread his wealth around. The Gate's foundation is very well respected in spite of its link to Microsoft.
Warren Buffet has nothing but my respect for this move. Not only is it noble, but he's sticking with his long stated principles.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, personally, I think the death tax is the most fair tax possible. You can't take it with you anyways, and your heirs didn't earn it.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
You could say the same thing about any tax. And yes, there is a lot of pork out there, but there are also things that are genuinely necessary and useful to fund via taxes (I'm sure you can think of a few). If you want to live in a society without taxes, try Afghanistan or Sudan... of course you will still end up paying taxes, only to the local warlord instead of any kind of representative government.
Politicians should learn to operate within a real budget like the rest of us.
Indeed they should. But that doesn't have any bearing on whether there should be an estate tax, or even taxes in general.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been giving about half my earnings to the government for many years. In other countries 50% tax gets you a complete education, medical care, a higher standard of living (on average), and other things. In the US the same amount of tax gives us a poor education and no medical care (for most of us). Hell they won't even fix pot-holes any more. I'd rather go back to no taxes, tariffs on trade to support the government, and I'll work with my neighbors to fix our own pot-holes.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite what you might think, you wouldn't be any richer either. Not unless you were supremely lucky to latch onto some exploitable resource. Regular business would grind to a halt as the infastructure collapsed. Even the super expensive education system provides more money to businesses over the long term than any savings in taxes could ever provide. The highway system is the same way, and it's also monumentally expensive. A large mass of poor people with no hope of social mobility (can't afford education, can't afford to even drive on the roads) is not good for society.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez, look beyond your pay-stub, junior.
If your income is in the $50K range you're already paying around 20% of it to Uncle Sugar in income tax alone. Now add 6.2% for Social Security. Then add 5.8% for the Social Security that is your "employer's matching contribution", as your employer already files it under the common heading of "cost of employing you". Add 2.9% for Medicare. State and local taxes nationally average a hair above 10%. We're nearly up to 45% already and I haven't even gotten into the various communications taxes, vehicle registration fees, and assorted other "non tax" levies. 50% is not at all that unreasonable an estimate.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Historically death taxes have been used politically to prevent the build-up of power in family lines which would challenge the current ruling party. It's only a nice side effect that they get to use they money for their own purposes.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the entitlement class (i.e. trust-fund babies) doesn't challenge the ruling party, they are the ruling party. How can you not see that? Don't you know who our President is?
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Death Tax is to make certain the middleclass doesn't get ideas.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Funny)
A working class man who started out with nothing in life but two strong hands and a brain, and now has to make due with just the hands.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
He might not, but I will, although I don't know about "class-based," if you mean like a caste system. The idea of society without classes is called communism. It's not bad in theory, but in practice it removes most positive incentive for people to work hard and causes society to flounder and ultimately collapse on itself. Even communism had classes; they just operated behind closed doors. Classes are unavoidable. What we want to do is make the least common denominator acceptable to the point where it's not inhumane, but there's still opportunity and incentive to achieve more, and keep the highest classes from abusing their power.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your last comment notwithstanding (because I mostly agree with it, except in situations of dire depression), the rest is an unfortunate simplification for something a little more complicated.
To me, the death tax, or in fact any tax that is levied more heavily towards those who are wealthier, is fair simply because wealthy people derive more benefit from each tax dollar spent proportionally than anyone else. Before you freak out and stop reading, consider:
A middle-class person who pays taxes to go to public school earns an education; a rich person who pays taxes to support a school gains...an educated and skilled workforce.
A middle-class person who pays car and gas taxes earns a road they may drive on; a rich person who pays those taxes gains...a transportation system that allows them to transport their company's goods to far-flung locations and markets.
And so forth. Any person who uses wealth to produce wealth (i.e. true Capitalists) are using the benefits of an infrastructure that most taxpayers can barely fathom. So, yeah, they get to pay a little more.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree, mainly for the reason I stated elsewhere, namely that artificial persons are a silly concept that, among other things obscures the true beneficiary of the business. Not to go all Marxist on you or anything (because I'm not a Marxist) but the dude or dudes who own the means of production of a commodity, either through stock or direct ownership, make money directly from the surplus value of their worker's wages. The ability to collect that surplus (and the sturctures that make such a collection possible) are the things that proceed directly from infrastructure improvements which exist only because of taxes paid by everyone including...wait for it!...the workers themselves! It is absolutely absurd to say that the worker gains an equal benefit per dollar in taxes paid to the individual who is fortunate enough to own shares or stake in the company that produces wealth directly for him or her. Marxism is dumb because the solutions it suggests are dumb; as for the problems it identifies, I would call them more or less spot-on. Besides, isn't it a relatively capitalist position that one should 'pay for what you get' and conversely that one 'gets what he pays for'? I think disproportionate tax burdens bring these principles into closer consonance with reality (something which theories, Capitalist and Marxist both, fail with pretty miserably).
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for politicians and their pet projects. Whatever. I'm sure you've benefited in lots of ways from government programs. So its really just a question of the best way to pay for them. A tax on substantial estates seems like one good way to raise some of that money. Better than taxing working & living people at an even higher rate.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
The really *great* thing about estate taxes, especially as they used to be formulated in the US, is that they encourage bequests to eligible organisations. As a result, many public institutions and charities in the US have required far less money from the government than they otherwise would.
As for this:
Politicians should learn to operate within a real budget like the rest of us.
In a capitalist republic, politicians only have one source of income: taxes. If they don't keep to a reasonable budget, it isn't their fault, it's the fault of the people who voted for them.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:4, Insightful)
I, for one, welcome our silver-spooned overlords!
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the interview:
Despite my yammerings against the rich folk types, I've always been impressed with Buffett, both for his humility and his social conscience.
Those who are trying to achieve a meritocracy should be foresquare against huge transfers of capital to the next generation. It should be enough that they have access to the best education, the best health care, etc. Those who talk smack about welfare, saying how we're depriving people of the feeling of independence that comes from earning your own way in society, never seem to have an unkind word to say about somebody getting billions for the "hard work" of having the right parents.
Re:Before anyone asks... (Score:5, Informative)
No estate taxes are paid until the estate is over $1.5 million from a single adult, and $3 million from a married couple. Anyone who has a large enough estate to get taxed is not, by any means, considered part of the "middle class", let alone poor. $1.8 million puts the estate into the top %0.05 of the nation. And then there's the fact that family farms and businesses get even more exemptions.
Only the rich are even subject to the estate tax.
Claiming that the estate tax affects poor and middle class folks is completely and totally a baldfaced lie.
Re:OLPC Project Laptops (Score:4, Insightful)
seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't "trust" the Gates Foundation to spend their money as you would see fit? Well, whoop-dee-doo!
Wow, I knew that slashdotters were an arrogant lot (you know, the whole "I know everything there is to know about tech, I'm God's gift to the tech industry, I look down upon anyone that accepts money for programming, blah blah blah" mindset), but to question how others go about their own charitable work? That is the height of arrogance. Look, I know it's very painful for you Gates haters to hear about his charitable work, but grow up. I really doubt that Gates gives a damn whether you "trust" they way he donates money to various causes. If you haven't contributed to the foundation, then it's not your place to "trust" the way it's spent, as it's none of your business. You don't like the causes that Gates contributes to? Then don't contribute to his foundation, simple. Good grief.
Re:seriously (Score:5, Interesting)
The People (tm) would vote for fuel subsidies and tax cuts. Just like they do every time they can.
I already "donated" several times by buying copies of Windows.
Purchase != Donation.
As it happens I also give every month to Concern Worldwide via direct debit and to put it bluntly, I would rather I was able to allocate my wealth to charities of my choosing rather than letting Gates do it for me ....
Then do that. But don't be hypocritical and criticise him for not letting you choose where your "wealth to charities" can go while simultaneously saying you should be able to dictate to him where his "wealth to charities" is apportioned.
Re:seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly.
They'd put their hands out and vote "Me me me me"
Re:seriously (Score:5, Informative)
Grants are generally structured so that half of the money they make gets reinvested in the grant, and half goes out to the cause. So a $1 bil grant with professional managers might make 8% this yeat, 4% gets reinvested, and the other 4% goes out to scholarships. Obviously, $40 million should get more than 20 students a full ride, but the initial years have marketing costs and structural costs that have to come out of that 4%. The point, however, is that this grant goes on indefinately growing, and when its giving out >100 full rides a year in a couple of years, it will definitely be a major source of money to the scholarship system.
But while it's easy to be dazzled by the sheer numbers here I'm not at all sure that I trust the B&MG Foundation to spend their money in a way that would be selected by the masses
Sheer numbers aren't the important part of non-profits, its the management. Lots of people get into the non-profit sector thinking its not business, and without adequate budgetary and fiscal discipline. BMGF is notable because it has excellent management, and it isnt one of those charities where most of the money disappears, or is spent inefficiently. I hope you can at least respect that.
Re:seriously (Score:4, Informative)
The Gates Foundation gave $ 37M in 04 and $75M in 05 out of a budget in excess of $1B to programs in the pacific northwest. This bothers you why? Because you want to make a big deal about a small thing?
Next up, you've got a beef because Gates funded a scholarship program for groups who have long been underrepresented in american higher education.
First off, its just one the grants that the Gates foundation has made to support education, and there will be others. The fact that it's targeted at students in the US really tells you nothing about the reach of the foundations educational grants program.
Next off, most of Gates worth is due to microsoft, and a huge amount of microsoft's sales have been in the US. I think even today 1/3rd of microsoft's revenue is domestic. Even if you insist that the gates foundation pays out in proportion to where the wealth came from, that still leaves a lot to be spent in the US.
Of course, at this point, probably 80% is being spent on global health (which mostly means the impovershed parts of the world), which means that even if all their remaining budget was spent on US educational programs, it would only be a relatively small portion of their total annual spending.
Yeah, whatever, buddy. That's blatantly racist how?
Try a little harder. A press release from May of this year states they've given over 10K scholarships since 1999.
Awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)
--Andrew Carnegie
Re:Awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly this sums up why a lot of the rich Barons give away their wealth when they get old. They know that they have screwed over people to get where they are. They know they can't take it with them. They try to pay penance before they die. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt all did the same thing. Now add Buffet and Gates to the list.
Too bad old man Walton wasn't so generous, he could have left a lot of (real) smiley faces behind.
Re:Awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)
Erm, for every evil rich person who volunarily gives away their life's earnings, there are dozens who don't, who pass it down to their hiers, allowing them (if they choose so) to live a meaningless, non-contributing life, e.g. Paris Hilton.
To me, there is a scale of evil and a scale of good. Bill's business practices, to me, don't rate very high on the evil scale, while his philantrophy rates very high on the good scale. If I had a magic wand, and could remove Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviors, but at the expense of, say, halving the donations made by the Gates Foundation, I would no wave that wand.
Re:Awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very hard to call to make however. You are weighing visible measurable gains (the product of all Gates' charity which we can see in action) against a whole lot of intangible "might have been". We simply don't know what would have happened had Microsoft not dominated the industry with its dubious business practices. Certainly they have left quite a trail of now crushed but once promising technology behind them. What might have happened had that tech flourished is, at this point, pure wild speculation. I mean there are all the little things - various small startups that were crushed by vapourware and marketing - that may have snowballed into completely revolutionising the entire industry had they actually come to fruition. Alterntively there are things like Netscape that may have simply ended up stagnating themselves anyway. With so much possible, and so many different little stories that you only rarely hear about, it's just not possible to have any real idea of what the world might have been like without MS anti-competitive practices. And given something we can't even imagine compared to something we can tangibly see - most people take the tangible choice every time.
Re:Awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)
What might have happened? Who knows, maybe somebody might of been able to invent the cure to Cancer 10 years ago instead of next year? How many lives might that have saved?
Of course you could invent anything when it comes to WHAT IF's. But my point is, we'll never know how much Evil or Good his biz practices were because you don't know what would of happened had he not been there.
That's the beauty of monopolistic behaviour. Those projects that never got off of the ground because of the monopoly can defend themselves..because they never got off the ground.
Hope it was worth it? (Score:5, Funny)
No free rides (Score:5, Insightful)
Bravo, sir.
Re:No free rides (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article, he says
"I still believe in the philosophy - FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago - that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing."
A great quote, I think.
[The FORTUNE article was "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" Sept. 29, 1986.]
Re:No free rides (Score:5, Interesting)
——
Leaders / The United States [economist.com]
Inequality and the American Dream
Jun 15th 2006
From The Economist print edition
The world’s most impressive economic machine needs a little adjusting
IMAGE [economist.com]
MORE than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Its proudest boast is that it offers a chance of the good life to everybody who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. This ideal has made the United States the world’s strongest magnet for immigrants; it has also reconciled ordinary Americans to the rough side of a dynamic economy, with all its inequalities and insecurities. Who cares if the boss earns 300 times more than the average working stiff, if the stiff knows he can become the boss?
Look around the world and the supremacy of “the American model” might seem assured. No other rich country has so successfully harnessed the modern juggernauts of technology and globalisation. The hallmarks of American capitalism—a willingness to take risks, a light regulatory touch and sharp competition—have spawned enormous wealth. “This economy is powerful, productive and prosperous,” George Bush boasted recently, and by many yardsticks he is right. Growth is fast, unemployment is low and profits are fat. It is hardly surprising that so many other governments are trying to “Americanise” their economies—whether through the European Union’s Lisbon Agenda or Japan’s Koizumi reforms.
Yet many people feel unhappy about the American model—not least in the United States. Only one in four Americans believes the economy is in good shape. While firms’ profits have soared, wages for the typical worker have barely budged. The middle class—admittedly a vague term in America—feels squeezed. A college degree is no longer a passport to ever-higher pay. Now politicians are playing on these fears. From the left, populists complain about Mr Bush’s plutocratic friends exporting jobs abroad; from the right, nativists howl about immigrants wrecking the system.
A global argument
The debate about the American model echoes far beyond the nation’s shores. Europeans have long held that America does not look after its poor—a prejudice reinforced by the ghastly scenes after Hurricane Katrina. The sharp decline in America’s image abroad has much to do with foreign policy, but Americanisation has also become synonymous with globalisation. Across the rich world, global competition is forcing economies to become more flexible, often increasing inequality; Japan is one example (see article [economist.com]). The logic of many non-Americans is that if globalisation makes their economy more like America’s, and the American model is defective, then free trade and open markets must be bad.
This debate mixes up three arguments—about inequality, meritocracy and immigration. The word that America should worry about most is the one you hear least—meritocracy.
Begin with inequality. The flip-side of America’s economic dynamism is that it has become more unequal—but in a more complex way than fir
Copyrights (Score:5, Funny)
A radical rethink
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition
The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws
IMAGE (Reuters) [economist.com]
CRITICS have derided a 1998 extension of American copyrights as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stopped early images of the Disney company’s mascot from entering the public domain. But such laws, they argue, are no joke. Extending and strengthening copyrights, they claim, will help a handful of big corporations crush creativity in the digital age. On the contrary, say Hollywood studios and big record companies. Without stronger copyright protection, a wave of piracy will destroy their industries, depriving consumers everywhere of a broad choice of movies, music and books.
Last week America’s Supreme Court weighed into what is rapidly becoming a nasty worldwide battle about the scope and enforcement of copyrights, by rejecting a challenge to the 1998 law on constitutional grounds. But even as it upheld the law, the court expressed misgivings. Blistering dissents from two justices dismissed the 20-year extension of copyright as unwarranted, and even the majority’s opinion hinted that Congress’s decision may have been “unwise”.
The court’s ambivalence is understandable. The growing quarrel over copyright is just one of the many difficult issues thrown up by the spread of the internet and related technologies (see our survey of the internet society in this issue). But of all these issues, the copyright battle is becoming one of the most urgent, and bitterly fought, because it could yet determine the future character of cyberspace itself.
Both sides have a point. Digital piracy does indeed threaten to overwhelm so-called “content” industries. As the power and reach of the internet continue to grow, the illicit trading of perfect copies may well devastate the music, movie and publishing industries. The content industries want to protect themselves with anti-copying technology, backed by stronger laws. So far, they have been at loggerheads with technology firms about how to implement such schemes (see article [economist.com]). But a deal between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is likely eventually. Critics are right to fear that, when such a deal is struck, it will be in the interests of big firms, not the public.
A grand new bargain
The alternative is to return to the original purpose of copyright, something no national legislature has yet been willing to do. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.
Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-centur
Re:No free rides (Score:5, Informative)
I believe he also said that he'd be giving the remaining 15% to charity when he died. Buffett is a pretty good guy, actually.
Re:No free rides (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, not quite. From the article:
Buffett is a genuine iconoclast in this regard (contrast the Sam Waltons family and almost all other precursor generators of real wealth, cf. the The Forbes Richest List [forbes.com]). It's true his kids will never go hungry but if you read the article his current bequeaths are to their (philanthropic) foundations, not to the kids themselves who will get a modest inheritance.
Re:No free rides (Score:4, Interesting)
No thats not true;
From: http://www.nndb.com/people/445/000022379/ [nndb.com]
He's said his children won't inherit any great wealth when he dies. "There's no reason why future generations of little Buffetts should command society just because they came from the right womb. Where's the justice in that?"
And Bill Gates has said similar things also.
Re:No free rides (Score:5, Insightful)
What I mean is, the most highest purpose of a man's life is his family, to care for them and to protect them, with body and soul, and that also includes financial matters.
Frankly, that's naked tribalism and is not a position that would be endorsed by any major world religion nor by secular humanism or rationalism. The only basis on which it makes sense is a primal, genetic one like the one that motivates a mother bear. I love my daughter and would give her anything that is mine to give. But if I elevate her needs above societies then I am being essentially selfish just as if I elevated my own needs above society's. I mean we are genetically programmed to care first about ourselves and our kin. The capacity to pursue a higher purpose is what differentiates us from the animals.
Regardless (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so wonderful! (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy to give money when you are rich (Score:5, Insightful)
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.
42 And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny.
43 And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
44 For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living."
parent == sour grapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly if those who have attained great wealth have done so via exploiting others then those wealthy deserve derision. But merely to be successful and powerful is not an indictment. The old camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle quote is often misinterpreted in the same way. The meaning of that passage is to point out that with wealth comes great power and with great power comes great temptation. So if you don't have the wealth/power, it may be easier for you to live a clean/good life (i.e. to pass into heaven).
Charity != sacrifice (Score:4, Insightful)
If I were to give away 85% of MY worth, I'd be homeless and relying on the charity of others. Mr. Buffet does not have that problem. He can donate billions and not suffer. because there comes a point at which having more money just means a higher number. If I had ten million dollars, I could do a lot. If I had twenty million, I could do a little more. If I had a billion, I could do pretty much anything I'd want to do. If I had ten billion, or a hundred, would anything change? What does $30 billion get me that $20 billion doesn't?
His donation is fantastic, and I'm staggered, but he does not suffer as a result of giving this gift. All this means is a lower number in a computer somewhere, and that's it. His charity is outstanding, but his sacrifice is non-existent.
What the bible passage quoted is trying to say is that it is sacrifice we should truly applaud, because giving of yourself is far more difficult and far more noble than giving what you have left over, and in the end, that is all Mr. Buffet is doing - giving away what he has left over.
Sensible CEO salary (Score:5, Interesting)
Puts the salaries of other less talented CEOs who demand far larger pay packets into perspective doesn't it?
Re:Sensible CEO salary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sensible CEO salary (Score:4, Informative)
The typical CEO that gives himself a dollar paycheck tends to often get other compensation either stock options or executive perks.
Warren Buffet has more money than he knows what to do with, hence while he takes $100,000 salary he does not attempt to dilute the investment of other stockholders by given himself stock options at their expense (unlike many, many other C*O's)!
Kudos, but a question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Kudos, but a question (Score:4, Informative)
The Gates Foundation is mostly funding public health initiatives of various sorts at the moment. So the FSF and EFF would probably not fare any better than they would if they tried to get money from the Red Cross or the American Cancer Society.
Re:Kudos, but a question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kudos, but a question (Score:5, Informative)
The criticism comes from the fact that most 2nd and 3rd world countries disregard western medical patents and pay no royalties to "Big Pharma" in the West. By ignoring such patents, the same money buys signficantly more locally produced drugs than it does imported drugs from the West.
So by purchasing drugs from the West, the Gates foundation is supporting a questionable intellectual property rights system that itself directly benefits Microsoft at the expense of the people whom the charity is suppossed to be serving.
The obvious response that "Big Pharma" would never invest in the development of such drugs without incentives of royalties is hard to evaluate. Some would argue that there are enough patients in the West to pay for the development, and that without the charity money, the 3rd world would make no purchases anyway. But when the charity gets to be the size of Gates Foundation, it is possible (I really don't know either way) that "Big Pharma" would factor in the charitable purchases as part of the expected return on investment in new drugs.
Whatever the case, it is at least an interesting criticism of the Gates Foundation's policies with respect to intellectual property law and Microsoft's indirect benefit.
Gates shoots the moon (Score:5, Interesting)
He and Buffett will be remembered as great Americans for their charity, while his past role as founder and leader of Microsoft will be debated for decades.
Re:Gates shoots the moon (Score:4, Insightful)
And thank you for making my point. Do you really that millions of people who use their PCs every day to IM their friends or do what they do to make their own companies productive personally feel that it's been set back 10 years? It doesn't matter if you do (or even if you're at all right), because you're fantastically not representative of the average computer user - your perspective is simply too close to the topic for you to see it the way that most of the worlds millions of users see it. So when he (or Buffet) pony up umpty-billion dollars for charity, they don't quite spend as much time looking for so many ways to spit at it.
Diversification works for funding agencies too (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the strengths of the US academic science funding model is that the government tends hedge its bets by setting up multiple agencies with overlapping agendas. For example, in engineering, there's DARPA, there's the NSF, several of the armed forces have their own quasi-independent funding arms, larger states like California have significant grant programs, etc.
Yes, there is the inefficiency of duplicated administration costs. But the upside is, a truly good idea has a better chance of finding funding, even if the program manager at one of the agencies is not sold on the idea. This lessons the risk of a game-changing idea going unfunded.
Buffet would have been better off setting up an independent foundation making independent funding decisions, rather than doubling BMGs bets, especially since BMG really has enough money to pursue multiple large goals.
Just One Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
While Warren may trust Bill and Melinda to use the money wisely (he is older and probably anticipates dying before them), what happens when Bill and Melinda are gone too? What do we end up with? Well, we could end up with another Ford Foundation. In other words, it could end up straying from some of the common-sense approaches applied now, such as distributing mosquito nets to prevent malaria. It could degenerate into an organization with a questionable agenda, or an organization that simply parcels out donations to other orgs, the primary results of which are (though probably not intentionally) to finance the lifestyles of the "chattering class" in Washington DC and various other world capitols. So, Bill and Melinda, while you still have time, you need to figure out a way to keep that from happening. Poor people can't eat UN studies, and no "blue ribbon commission" ever swatted a single mosquito. When the visionaries pass on, it's inevitable that the committees take over. Maybe that's why Carnegie built libraries in his own lifetime. Today, many are still in use, and there's only so much lunacy that can take place in a building, whereas a monied organization can create no end of politically-oriented drivel.
RTFA - The Cash Stops (Score:4, Informative)
But if you did, you'd see that two of the conditions of the gift deal with this - specifically
and
Meaning that the gifts to the Foundation only keep going while one of the Gateses keeps running the thing, and that they have to spend all of each gift (plus 5% of whatever else they have) each year, to prevent them from keeping it.
What sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
In light of recent events (Score:5, Funny)
You heard it here first.
Thank You Warren (Score:5)
Re:Nice but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a MS appologist, just thought that was interesting.
Re:Nice but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a long tradition of this (supporting charities through monopolistic profits), such as the Carnegie Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, etc. Bill and Melinda are following in the footsteps of their capitalist predecessors.
The question of whether a charity should accept money from donors with questionable business ethics has been long debated and never resolved. George Bernard Shaw wrote several plays about this question, and he didn't have an answer. His best was probably Major Barbara, in which the Salvation Army must decide whether or not to accept support from a gin distiller and an arms manufacturer.
Going back even further (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nice but ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if we were talking about money that were aquired that way, then there is no undoing the aquisition of the money. Even if it was blood money, then $37 billion being put to good use can never be a bad thing.
Using an extreme example: If a drug baron donated a million dollars to charity it would still be a million dollars and would still make the world a better place.
No, it IS funny. And you can't be serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let's see here... the Gates foundation does things like fix up millions of kids with innoculations they wouldn't otherwise get, bringsd truckloads of networking infrastructure to places like New Orleans when the local government doesn't have a chance of procuring it on their own that fast, provides millions for scholarships, and so on. Are you actually suggesting that if Netscape had managed to make a real go at being a stand-alone business, or if BeOS had thrived, that there wouldn't be no place for the billions in philanthropy that Gates is doing?
Are are you certain that part of Netscape's plans included clinics in Africa? Or that despite Novell being largely annoying in so many ways, they would have somehow also gotten into fund raising if they'd pursuaded more people to stick with their NOS? You're trying to set up a false dichotomy just because you like demonizing Bill.
Re:No, it IS funny. And you can't be serious. (Score:5, Informative)
You're falling into the classic "the pie is only so big" trap. Do you really think that if Bill Gates and MS had never happened (likewise with, say, IBM or Sun or anyone/everyone else) that poor people would have somehow had a share of his billions in their pockets, instead? They don't call it "making" money for nothing: you do something people want and are willing to buy, and that creates demand and sets a price. Those people do the same with what they do for a living (or don't do it, if they don't produce anything, of course). The point is that vast fortunes have been made by lots of people because of MS's economic activity and innovation (yes, innovation - despite the groupthink, they do some of that, and their marketing vigor is no small bit all by itself, and is something that lots of other less-innovative companies copy, BTW). Some of that income has been earned by people like school bus drivers with some of their 401k in a mutual fund that has invested in MS's future.
This notion that the only reason Michael Jordon is rich is because someone else is now poor... or that Michael Moore's $200M from making his silly "documentary" is money that those movie-goers would have otherwise have used to buy applesauce for starving babies... it's nonsense. No matter how much people resent successful businesses (or just what their thriftier neighbor is able to buy for not having wasted so much on stupid crap), it's usually just that: frustration at not having cowboyed up and done the same sort of work themselves, and created value where it didn't exist before. The really busy people make the pie bigger. We can split hairs over whether or not Netscape might one day have made some piece of that pie bigger than MS made it - but would you say that Netscape's early pile of cash and investment somehow made poor people poorer? Or that Red Hat does?
Charity as a tool (Score:5, Interesting)
First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply targeted to block F/OSS [zdnet.com.au]. Even the actual charity parts deal with dumping millions on ineffective, corrective treatments involving expensive medications and getting some level of matching funding from the local governments. And those expensive medications come from big pharmas which, surprise, Gates is heavily invested in.
There is also a strong element of PR in the Foundation [salon.com]: since 1995 MS has had various plans on how to direct corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest returns to the company. We've also been seeing loads and loads of vanity puff-pieces appearing across a wide variety of news publications. The NYT even publishes ones written by (or ghost written for) Chairman Gates himself.
The point here is that in this case it appears that charity is simply being used as tool to affect the market in ways that lobbying and plain old sales can't. It allows individual institutions or regions to be targeted quickly with a level of speed that defending governments and businesses have trouble reacting to.
It's seems that with this infusion of funding from Buffet, MS, through the Gates Foundation, crosses the line from being a lobbying entity to being fully a political/ideological movement.
Welcome to the next level.
So the "Humanity Prize" (Score:5, Insightful)
come on
Re:X-Prize? M-Prize? Granger Prize? Any Prize? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because life is not some reality tv show where a conclusion is needed within 12 1 hour episodes with a final live show for that extra ratings hit.
Doing "good work" is a long and slow process and hard enough without quarterly process reports.
Re:Put it in AI research (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? That's absolutely rediculous. As much as I dislike Microsoft's monopoly, and Bill Gates' business practices, his philanthropic activities are much more than 'scraps thrown to charity to buy the hearts'. And Warrenn Buffett is certainly NOT donating 'scraps', he is donating 85% of his net worth, in the form of stock in the company that he spent the last 30 years building.
Moreover, I think the idea of spending that much money on AI research is absolutely ludicrous! You're telling me that AI is going to be more helpful to sick and starving children in Africa and other parts of the third world than medicine and food? The Gateses are actively engaged in curing disease and saving lives and you're suggesting that research into artificial intelligence would be a more intelligent philanthropic investment? If that's actually what you think then for god's sake read something other than Slashdot every once in a while because you have a magnificently skewed view of the world.
That took, like, what? Two minutes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates isn't a nazi but he uses nazi tactics? Microsoft is evil? WTF??? My parents occasionally give me presents too. Nazi tactics? My boss runs a business that benefits 90% of people who uses her product, but has many unhappy customers due to a bad service ethic...is her company evil? Dude, get some perspective.
Good people do good things. And evil things. Bad people do bad things, and good things. It is not the result that assigns the morality, it is the approbation of the means, the intent, and total content of the person's character. I submit to you that you know basically none of these things about Bill Gates.
Oh, and p.s., Bill Gates, the person, is not isomorphic with Microsoft, the company; hasn't been since the halcyon days of, well, never. The company, if a company can be conceived as a group of people, was always more than him. I also take issue with the idea that a corporation, as an entity in itself, has a moral valence. People are good or evil; corporations are merely a mechanism for a group of people to do something efficiently in a capitalist system.
Re:That took, like, what? Two minutes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I take issue with the idea that a corporation should have the same legal rights as a person.
When you can persuade the law to stop treating corporations like people, I'll accept that they don't need to act like people (i.e. be subject to having their behavior assessed on moral grounds).
Re:Warren... DUDE.. spare a dime? (Score:5, Insightful)
Convincing people to use an annoying product on the one hand, saving thousands of lives a year, proabably hundresed of thousands a year in a few decades on the other. None of the people who's lives are saved by the Foundations efforts give a crap about Windows.
Re:Warren... DUDE.. spare a dime? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Planned Parenthood (Score:5, Funny)
rj
Re:$37 billion is a lot to give to charity, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello, Mr. Troll.
Please try a little bit of reality in there, somewhere. B-H does not provide insurance to homeowners, or own companies that do. They re-insured insurance companies so that those had anything like the financial backing to even be in the insurance business at all. If you think you can raise the capital to start offering insurance to people who live below sea level in a hurricane zone, only charge them a few dollars a month because that's all they can afford, and then pay out enormous amounts to the residents of thousands of square miles while staying solvent enough to continue to cover the cars, businesses, and other customers you have all around the country... go for it.
Oh, and just in case you forgot: private insurace never covers floods. That's the government flood insurance program you're thinking about. Warren Buffet has absolutely nothing to do with that, never did, and never could. Just relax, have a nice cold Coke, and cool down before you post again.
Re:85%! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a hilarious article. I'm liking it more the further I read. This is BRILLIANT! Check out the pie chart titled "Microsoft is a Cash Machine" there's a 36% chunk labeled "Tax Loophole/Corporate Welfare". No references are provided, no method of calculation given. This has to be a parody.
I love this article!
Cheers.
Re:I agree, a great thing to do.... (Score:4, Interesting)
For a very simple reason: Buffett believes that Bill does a much better job of allocating capitol than your run-of-the-mill charity.
And he is not alone in this belief. The Gates Foundation has made big waves in the non-profit world by replacing a give-away-money-to-feel-better model with a run-a-charity-like-a-business model. That includes setting targets, measuring results, and providing incentives.
Re:Fool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fool! (Score:5, Insightful)
To impress future generations, make sure to engrave your achievements. Something along the lines of:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
While you're doing that, I'm glad someone is humble enough to spend resources on mundane problems like world pandemics, disaster prevention and recovery, ineffective education systems, and other issues that cripple long term development (economic and otherwise).
You know, the kind whose solutions will be required to make the achievements you propose into sustainable contributions to the advancement of humankind, instead of an excercise in the comparative studies of metaphorical male genitalia.
But maybe that's just my own foolish priorities; I'd prefer to have those space colonies self-sustaining and bubbling with life, trade and commerce rather than live and die in the span of a sudden monetary intervention.
Re:Fool! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fool! (Score:5, Insightful)
A wild guess: you are healthy and non of your children have died of starvation?
You failed ECON101. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think he had a Scrooge McDuck-style vault filled with gold doubloons? He's an investor for Pete's sake, which by definition means that his money has been out circulating through the world to finance other peoples' dreams. When you say that such a man is worth $n dollars, you really mean that his outstanding loans are approximately worth $n dollars.
Have you ever read about how well such societies tend to do historically?
What's wrong with just saying thanks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's ingratitude for you.
Rich people hoard all their people and they're labelled greedy.
A man works all his life, and finally, nearing retirement gives away almost all his fortunes and he is also looked down upon.
You just can't win in this world...