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Billions Donated to Charity
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."
"The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced,"
--Andrew Carnegie
I'm not a MS appologist, just thought that was interesting.
Visualize the world of wine
Interesting that a guy who clearly has a serious talent for generating wealth, only asks for $100,000 per annum salary.
Puts the salaries of other less talented CEOs who demand far larger pay packets into perspective doesn't it?
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
None of the $30 billion is coming from Microsoft. It's coming from Warren Buffet's stock in Berkshire Hathaway, the company he founded. The existing endowment of the Gates Foundation comes from Bill Gates' stock in MS, and is a result (if you will) of MS's monopoly and predatory practices.
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.
That leaves an estimated six billion dollars to his heirs,
No thats not true;
From: http://www.nndb.com/people/445/000022379/
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.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Who knows why they each did what they did, but Buffett isn't getting any younger, and he loses a bunch of influence by shedding all those assets, probably something that he is quite happy to do.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Gates is an avid card player so he might even appreciate the analogy. He's done some evil things, but it came out all right in the end because he's donating practically all his winnings to charity, and doing so at a relatively young age. Had he not been so greedy and obsessed, a much broader spectrum of people in the software business might have become wealthy or affluent, and we would undoubtedly have had a more interesting marketplace ecology in the personal computing business over the past 15 years. But I doubt that the incremental contributions to charity would have had nearly the same impact that Gates and Buffett are making now.
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.
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.
“Although the United States is seen as a world of opportunity, the reality may be different. Some studies have shown that it is easier for poorer children to rise through society in many European countries than in America. There is a particular fear about the engine of American meritocracy, its education system. Only 3% of students at top colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. Poor children are trapped in dismal schools, while richer parents spend ever more cash on tutoring their offspring.”
——
Leaders / The United States
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
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). 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
The extreme centre is the paper's historical position. --Geoffrey Crowther
First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply targeted to block F/OSS. 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: 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.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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.
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.
People like Paris Hilton are why I believe the estate tax (not the death tax, thanks) is entirely fair. Take a look at this website for more on the "dire effects" of the estate tax. Some highlights include: "[T]he American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes," and "Today, the estates of only 1 out of every 200 people who die owe any estate tax whatsoever, because the first $2.0 million of the value of any estate ($4.0 million for a couple) is totally exempt from the tax." Amusingly enough, the website linked-to above even characterizes the estate tax as the "Paris Hilton tax cut".
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.
And the death tax is nothing but a money grab by politicians who want more money for their pet projects.
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.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
Would you be so against the estate tax if, instead of a tax, the estate tax was implemented as a mandate to donate to charity?
Oh no thats the entitlement class thats capable of avoiding the death tax. Think kenedys with 3/4 of a billion stashed offshore in trusts.
The Death Tax is to make certain the middleclass doesn't get ideas.
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).
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
"Microsoft might only be a footnote in the history books compared to their philanthropy...same for Buffet."
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
That is exactly what I mean. Who is going to really remember Microsoft and their business practices 50 years from now if the Gates' money finds a cure for malaria, AIDS, or even better...Alzheimers, diabetes, or the flu? History books usually don't tell the whole story, or at least the ones that do don't make it into the public school systems.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
That wouldn't make sense as he bas been a proponent of the estate tax because it encourages giving to charities!
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Not just for questionable business ethics, but apparently for not being proud of Bush: "in 2003, the American Red Cross refused a 1 million dollar donation from the Dixie Chicks."
Warren Buffet is known to disagree with "inheritence". He beleives that wealth should be redistributed not passed on to family members. In fact to paraphrase something I read about him once, he wants to leave his own children enough that they be able to do what they want with their lives, but not so much that they can choose to do nothing with them.
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.
This is one of the things that amazes me. Despite this widely held belief, it is just not true. According to the Pork Report, in the 2006 fiscal year the US government earmarks $29 billion for pork projects. That 5.6% of the $521 billion deficit for FY04, and only 1.3% of the federal budget of ~ 2.2 trillion. Even if we call that all waste, it is an astonishingly low fraction of the total government expendatures, and not a sizable impact on the budget deficit. It also average out to about $100 per person, with most serious violation totalling $30/person. I bet a lot of people lose that much money under the couch every year, and I certainly spend $100 on dumb shit that nets me a lot less that my tax dollars. Now, I earned it, so it is my $100 to waste, but still it is a relatively small amount.
The first amazing thing about this is that to qualify for the list, a budget item must only fulful one of the following seven criteria:
The second point to keep in mind is that in many cases the funded initiatives are not bad ideas -- the same project funded through the NSF rather than direct appropriations would not count as pork. Now, certainly funding through the NSF would be better as it allows better prioritization of funding. However, it is also unfair to report this as 100% wasteful spending.
Take an examples held up by the pork report aa particularly egregious violations:
$1 million for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative in Michigan.
Waterfree urinals sound frivolous, and you get to make all sorts of jokes about flushing money down the toilet, but they have the potential to save billions of gallons / year of water -- much in public buildings. Currently many juristictions do not allow them in their health codes, but if they are shown to be as sanitary as traditional urinals the potential benefits are huge. I don't know if this particular initiative is any good (and this is the problem with pork spending), but it isn't like the idea isn't sound.
Now, consider your personal representative. Running for most offices in the US costs between $1 and $2 per constituent, per term (I have found this to be roughly true all the way from city council to the president), so he must raise somewhere around $.75-$1.5 million / two years for an average representative. If he can make raising that a little easier by adding a few million dollars of earmarks for projects that are likely a good idea anyway, and might get funded by the competative grant process anyway, is it so surprising that he would like to get credit for it with his constituents? And yet we manage to keep this down to a little over 1% of the budget.
After reading all of the articles about this, I have come to the conclusion that we likely have one of the most effficient and least corrupt governments in the world, in history.
Surely you naysayers are joking. A regular man creates possibly the most important industry in our history and donates nearly all the profit he makes. What more can he do? You're angry that he didn't take all directions in computing you wish he did? You're fucking insane. When you buy a Microsoft product, you are supporting advances in technology, jobs for thousands of people, and the well being of mankind. I can think of no other human being who has/is going to change the world in such a positive way as Bill Gates.
Another example would be Walmart
Not only do unions cripple companies against competition, they do a poor job protecting workers.
Ridiculous. Employees and employers do have some common interests, but they also do have conflicting interests. Unions are here to organize the employees in a structured way, to be able to talk and negociate with the management/shareholders of the company. And yes, being able to negociate better, is against the shareholders benefits (note: NOT against free market, since the higher wages/benefits the employees get reintroduced on the free market directly or indirectly), which is why some phony "libertarians" shout so much against unions. But they are just that, a natural and normal way to organize resolution of the conflicting interests between the employees and of the employers. Why the hell should employees bend over? Anyone who argue against them on principle, is either an idiot or had been brainwashed.
What you have is either bad unions or bad management or both. I can understand management would even encourage bad unions, in an attempt to discredit them.
As for GM case, how is that helping your point? Most the global competitors are from Japan, or part of Europe (France, Germany, ...), where they enjoy unions or benefits which are quite superior to those in the US in GM (still largely job for life in Japan, all powerful unions in Germany, 35 hours/week in France, as simple examples). Maybe instead of scapegoating unions, American car companies should do an analysis of where did they go wrong in management, investment, research and development and engineering.
Malaria, 500 million infections and 3 million deaths annually.
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.
And about USAID... Most of the money doesn't actually go to the third world, but to various contractors and consulting agencies around DC. I remember working on a USAID project and one time we identified a need for better accounting at various non-profits. Our idea was to hire a local accountant part time to work with the various organisations. What we got was a three day seminar from an American consultant for the same price it would have costed to pay an accounant for 2 years.
The sole purpose of USAID is for the US to control foreign governments. And it does succeed at that. Any third world country steps out of line, even a little, the US threatens to cut all USAID funding. I've seen it happen.
Anyways, what is the solution? Well, I don't know really. Before anything real can happen, we need people to pull their heads out the sand and realise that some horrible things are happening so that they can have their luxuries and live in the little bubble we call the developed world. Not even 9/11 woke people up to the realities of the world, so I'm not sure what it will take. But as long as consumers keep consuming and corporations keep maximising profits while remaining willfully ignorant to how they're getting stuff so cheap, things like slavery will never end.