Gates Foundation To Spend All Its Assets

El Lobo writes "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of both of them dying. The foundation focuses on improving health and economic development globally, and improving education and increasing access to technology. It also focuses on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The Seattle-based foundation plans to increase spending to about $3.5 billion a year beginning in 2009 and continuing through the next decade, up from about $1.75 billion this year." The Wall Street Journal (excerpted at the link above) called the foundation's decision "a decisive move in a continuing debate in philanthropy about whether such groups should live on forever."

Comments

Stupid

[BoomerSooner]

Why not setup a trust that just spends the interest on the earnings. That way they can give for generations?

Bizarre. Where do i get my check?

Increase access to technology?

[Realistic_Dragon]

Does this mean that they will help the OLPC project out with some funding now rather than making fun of it?

Re:Redistributing the wealth

[Sinbios]

You make it sound like some evil scheme to... help them become his "victims" or something. By keeping them from dying from various diseases! Gee.

Re:Let's see...

[undeaf]

Really, why do articles like this even make it here?

Considering how rabidly defensive your post is, and that it was modded up right away, when the summary says nothing critical about the gates foundation or about this move, and if you're absolutely sure that it has to be against microsoft in one way or another, well then, it must be there to show how bad a persecution complex you microsoft fanboys have.

Re:What I think Bill Should Do

[Sinbios]

Yes, he should improve the lives of people already relative well off by spending millions on issues only rich people worry about, while people in third world countries die of common diseases that can be cured with $0.2's worth of medicine.

Re:Save 100 lives today, or one a year for 100 yea

[Sinbios]

Well, when you have THAT much money, it generates a lot of interest. Like the Nobel. So a better analogy would be saving 100 people today, or 10 people a year forever.

Yeah, Right

[Master of Transhuman]

More proof that Gates is using this Foundation as a stock laundering scheme and influence peddling. After he croaks he couldn't care less if it continues on. I'm just surprised he isn't using the money to find a way to live forever (a laudable goal for anyone else) - apparently he doesn't have the imagination.

This is merely another PR move.

Move along. Nothing to see here.