Billionaires gather in Arizona to discuss world conquest, uh, "giving"

What do dozens of American billionaires talk about when they get together? Their topic this week was of course money; not how to make it, but how to give it away.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday that a private gathering was a great chance for the billionaires who have pledged to give away at least half their wealth to meet each other, compare notes, eat and laugh.

The media was banned from Thursday's first meeting of the group that has accepted the giving challenge by Buffett and his friend Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Since last June, 69 individuals or couples have made the giving pledge.

Buffett knew only about 12 of the 61 people at the dinner at the Miraval Resort in Tucson before the famously gregarious Berkshire Hathaway CEO worked the room and made 40 new friends.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110507/ap_on_re_us/us_gates_buffett_pledge


"40 new friends"! doesn't that sound all cozy & nicey nice nice!

you should read the article, these billionaires are such a nice generous bunch.

it really makes you wonder how they got so much money.

Any of these philanthropists invited-

"When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else."
— Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America)


I didn't think so.

These people may deserve ridicule for a variety of reasons, but giving half or all of their money to charity isn't one of them.

Support their country?

I can understand that they'd want to donate their money to charities that they themselves certify are well-managed, with monies going to the truly needy. Not to subsidize rich farmers and oil companies and defense contractors.

Hey they have enough money to lobby our reps to get rid of farm subsidies etc.

I used to have more sympathy for this until I realized the point is to keep them from paying off our debts.

or directly to a needy village in Africa. Where would you send the check?

Its their bill too.

I'll bet LOTS of them are.

This is a PR stunt. They don't pay taxes, but they want to dress up as *philanthropists* and have others kiss their asses.

Meh.

He favors raising income tax rates -- which do not affect him at all. Buffet has no "income" because he does not work for anyone. His money comes from capital gains which are taxed at 15%. He does not favor raising that rate. He has been able to fool a lot of people with his slight of hand. http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/warren-buffett-read-lips-raise-taxes/story?id=12199889

For this they're being ridiculed?

Just because they feel like being all noblesse oblige about half (gee, can they still live on what remains??) does not negate the frankly evil system that allows such accumulated wealth in the face of want, of poverty, of struggle; of never being able to own life's mementos because one is homeless; never able to rest in one's own bed, because one is homeless; never able to be educated well, because one is homeless; never able to find a job, because one cannot look or dress the part nor travel to the interview; of looking at becoming a war death because one desperately needs any kind of job; of crying over bills, and lack of good food, and ill health with no coverage; of feeling like a stranger in a strange land, in one's own land of plenty, but of nothing for one's self; of sheer desperation.

No, I do not feel like giving kudos to these avaricious "humans" for their Dickensian "benevolence."

Because America should not be a land of hoped-for charity from a group of Croesuses.

are 2 different things. Most homeless people rely on charity for their day to day existence. Charity is desperately needed in the system that we live in.

n/t

Of course, if they and their buddies hadn't lobbied for continual tax breaks over the last 30 years perhaps the country wouldn't be as fucked up as it is right now?

I'm sorry -- but this is lipstick on a VERY ugly pig. No kudos should go to this gathering of elitist egos...

Breakthroughs. Anything other than that is a power grab beyond the grave.

which is probably the most cost-effective way to save the most lives.

So say the detractors. Based on what, I do not know. That foundation has done an incredible amount of good worldwide.

I'm not sure what's going on in this thread. If these people want to give away billions in charitable giving, I salute them.

gates benefits from & controls.

giving their wealth away?

Fucking unbelievable.

And reading such comments never ceases to amaze me.

In 2006 Warren Buffet made American history by making the largest ever charitable donation by an individual – $37bn to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

What an evil, evil man.

So he gave some away to another billionaire's organization. Wow. Now Gates can "transform" more public schools as well as, apparently, our curricula.

Somehow, this has not helped the nation as a whole as much as a fairer TAX SYSTEM would.

berkshire shares to the foundation. Their "worth" is whatever they're valued in the market at the time they're cashed out.

He actually "gives" about 5% of those shares a year.

He also sits on the board of the gates foundation. and his children (who run their own private foundations endowed by daddy) will sit on the board when he dies.

2)in return for those donations, gates/buffett get to invest the foundation principal tax-free & direct global economic & social policy without even the inconvenience & scrutiny of an election.

maybe you like being ruled by an unelected, unaccountable class of global aristocrats.

some of us don't.

among the wonderful philanthropists in the gates-buffett "donate all your wealth to charity" gang = pete peterson, who has pledged all *his* wealth to his own foundation, which is devoted to the destruction of social security.

gates-buffett are just a little more slick than that, but the thrust is the same.

Does that offend your non-billionaire self? SORRY.

please re-read the OP to which I responded.

It isn't about reforming the tax system, it's about wealthy people pledging to give much of their wealth away, which is a good thing.

If you'd bother to research my posts, you'd find that I have repeatedly written about the huge income/wealth distribution gap and how it threatens democracy. Please spare me your silly outrage.

will disagree with your opinion. And rightly so. Unrecommended.

It is not a zero-sum game. Few things are.

be, we wouldn't have to rely on charities.

Fuck em

K&R