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40 US billionaires pledge half wealth to charity

danarhea

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NEW YORK — Forty of America's billionaires and their families pledged Wednesday to give more than half of their fortune to charity in a drive organized by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.


The group includes CNN founder Ted Turner, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Hollywood director George Lucas, as well as Microsoft mogul Gates and investment guru Buffett.


The idea, announced just six weeks ago as "The Giving Pledge," was thought up by Gates and Buffett to convince billionaires to give most of their money -- 50 percent or more -- to charity.

The total from this drive alone totals well over half a trillion dollars, if the rest of the billionaires follow suit. With that in mind, I ask this? Who the hell needs the government, when the money they collect is squandered on operating expenses? Want to end hunger in America? I think Gates and company have found the perfect way to do it.

Now, about ending those Bush tax cuts?. A few years down the road, I believe that Gates and others will ask "How's that working out for you?"

Article is here.
 
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Who the hell needs the government, when the money they collect is squandered on operating expenses? Want to end hunger in America? I think Gates and company have found the perfect way to do it.

Those "operating expenses" you bemoan just go to stimulate the economy, so I don't really see them as a problem. What do see as a problem is forty rich people have that sort of money to give or withhold. Wouldn't it be better if we did something to prevent such obscene amounts of money from pooling into the hands forty people in the first place?
 
$600 billion eh? That's less than what we're spending on SS this year.

I hope a good portion of this charity dough is going towards health research or something similar. I like to see a sustainable return when real money is actually thrown around, not that play money Washington thinks they're using.
 
$600 billion eh? That's less than what we're spending on SS this year.

I hope a good portion of this charity dough is going towards health research or something similar. I like to see a sustainable return when real money is actually thrown around, not that play money Washington thinks they're using.

Like an incurable disease research organization funded with $600 billion?
 
Those "operating expenses" you bemoan just go to stimulate the economy, so I don't really see them as a problem. What do see as a problem is forty rich people have that sort of money to give or withhold. Wouldn't it be better if we did something to prevent such obscene amounts of money from pooling into the hands forty people in the first place?

without raping the constitution, destroying freedom or creating an even more parasitic government, how do you propose ending such "obscene" concentrations of wealth?

sorry your goal is pernicious and any method you can propose to achieve that end will be malignant.
 
The total from this drive alone totals well over half a trillion dollars, if the rest of the billionaires follow suit. With that in mind, I ask this? Who the hell needs the government, when the money they collect is squandered on operating expenses? Want to end hunger in America? I think Gates and company have found the perfect way to do it.

Now, about ending those Bush tax cuts?. A few years down the road, I believe that Gates and others will ask "How's that working out for you?"

Article is here.

the death confiscation tax (which Buffett and Gates will avoid altogether) doesn't hurt the truly super wealthy because their wealth will regenerate itself in less than 20 years after the tax hits because so little of it is spent. The death confiscation tax really crushes small businesses, family farms and modest estates in the 2-30 million range-especially if a large amount of the assets are non-revenue generating (such as an art collection, non-farmed land or an expensive home)
 
Those "operating expenses" you bemoan just go to stimulate the economy, so I don't really see them as a problem. What do see as a problem is forty rich people have that sort of money to give or withhold. Wouldn't it be better if we did something to prevent such obscene amounts of money from pooling into the hands forty people in the first place?

I haven't been here that long, but this is one of the most absurd (yet serious) posts I've read on DB. That's just plain scarey.
 
I haven't been here that long, but this is one of the most absurd (yet serious) posts I've read on DB. That's just plain scarey.

I agree, the fascist or totalitarian sentiments are enough to cause me to buy another 1000 rounds of Israeli Armor piercing 7.62 ball for my Sniper rifle:mrgreen:
 
Like an incurable disease research organization funded with $600 billion?

Not to be callous but for most incurable diseases there simply aren't enough people effected by them to be worth putting $600 billion towards it. Two exceptions are probably Alzheimer's and AIDS (the latter particularly in Africa).

Personally, I think this is a great example of one thing: people are basically good and you don't need to force people to be so through government power. Nobody was holding a gun to these people's heads to force this like they do with taxes for welfare. This just illustrates a key difference between false and real generosity. False generosity is a politician establishing welfare programs with other people's money. Real generosity is people giving their own money to help others.
 
Not to be callous but for most incurable diseases there simply aren't enough people effected by them to be worth putting $600 billion towards it. Two exceptions are probably Alzheimer's and AIDS (the latter particularly in Africa).

Personally, I think this is a great example of one thing: people are basically good and you don't need to force people to be so through government power. Nobody was holding a gun to these people's heads to force this like they do with taxes for welfare. This just illustrates a key difference between false and real generosity. False generosity is a politician establishing welfare programs with other people's money. Real generosity is people giving their own money to help others.

Uhhhh, cancer?? Otherwise, great post!

Edit: Maybe that's a very good USE for their money...funding research on those orphan diseases that don't "pay" for pharma to go after.
 
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Uhhhh, cancer?? Otherwise, great post!

Edit: Maybe that's a very good USE for their money...funding research on those orphan diseases that don't "pay" for pharma to go after.

Depends on the type of cancer. Many cancers already have very successful treatments with high survival rates (especially if caught early), like prostate cancer for example. Others have very low survival rates. However, I will have to concede that I have no idea whether the high survival rate cancers are more, less, or about the same in terms of abundance as low survival rate cancers.
 
Many of the people pledging to donate are for ending Bush tax cuts, and specifically George Lucas, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Ted Turner have all supported democrats in the past.

Lol at the original poster suggesting that 600 billion will solve all of America's problems, and not reading the article more.

Bill Gates is an awesome guy, and Warren Buffet makes so much damn money he is giving away 99% of it to charity. Several of the billionaires they called though gave them the ole "got to get off the phone and catch this private jet" excuse though. Don't you hate when that happens? Still glad the nations 2 wealthiest aren't assholes.

Also the money isn't pooled together, each donator gets to put their money where they want to.
 
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Depends on the type of cancer. Many cancers already have very successful treatments with high survival rates (especially if caught early), like prostate cancer for example. Others have very low survival rates. However, I will have to concede that I have no idea whether the high survival rate cancers are more, less, or about the same in terms of abundance as low survival rate cancers.

I agree. They've come a long way. But they have a very very VERY long way to go. If prostate cancer can be 'contained,' survival rates are excellent. If it can't . . . not so good. Breast cancer/ovarian cancer/lung cancer/bladder cancer/leukemia . . . there's much work to be done.
 
Many of the people pledging to donate are for ending Bush tax cuts, and specifically George Lucas, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Ted Turner have all supported democrats in the past.

Lol at the original poster suggesting that 600 billion will solve all of America's problems, and not reading the article more.

Bill Gates is an awesome guy, and Warren Buffet makes so much damn money he is giving away 99% of it to charity. Several of the billionaires they called though gave them the ole "got to get off the phone and catch this private jet" excuse though. Don't you hate when that happens? Still glad the nations 2 wealthiest aren't assholes.

Also the money isn't pooled together, each donator gets to put their money where they want to.

of course the uber rich support the death tax--they avoid it by giving massively to their own foundations which makes people paen them. The estate tax doesn't kill the uber wealthy estates as I noted. The estate tax kills off the smaller estates so they cannot challenge massive estates built on stuff like what Gates gained his money in. Estate taxes free up valuable art and land that the mega noveau wealthy crave to buy.

one of the most idiotic things many on the left do is to assume that the interests of people like Buffett and Gates are anything like someone sitting on a 5 million dollar piece of property in West Chester County or owning a small business or a profitable farm.
 
without raping the constitution, destroying freedom or creating an even more parasitic government, how do you propose ending such "obscene" concentrations of wealth?

There's really nothing unconstitutional about wealth redistribution, as much as your might think its a dirty word. Destroying freedom is letting trillions in wealth collect in a handful of individuals. How can someone be truly free if they don't know where their next meal is coming from, or if they are going to have a roof over their head next month? The problem with the Tea Party definition of "freedom" is that it extends only to the freedom to starve.


I agree, the fascist or totalitarian sentiments are enough to cause me to buy another 1000 rounds of Israeli Armor piercing 7.62 ball for my Sniper rifle:mrgreen:

The trouble with vigilante justice is that it's seldom just. But, hey, at least all that useless firepower makes you feel safe... right?
 
There's really nothing unconstitutional about wealth redistribution, as much as your might think its a dirty word. Destroying freedom is letting trillions in wealth collect in a handful of individuals. How can someone be truly free if they don't know where their next meal is coming from, or if they are going to have a roof over their head next month? The problem with the Tea Party definition of "freedom" is that it extends only to the freedom to starve.




The trouble with vigilante justice is that it's seldom just. But, hey, at least all that useless firepower makes you feel safe... right?

your envy of the wealthy is duly noted. Rights don't cost anyone else anything. Learn that please
 
Good on them, but it just demonstrates that most of the nation's money is in the hands of a few people, and they can choose to help the rest of us out with it or not. It's their ivory tower and they can do what they want with it.

And it's also important to keep in mind that many of those industry owners are continually lobbying government to expand corporate powers and erode the rights of the individual. Many of them would be instant monopolies if it weren't for government regulations. So while I appreciate their money, their methods used to rise to obscene profits is part of the problem in the first place.
 
Rights don't cost anyone else anything. Learn that please

Ah, but how wrong you are on this. Every right possesses a cost, which is simple enough to realize if one is thinking deeply about the subject instead of uncritically parroting Libertarian dogmas. The sacrifice of the soldier who got us those very rights is perhaps the foremost of these costs. That's a price that you may prefer to sweep under the rug, but I do not and I recognize that the men and women of the military are a real cost of our rights. Freedom isn't free, TD.
 
the death confiscation tax (which Buffett and Gates will avoid altogether) doesn't hurt the truly super wealthy because their wealth will regenerate itself in less than 20 years after the tax hits because so little of it is spent. The death confiscation tax really crushes small businesses, family farms and modest estates in the 2-30 million range-especially if a large amount of the assets are non-revenue generating (such as an art collection, non-farmed land or an expensive home)

Dozens of the Wealthy Join to Fight Estate Tax Repeal

Mr. Buffett, the Omaha investor who ranks fourth on the Forbes magazine list of the richest Americans, said in an interview that he had not signed the petition itself because he thought it did not go far enough in defending "the critical role" that he said the estate tax played in promoting economic growth, by helping create a society in which success is based on merit rather than inheritance.
 
Depends on the type of cancer. Many cancers already have very successful treatments with high survival rates (especially if caught early), like prostate cancer for example. Others have very low survival rates. However, I will have to concede that I have no idea whether the high survival rate cancers are more, less, or about the same in terms of abundance as low survival rate cancers.

The new prostate cancer drug costs something like $50k to complete (i believe it is split up into three treatments that last about a week). Being as prostate cancer effects many more americans than say amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (190k plus new cases per year vs 6k), the funding is simply not there.
 
There's really nothing unconstitutional about wealth redistribution, as much as your might think its a dirty word. Destroying freedom is letting trillions in wealth collect in a handful of individuals. How can someone be truly free if they don't know where their next meal is coming from, or if they are going to have a roof over their head next month? The problem with the Tea Party definition of "freedom" is that it extends only to the freedom to starve.




The trouble with vigilante justice is that it's seldom just. But, hey, at least all that useless firepower makes you feel safe... right?

Do you believe people are responsible for their own decisions?
 
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Obama propose to tax charitable contributions?
 
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Obama propose to tax charitable contributions?

Of course I do, but here is the problem. You have elite and very wealthy people in power who say the same thing, but if they run their companies into the ground, they WANT REDISTRIBUTION - From ordinary taxpayers who work for a living to themselves. Want to know who the Socialist welfare queens really are? They are the banksters. And these are the same welfare queens who demand that everybody else pull themselves up by the bootstraps, when they don't have to do it themselves. That is what makes them the robber barons they are.
 
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I agree, the fascist or totalitarian sentiments are enough to cause me to buy another 1000 rounds of Israeli Armor piercing 7.62 ball for my Sniper rifle:mrgreen:

I have so much Russian 7.62 ball (how can it be ball when it has a hollow point?) that is still in the water proof wrapper, that all it makes sense to do is go home and polish the sights.
 
There's really nothing unconstitutional about wealth redistribution, as much as your might think its a dirty word. Destroying freedom is letting trillions in wealth collect in a handful of individuals. How can someone be truly free if they don't know where their next meal is coming from, or if they are going to have a roof over their head next month? The problem with the Tea Party definition of "freedom" is that it extends only to the freedom to starve.




The trouble with vigilante justice is that it's seldom just. But, hey, at least all that useless firepower makes you feel safe... right?

If things go to hell and the economy crashes, I'll bet my family eats better with all of my useless fire power than your's does with your steal from the rich, give to the poor BS. :roll:
 
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