Warren Buffet makes a few calls and gets billions, just for being himself.
Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge Campaign announced yesterday that it had received pledges from forty of America’s richest people to donate some of their private money for philanthropic reasons. Buffet, when speaking of his success has said, “my wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest.” Thanks Warren for the enlightening advice, if only my genes were worth $47 billion (no offense, mom).
Nonetheless Buffet has set the stage for giving, saying “the reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1 percent of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99 percent can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs.”
With a few phone calls, letters, and his general influence on society Buffet has popularized giving and made jumping on the giving bandwagon sound fun. New York’s very own Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated 17.5 billion, said it didn’t make sense to leave everything to his children and have them go through life as members of “the lucky sperm club.” Does that mean Bloomberg thinks his sperm is lucky? I wouldn’t be surprised, but it is true that you can ruin a child’s life by giving them no incentive to do anything with their lives whatsoever.
There are few defined rules for Buffet’s giving pledge campaign, the money can be used for pretty much everything. But does teaming up a bunch of richsters mean good for society? Though there is no pooling of money involved will they have influence on one another’s decisions? If the terms of the foundation are not defined could this money end up helping a few foundations in grandios ways, rather than spreading the love and helping society as a whole?
These are all questions that will be answered, but whatever happens the “top down” idea coming from Buffet and the Gates foundation at least means that money will be used better than gaining interest in a small percent of bank accounts throughout the country. This is no end to world hunger, but it sounds like a pretty cool idea to me. If Warren Buffet can continue to use his calm and collected influence over not only other rich people but also America, I hope he continues to do so.
October 04, 2010 at 5:22 pm, New Charity Idea for Buffett And Gates: Hiring | Death and Taxes said:
[...] August Warren Buffett launched a philanthropic initiative to try to get the world’s billionaires to give at least [...]