40 billionaires to date: 50% or more of their wealth to Charity

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Zissou said:
what would one do with so much money, really?
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Make investments. IME when people get to be as rich as these guys are they tend to do lots more risky investments. This gives people who otherwise would not have a shot at growth that shot.
A perfect example of this is Steve Jobs. In the 1980s he invested 10 million dollars into an unknown fired Disney cartoonist and some software that George Lucas didn't want anymore. That is the start of Pixar.

Stories like that are very very common and they all start with a very very rich person taking a risk on an unknown.
 
..and the suggestion that people who have generated a great deal of income don't know any better than to sort of blindly fling it around writing checks, is just silly. A lot of important charitable organizations are set up by the same people who created the monetary endowments to get them started.

I find amusing the proposition that the same person who's smart enough to make multi-millionaire (or billionaire) suddenly can't manage anything more involved than putting their names to checks, when it comes to non-profits and charity. Particularly from members of a group like ourselves who for the most part have not demonstrated the ability to make that first few million, to begin with.
 
Sad Max said:
I find amusing the proposition that the same person who's smart enough to make mutli-millionaire (or billionaire) suddenly can't manage anything more involved than putting their names to checks, when it comes to non-profits and charity. Particularly from members of a group like ourselves who for the most part have not demonstrated the ability to make that first few million, to begin with.
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That's simply a great point. My gut says I hope the money is used in the most effective way... or that there's oversight to be sure... but yeah, I highly doubt any of them are saying I'm gonna' die one day so let's burn it in the name of doing good! :thumbsup:

I hope some of them are saving a chunk to do something wacky... I miss the truly wacky-billionaires. Wooden super-planes, eccentric castles... you know... I'm talking Hudson Hawk type stuff. Adjusting for inflation... take the 6-million dollar man and make him the 600-million dollar man... but start with somebody like Carrot-Top, then light him off like a roman candle and lets see what happens.
 
The only thing more disturbing than the Carrot Top we already have is the idea of a super-upgraded Carrot Top who can run at 60 MPH, bend steel bars in his hands and spot a penny from three miles away...
 
Then you do NOT want me to become a billionaire.

What sucks is half the total budget has to go into the command center... which will look like the ATC tower at most airports... but with the first 30' or so having to be super-carrot-top-proofed in case he rebels with the all-too-common, well-known amongst the BC (Billionaire's Club)... "Wolverine Syndrome"...

"Why the resentment? Why can't they just have fun with it?" They ask...

CUT to "The Laugh Factory"... new and improved Carrot Top comes on stage carrying a car:
"To the owner of the '78 Volkswagon... you left your lights on..."
*points the car through the crowd like a search-light*
"I don't know about you guys, but boy do I miss the Beatles..."
 
I'll just have to become a rival billionaire and sink millions into my cybernetically upgraded radioactive Andrew Dice Clay. Fortunately I know of some disused rental sets I can employ for my command center.
 
Sad Max said:
I'll just have to become a rival billionaire and sink millions into my cybernetically upgraded radioactive Andrew Dice Clay. Fortunately I know of some disused rental sets I can employ for my command center.
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So you're planning on making a "dirty" bomb...:grin:
 
No it's cool Blaine... Dice was already radioactive... Max just wants to cybernetically enhance him. "He's gonna' start da' upgrade wit a titanium bone right hee-yaaaaah! OWH!"

We have just laid out the synopsis for what could be "the greatest story ever told"(tm-for movie poster)... which would be ironic if it made us both millionaires.

I have laughed maniacally several times on this page... to the rest of you guys I want to personally apologize for 'the great page 3 thread-jack of 2010'...

I really do think it's awesome that those billionaires are showing such generosity :)
 
Sad Max said:
I'll just have to become a rival billionaire and sink millions into my cybernetically upgraded radioactive Andrew Dice Clay. Fortunately I know of some disused rental sets I can employ for my command center.
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I can see it now.....

"The AD Clay Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2011. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Clay begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."
 
He decided our fate in a millisecond. But the twenty minutes of unfunny obscene jokes tacked onto the decision protracted the process, a bit.
 
Sad Max said:
I'll just have to become a rival billionaire and sink millions into my cybernetically upgraded radioactive Andrew Dice Clay.
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Ha...I could arrange that, I know his ex. He gives off this image, but in reality he's a totally neurotic Jewish guy.
 
Sad Max said:
The only thing more disturbing than the Carrot Top we already have is the idea of a super-upgraded Carrot Top who can ... bend steel bars in his hands ...
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Too late. Have you seen him recently?
carrotjuice2.jpg
 
Yeah. It's damned disturbing. It's like he took a page from Joe Piscopo's book, or something.

Well, Joe Piscopo's, and Ronald McDonald's.
 
Sad Max said:
The only thing more disturbing than the Carrot Top we already have is the idea of a super-upgraded Carrot Top who can run at 60 MPH, bend steel bars in his hands and spot a penny from three miles away...
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scariest idea for a horror movie that i've ever heard.
 
As 'great' as this gesture is, it doesn't solve the underlying issue.

There is something fundermentally wrong with this world, pouring more money at it is not the solution.

When you have a bucket with holes, filling it over and over again is a vain and fruitless endeavor.

And those who retort, "it may not be working, but it's the best system we got." are utterly wrong. History tells us otherwise.
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Reactive solutions are better received because they appear to have an immediate impact. People are perceived as "doing something"

Proactive solutions are less popular because they generally take more time to bear fruit in the public eye.
 
regardless, it will help people and pumps billions and billions into the economy. Not bad when currently 84% of US stocks belong to 1% of the US population.
 
Anhar Miah said:
As 'great' as this gesture is, it doesn't solve the underlying issue.
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They're not all donating to the same place. I went through and read the letters; many are donating to education, which is the underlying issue IMO.

What's the underlying issue? I don't think this pledge drive even aims to have one specific goal, other than to make the world a better place. It's up to each donor to pick the charity.
 
Drew Ott said:
many are donating to education, which is the underlying issue IMO.

What's the underlying issue?
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Although education is highly important for any given society, its not the underlying issue. Some of the poorest countries turn out large amount of highly educated individuals. However their resource's are untapped, simply because they are not supported by the wider infrastructure of that country.

The underlying issue are systemic in nature, we are talking about the ideological framework(s) that are implemented by society as a whole.

Now this pretty much slides into politics so I'll self restrain.

But as an analogy, think of a nation as hardware, and systemic Ideologies (e.g. Democracy, Communism, Etc) as Software (O/S). Clearly issues at the framework level have a huge impact on the development of society. This is where the majority of Issues lie, and this is where they must be solved.
 
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